Russia and Ukraine locked in drone arms race

Russia and Ukraine locked in drone arms race as both sides rush to improve kit The head of Ukraine’s armed forces says that Ukraine’s small air defence destroyed more than 3,500 Russian drones in May - but warns Moscow is quickly improving its own drone capabilities. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ukraine, said that Kyiv’s Unmanned Systems Forces have shot down more than 1,200 Russian drones over the last month, while the Ukrainian Army Aviation has destroyed more than 440 UAVs. Helicopters are being kitted out with new detection systems, targeting systems and missile weaponry to defend against aerial threats, he said, according to Ukrainska Pravda. Still, he cautioned, “the enemy is constantly changing its tactics for using UAVs, increasing their numbers and improving their quality”, adding that Russia “plans to raise the share of jet-powered strike drones to 50 per cent”.

Fears Russia could threaten Arctic and put London within range of hypersonic missiles Russia is threatening a strategic chokepoint in the Arctic, control of which would place it within missile range of London, Norway’s defence minister has warned. Tore Sandvik told The Times that he was concerned Moscow could try to exert itself in the Bear Gap, a roughly 400-mile-wide stretch of water between mainland Norway and the archipelago of Svalbard, in order to gain access to the Atlantic. Russia’s powerful Northern Fleet accounts for around two-thirds of their navy’s nuclear strike capabilities and has benefitted from large investment as it expands operations around Nato waters in the north. “It’s homeland defence for the UK,” warned Mr Sandvik. “If Putin gets control of the northern part of Scandinavia, if he can control the Bear Gap, this is a direct threat against the UK.” Fears Russia could threaten Arctic and put London within range of hypersonic missiles UK’s defence secretary warns Russia poses ‘greatest threat to Arctic and High North security since the Cold War’

Russia could be at war for 'a couple of decades' says former spy at 'Putin's Davos' A former Russian spy has urged Russia to confront the possibility the country could be at war “for a couple of decades” amid mounting questions over the state of the economy. "We have to admit that we will be at war in the next few years, maybe for a couple of decades," said Andrey Bezrukov at the glitzy St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Wednesday. Bezrukov, a former spy arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2010 while living under a false identity in the United States, spoke on the first day of the summit during a session called ‘Russia’s Main Threats in the Second Quarter of the 21st Century’. "It may be a very hot war, it may be a creeping war. Even if it goes to other regions, we will have two generations that can be considered basically to be at war. And we need to learn how to live with this war," Bezrukov said to applause in a packed hall. He argued that modern wars are no longer aimed at taking territory but wearing down the opponent, saying the West was trying to avoid a nuclear confrontation and was instead “slowly boiling the frog”. Bezrukov pointed to the Ukrainian drone attacks on St Petersburg that morning, cautioning that “a drone using Starlink can fly into any region and hit a specific target.” “This is a serious problem for us - we were not prepared for it.”

Preview: 'Russian Davos' carries on despite Ukrainian attacks Ukraine kicked off Russia’s largest economic forum with a bang on Wednesday, claiming attacks on an oil terminal in St Petersburg and a naval base nearby. The glitzy annual economic forum is designed to attract foreign investment, with growth in focus amid reports of disarray in Moscow’s budgeting as the four-year war starts to pinch. On Thursday, speakers including Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Aleksandr Pankin, and former Italian deputy minister of economic development, Michele Geraci, will ask whether there is “any room for diplomacy in contemporary international relations”. Saudi Arabia’s industry and mineral resource minister, Russia’s minister of natural resources and the environment, and first deputy prime minister of Russia Denis Manturov will discuss international cooperation on rare earth elements and critical minerals. Steven Seagal is expected to join a talk on Russo-American ties, discussing the value of cross-cultural ties in a “shifting international landscape and ever-changing format of cooperation”, including opportunities for “joint humanitarian initiatives” and “new areas of common interest”. There are separate talks to come on Russia and India, Russia and the UAE, ‘how to avoid losing billions in a cyberattack’ and dealing with fake news and information attacks in the modern age.

