Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says nearly 60% of weapons are domestically made as role of drones increases

Nearly 60% of weapons used by Ukraine’s military are domestically produced, Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, already exceeding a target he set two months ago. “During this war, Ukraine has reached the point where nearly 60% of the weapons we have, the weapons in the hands of our soldiers, are Ukrainian-made,” the Ukrainian president said on Saturday in his nightly video address. “And these are powerful weapons, with many advanced features.” In his address, he also pointed to a joint project to undertake weapons production in Denmark. The president in July called on his reshuffled government to take measures to boost production of weapons made in Ukraine to more than 50%, higher than at any other time since independence from Soviet rule in 1991.

Ukraine has focused on drone production and on providing air defences to counter Russia’s intensive drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. As Dan Sabbagh reports from the Pokrovsk sector, “it is a war of drones now”, with models for reconnaissance, rescue, interception and attack changing the way both sides operate.

Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Kyiv, with falling debris from destroyed drones sparking a fire atop of a 16-storey residential building, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital city said on Sunday. “Emergency services are heading to the scene,” Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Reuters witnesses heard a series of explosions shaking the city in what sounded like air defence units in operation.

A Russian strike in Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region has killed one person and wounded several others, local authorities said on Saturday. “Following an enemy attack on the outskirts of the town of Putyvyl, one person has died, and there are people injured,” including a nine-year-old child, regional military governor Oleg Grygorov said on Telegram. A Russian drone attack on Saturday evening in Zaporizhzhia in the south-east also wounded at least 15 people, four of whom were hospitalised, said Ivan Fedorov, the head of the military administration in the region, which is partially occupied by Russia.

A Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire that was promptly extinguished at the Ilsky oil refinery in Krasnodar, the administration of the southern Russian region said on Sunday. “One of the processing units caught fire. The blaze, covering several square metres, was quickly extinguished,” the administration said on Telegram. “There were no casualties. Fire and rescue teams, as well as special and emergency services, are working at the scene. The refinery personnel were evacuated to shelters.”

Polish and allied aircraft were activated early on Sunday to ensure the safety of Polish airspace after Russia launched airstrikes targeting western Ukraine near the border with Poland, the operational command of the Polish armed forces said. “Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, while ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have been brought to the highest state of readiness,” the operational command said in a post on X.

Remains of Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalist insurgents during the second world war were buried in western Ukraine on Saturday as officials from both countries looked on, a move to ease a rare strain in relations between the two close allies. Poland was allowed to exhume the remains in the former Polish village of Puzniki, in present-day Ukraine, earlier this year after longstanding demands from Warsaw over the issue, which has caused friction between the neighbouring countries.

Donald Trump on Friday said India and Russia seem to have been “lost” to China after their leaders met with China’s leader Xi Jinping this week, expressing his annoyance at New Delhi and Moscow as Beijing pushes a new world order. “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” Trump wrote in a social media post accompanying a photo of the three leaders together at Xi’s summit in China. Later on Friday, however, he told reporters he didn’t think the US had lost India to China. “I don’t think we have,” he said. “I’ve been very disappointed that India would be buying so much oil, as you know, from Russia. And I let them know that.”