Russia has been ignoring a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire for 100 days, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister says. Ukraine’s home-made interceptor drones can become a solution to the threat of Russian attack drones. Russia might lose another key ally in the Middle East, the Telegraph says.
Russia has been ignoring U.S. proposal for ceasefire for 100 days, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister says
Russia has been ignoring a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire for 100 days, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said in a post to X on Thursday. His statement comes after Russian leader Vladimir Putin told international news agencies late Wednesday that he was ready to sit down for negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and stop the war.
Sybiha said it was his country that had “unconditionally accepted” the U.S. proposal for a ceasefire, while Russian claims of willingness to end the war were “manipulations.”
“It has been exactly 100 days since Ukraine unconditionally accepted the U.S. peace proposal to completely cease fire, put an end to the killing, and move forward with a genuine peace process. It has been exactly 100 days since Russia has been rejecting this basic first step toward peace,” he said.
Russia has escalated its terror against Ukraine, demonstrating no intention to end it, he continued.
“Ukraine remains committed to peace. Unfortunately, Russia continues to choose war, disregarding U.S. efforts to end the killing. It is time to act now and force Russia to peace. Peace through strength, increased sanctions, and enhanced capabilities for Ukraine,” Sybiha said.
Putin said on Wednesday that the next round of Russia-Ukraine talks could take place after June 22.
He said he was ready to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi but only during a “final phase” of negotiations. He also repeated his accusations of Zelenskyi being the illegitimate leader of Ukraine and suggested that he would not have a legal right to sign the agreement.
Ukraine’s home-made interceptor drones can become solution to threat of Russian attack drones
Ukrainian interceptor drones can become one of a few effective solutions to the threat of Shahed drones against a backdrop of warnings that Russia could begin to use 1,000 drones in single attacks against Ukraine, Ukrainian military news site Defense Express said Thursday.
Drone-to-drone interceptors have proven to be efficient against Russian reconnaissance drones. Ukraine can mass produce such drones. They are cheaper to make than the Shaheds, but are more costly than FPV drones, Defense Express said. The analysts put the Shahed’s manufacturing cost at USD 193,000.
Interceptor drones would need to have night vision cameras and a control system that does not rely on the drone pilot’s skills.
The drones’ homing system needs to be improved. “The first and cheapest choice is the command guidance, where the interceptor must fly to a specific coordinate point, calculated on the ground as the meeting point with the target. Then, there’s semi-active laser guidance, where the effector homes on a target illuminated by a laser from the ground or a friendly aircraft. Perhaps even the relatively cheap acoustic guidance can work, which requires doing something with the noise issues. Variants for visual recognition are on the table as well — those identify the target by analyzing the image from the camera, aka the machine vision mentioned earlier,” the article reads.
“Once the homing method is selected, Ukrainians will then have to deal with a whole bunch of problems with system deployment time, sometimes done already in the air, with reaching the appropriate speeds and altitudes to catch the threat,” Defense Express said. The drones should be fit for use in any weather, including rain, snow or fog.
The drone will need a proximity fuze, not an impact one to significantly increase the chances of destroying the target upon contact, Defense Express said.
If modernized, drone-to-drone interceptors will be more complex and expensive than FPV drones, but cheaper than traditional air defense missiles, the analysts conclude.
Russia is shifting tactics again, assaulting Ukrainian cities with swarms of killer drones, CNN said on June 15. It started flying drones at higher altitudes, and it has become impossible to shoot them down with machine guns. Moscow can now produce about 2,700 Shahed drones per month, as well as some 2,500 decoy drones. The fact that some of the drones are decoys makes little difference to the Ukrainian defenses as Moscow has adapted them in a way that makes it very difficult to distinguish them from the real thing, CNN said.
Russia might lose another key ally in the Middle East, the Telegraph says
Russia could lose Iran’s support for its war efforts against Ukraine, the Telegraph’s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor Con Coughlin said in an opinion piece released on Wednesday. The paragraphs below are quoted from the article.
The destruction wrought on Iran’s military infrastructure is also bad news for other despotic regimes, such as Russia, that have come to rely heavily on Tehran for support.
Ever since it finally dawned on Russian president Vladimir Putin that his so-called “special military operation” in February 2022 was not, as he boasted, going to be completed within a number of days, Moscow has invested a great deal of effort in forging closer ties with Tehran.
The Ukraine conflict, though, has resulted in a serious upgrade in ties between the two countries. This started in the summer of 2022 when Putin visited Tehran and negotiated a deal for Iran to supply his beleaguered Russian forces with drones and missiles. These weapons have subsequently been used in attacks on the Ukrainian military and critical infrastructure.
Russia’s deepening reliance on Iran for military support, moreover, resulted in Putin signing a 20-year “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian in Moscow in January this year – just three days before Donald Trump’s inauguration to serve a second term as president.
In return for Iran maintaining supplies of drones, missiles and other military equipment for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, Moscow indicated its willingness to boost Iran’s air defences and air forces. This has clearly failed to deter Israel from launching its military offensive.
Putin’s primary concern, though, will be the impact that Israel’s continuing assault on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure will have on Tehran’s ability to continue its support for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. From the start of Israel’s attack last week, the Israel Defence Forces have deliberately targeted Iran’s drone and missile production facilities, as well as their launch systems, to limit Iran’s ability to target Israel. The strategy appears to have paid dividends.
If the Iranians are unable to provide sufficient weaponry for their own military campaign against Israel, they will be in no position to support Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Another consideration that will be weighing heavily on Putin’s mind is the prospect of losing another important ally in the Middle East, so soon after the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria at the end of last year.
With Assad now languishing in exile in Moscow, and the ayatollahs locked in an existential fight for survival against Israel, Putin’s standing in the region is in danger of precipitous collapse.
Iran’s plight also places Putin in a quandary because of his close relationship with Netanyahu.
Nor is Russia the only member of the recently formed axis of despotic states – the other members being North Korea, China and Iran – that will be casting anxious looks at the unfolding drama in Tehran.
Iran has supplied Russia with kamikaze drones, parts for drone production, missiles, including ballistic ones etc., Ukrainian news outlet The New Voice of Ukraine said, citing military sources. Russia can produce Shahed drones on its own. A likely cut of ballistic missile supplies to Moscow will not be felt as Russia relies on North Korea for similar weapons.
Russia paid Iran with 1.8 tons of gold — valued at around USD 104 million — for Shahed-136 drones, according to U.S. analysts at C4ADS, as reported by The Washington Post. Leaked records indicate that the Iranian company Sahara Thunder led an extensive collaboration with the Russian company Alabuga JSC to provide the latter with the technology and know-how to produce a variant of the S-136 UAV, which Russia has since used widely in military operations against Ukraine, the report reads.