Recap: Vladimir Putin warned by his own officials that mounting cost of Ukraine war is ‘unsustainable’ Vladimir Putin has been warned that he cannot afford to sustain his war in Ukraine at the current pace, as Kyiv continues to tally frontline wins and devastate energy infrastructure deep inside Russia. Top finance officials and Russia’s central bank are said to have urged the Kremlin to rein in spiralling defence spending, as both sides ramp up costly aerial attacks on vital infrastructure. Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said on Tuesday that Moscow is “losing on the battlefield” and “has no cards except terror”, despite a major blitz of cities across Ukraine overnight that killed at least 22 people. As Kyiv continues to pile on the pressure with strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, defence officials in Moscow reportedly told Putin that they will need billions of extra dollars this year to fund the conflict, according to Bloomberg News. The Kremlin has warned that cutting defence spending now would hurt Russian businesses dependent on lucrative contracts

Ukraine strikes centres in Russian-annexed Crimea Ukraine launched attacks on the two main centres in the Russia-annexed Crimea peninsula, Kremlin-installed officials in the region said early on Thursday, a day after Moscow and Kyiv traded strikes on each other's cities. Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-appointed head of Crimea, writing on Telegram, said Ukrainian forces had hit a non-residential part of Simferopol, the peninsula's main administrative town. The strike killed three people and injured seven, he said. In the Crimean port of Sevastopol, the local Russia-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said air defence units had intercepted more than 20 Ukrainian drones. Razvozhayev made no mention of casualties, but said drone debris had damaged some buildings. The air raid alert remained in effect in the city for nearly five hours. In the Boryspil area outside Ukraine's capital of Kyiv, firefighters were extinguishing a blaze after an industrial facility was hit in a drone attack overnight, with one person injured, Ukraine's emergency service said on Telegram. In Kramatorsk, one of Ukraine's critical "fortress cities" along the 1,200-km (775-mile) front line, Russian shelling killed at least three civilians, according to Vadym Filashkin, governor of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. In the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Oleksandr Hanzha said Russian forces had injured eight people near the main regional centre of Dnipro. In Russia's border region of Bryansk, Acting Regional Governor Yegor Kovalchuk said a Ukrainian drone had killed a crane operator working for the local utility.

Watch: Putin’s UK envoy admits war has ‘cost a lot’

Recap: Rubio promises news on Ukraine aid soon US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday there will be news "pretty soon" on $400 million Congress approved for its war in Ukraine but delayed at the Department of Defense. He added that the current risk of escalation in the conflict is “real” - more so than it was two years ago. Rubio also revealed that president Trump will attend the Nato meeting of heads of state in Turkey in July. "I think the next meeting of NATO and Turkey in July is probably the most important meeting in NATO's history, because there are some things here that need to be cleared up and fixed," Rubio told lawmakers adding that "The president himself will be attending."

Preview: 'Russian Davos' carries on despite Ukrainian attacks Ukraine kicked off Russia’s largest economic forum with a bang on Wednesday, claiming attacks on an oil terminal in St Petersburg and a naval base nearby. The glitzy annual economic forum is designed to attract foreign investment, with growth in focus amid reports of disarray in Moscow’s budgeting as the four-year war starts to pinch. On Thursday, speakers including Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Aleksandr Pankin, and former Italian deputy minister of economic development, Michele Geraci, will ask whether there is “any room for diplomacy in contemporary international relations”. Saudi Arabia’s industry and mineral resource minister, Russia’s minister of natural resources and the environment, and first deputy prime minister of Russia Denis Manturov will discuss international cooperation on rare earth elements and critical minerals. Steven Seagal is expected to join a talk on Russo-American ties, discussing the value of cross-cultural ties in a “shifting international landscape and ever-changing format of cooperation”, including opportunities for “joint humanitarian initiatives” and “new areas of common interest”. There are separate talks to come on Russia and India, Russia and the UAE, ‘how to avoid losing billions in a cyberattack’ and dealing with fake news and information attacks in the modern age.