Ukraine said Monday its air defenses downed eight drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks.
The Ukrainian air forces said the drones were destroyed over multiple regions of the country, including Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne.
In addition to the drones, the Russian attacks also included three S-300 missiles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday it is critical to see “increased resilience in our defense coalitions’ supplies of weapons, ammunition, and vehicles.”
His comments followed those by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who warned that if Ukraine does not continue to receive the support it needs to fight Russia off its land, then the United States, Europe and other parts of the world will be more vulnerable.
Such a scenario would also embolden a land grab by other authoritarian regimes in other parts of the world, Stoltenberg said.
During a TV interview with Fox News Sunday, Stoltenberg also said that Beijing is watching closely NATO’s response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “Today, it’s Ukraine, tomorrow, it might be Taiwan,” the NATO chief said.
Stoltenberg, in responding to a question whether NATO’s 2024 military exercises, the largest since WWII, may provoke a response from Beijing’s and Moscow’s strongmen, said the North Atlantic Alliance is meant to prevent war not to provoke war.
NATO operation
Operation Steadfast Defender 24 will see about 90,000 NATO military personnel take part in a range of drills across Europe in the coming months. Fifty naval vessels, 80 aircraft and over 1,100 combat vehicles will be involved.
The exercises “will show that NATO can conduct and sustain complex, multidomain operations over several months, across thousands of kilometers, from the high north to central and eastern Europe, and in any condition,” the 31-nation alliance said.
Stoltenberg is meeting with top U.S. defense officials and lawmakers this week to urge the continuation of funding to Ukraine, which currently is bogged down in Congress over a dispute on U.S. border policies and other political issues.
Ukraine aid remains a divisive issue, with critics skeptical about Kyiv’s ongoing fight against corruption.
Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said Saturday that employees of a Ukrainian arms company conspired with officials to embezzle almost $40 million that had been earmarked for mortar shells to fight the war with Russia.
The agency said five people had been charged and one had been detained while trying to leave the country. The five could face up to 12 years’ imprisonment.
The country’s prosecutor general said the funds have been seized and are to be returned to the Ukrainian defense budget.
Some material for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.