Ukraine war briefing: Netherlands to spend almost $300m on making drones for Ukraine

The Netherlands will spend 248m euros ($293m) on producing drones for Ukraine, Dutch defence minister Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius said on Wednesday. “Drones play a crucial role on the modern battlefield. Ukrainians deploy them with incredible skill to repel the incessant Russian attacks,” she said after meeting her counterparts from Nato countries and the alliance’s secretary general Mark Rutte in Berlin on Wednesday. “Thanks to the good cooperation with Ukraine, we are learning directly from this. This also offers opportunities for our business community,” she added. The drones will be manufactured in the Netherlands and Ukraine.

Rutte and Kyiv’s top allies vowed Wednesday they would not lose sight of Ukraine’s conflict with Russia and called on others to urgently boost their support for the country. With the outbreak of the US-Israel war against Iran, fears have grown that international support for Kyiv is waning, more than four years since Moscow’s full-scale invasion. American-led talks to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since the second world war have stalled since the start of the Middle East war, at a time US support for Ukraine was already weakening under US president Donald Trump.

Russia’s defence ministry warned on Wednesday that European plans to step up drone supplies to Ukraine are dragging those countries deeper into a war with Russia. The ministry said it believes governments in a number of EU countries have decided to increase the production and supply of drones to Ukraine, a move Moscow views as a step that is escalating the conflict. It published a list of factories and enterprises in several European countries it alleges manufacture drones or drone components, and gave their addresses, including sites in Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, Israel and Poland, among others.

Russian forces attacked Ukrainian capital Kyiv with missiles early on Thursday, killing a 12-year-old child, injuring several people, including emergency crew members, and damaging buildings, mayor Vitali Klitschko said. “As a result of the enemy attack, a 12-year-old child has been killed,” Klitschko wrote on Telegram. “At the moment, 10 people are injured. That includes several medics.” He said a large fire had broken out in a building in the Obolon district in the north of the capital, while debris had fallen in several locations. Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said at least four people had been injured.

A Russian strike on an apartment building in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa killed one person and injured six on Wednesday, the head of the local military administration said. Serhiy Lysak, writing on Telegram, said apartments from the fifth to the seventh floor of the building were damaged. He posted photos showing at least one apartment badly damaged and debris strewn throughout the building’s interior.

Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Wednesday it was introducing a new model of operations integrating drone warfare with infantry activity and pointed to successes announced by its top commander in retaking territory from Russian forces in the south of the country. Top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said Kyiv’s forces had regained control of nearly 50 sq km (19 sq miles) of its territory from Russia in March, building on its gains since the start of the year. Drones have assumed a prominent role in the four-year-old war pitting Kyiv against Moscow. Both sides have also devoted resources to developing ways to intercept drones and upgrade air defences.

A Ukrainian unit told AFP on Wednesday that it has carried out more than 100 attacks on the front using ground robots, after president Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently hailed the capture of a Russian position thanks to this new method. “In total, there have already been over 100 such operations,” said a source within the NC-13 company, which specialises in the use of these combat machines and is part of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade. “These operations include the elimination of enemy personnel, the destruction of shelters, command posts, and other enemy infrastructure objects. These are no longer isolated incidents, but systematic combat operations,” the source said. The systems allow the replacement of infantry assaults – which can result in soldier deaths – but also to detect and engage targets and prevent enemy infiltrations, the source said.