More than 80 Russian-launched drones were shot down by Ukrainian forces in the first two days of 2023, Ukraine’s president said.
Russia is planning a protracted campaign of airstrikes and strikes using Iranian-made drones to “exhaust” Ukraine into submission, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In his nightly address to the nation on Monday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had received information that Russia was stepping up its campaign of drone strikes on the country.
“We have information that Russia is planning a long-term attack using Shahed drones,” Zelenskyy said.
“It’s probably due to exhaustion. Exhaustion of our people, our anti-aircraft defenses, our energy,” he said.
Ukraine must “act and do everything possible to make the terrorists miss their target as all their others have failed”.
Drones targeted critical infrastructure in and around Kyiv in the early hours of Monday after Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv and other cities on New Year’s Eve and early New Year’s Day, killing at least five people and injuring dozens.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces shot down dozens of drones in just the first two days of 2023 and he expects the number could soon increase.
“It’s only been two days since the beginning of the year… and already the number of drones shot down over Ukraine is over 80,” he said.
“In the near future, this number could increase.”
The Russian military is increasingly relying on the use of so-called kamikaze drones, which are loaded with explosives and at the end of their trajectory descend vertically at high speed on their target, causing great damage and casualties.
Although Iran’s Shahed drones move relatively slowly and are an easy target for Ukraine’s air defenses, Russia’s strategy in the drone warfare has been to launch a large number of unmanned projectiles at a specific target and overwhelm Ukraine’s air surveillance and defense systems.
Iran had refused to supply drones to Russia for use in the Ukraine war until November, when it confirmed it had given Moscow a “limited number” of the air explosives but insisted they were in the hands of Russian forces , before the invasion of Ukraine had begun .
Zelenskyy has dismissed Tehran’s report of its drone deliveries to Russia, saying the number of Shaheds shot down far exceeded what Iran had claimed Moscow had delivered.
Ukraine’s military officials said Monday they had successfully shot down all 39 drones launched by Russia for the third straight night of airstrikes on civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities. Officials said their success proves that Russia’s tactics in recent months to rain down missiles and drones to shut down Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have increasingly failed as Kyiv strengthened its air defenses more than 10 months after Russian forces invaded.
While the drones used by Russia are relatively cheap to acquire, the missiles and other weapons Ukraine uses to intercept such airstrikes are far more expensive.