Kiev’s actions harming peace process – KremlinRT
The recent rise in the number of Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil is detrimental to the ongoing efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict between the two countries, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said.
Over the past week alone, Russian air defenses have downed 1,465 Ukrainian drones over territories outside the active conflict zone, the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported on Tuesday.
“At the very least, we can say that these actions by Kiev… are clearly at odds with the pursuit of the peace process,” Peskov told a press briefing that same day. “Of course we condemn these actions,” he said, adding that they “do not contribute to the advancement of the peace process.”
The Russian Defense Ministry stated on Tuesday that the “Kiev regime, supported by certain European countries, has taken a number of provocative steps aimed at disrupting the negotiation process,” which was initiated by Moscow earlier in May.
According to the ministry, there has been a spike in Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory involving drones as well as Western-made missiles. Military officials in Moscow estimated that between May 20 and May 27, air defense systems intercepted more than 2,300 Ukrainian UAVs, most of them operating outside frontline areas.
The ministry added that Russian forces retaliated with high-precision missile and drone strikes aimed “exclusively at Ukraine’s military and defense industrial facilities.”
Over the last seven days the Ukrainian military has launched over one thousand drones against targets in Russia. Most of these were shot down by Russian air defenses. There are no reports of any serious damage.
The biggest effect the week long drone attacks achieved was to shut down air traffic in Moscow for several hours.
After waiting a few days the Russian military responded in kind.
Over the last three days a record number of drones and missiles were launched against military installations and production facilities in Ukraine (archived):
Russia stepped up missile-and-drone assaults on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and other regions, killing at least 12 people overnight into Sunday after President Trump last week declined to impose further sanctions on Moscow over its refusal to halt its invasion.Russia attacked with a total of 367 drones and missiles—one of the largest single-night raids of the war, according to the Ukrainian Air Force—in a second consecutive day of pounding strikes that sent civilians running for shelters in the middle of the night
A YEAR AGO, for 30 drones to strike Ukraine in a single night was considered exceptional. Now Russia is saturating Ukraine’s air defences with hundreds of them. On May 25th the Kremlin pummelled the country, with what it called a “massive strike” against Ukrainian cities, featuring 298 drones, probably a record.
Russia is using more missiles, too: 69 were fired on the same night. As a result, Ukraine is once again stepping into the unknown. If the current ceasefire talks fail, which seems highly probable, air-defence units will need to ration their interceptors. More Russian missiles and drones will get through, to strike towns, cities and critical industry.
Last year the Kremlin was producing around 300 Shahed drones a month; the same number now rolls out in under three days. Ukrainian military intelligence says it has documents that suggest that Russia plans to increase its drone production to 500 a day, suggesting that attack swarms of 1,000 could become a reality.
The Russian forces are now using the sixth iteration of the Shahed drones. These now carry a 90 kilogram explosive load, fly much higher than previously and are less sensitive to electronic countermeasures (machine translation):
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