Russia intends to significantly increase the number of its forces operating with drones, with about 79,000 more servicemen to be added to them in 2026. This was announced by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky, quoted by UNIAN, reports News.bg.
According to him, the total number of Russian servicemen engaged in drone operations could reach 165,000 people. In a post on Telegram, Syrsky noted that Moscow is not only expanding its personnel, but also actively modernizing its arsenal.
Russia has already introduced its own interceptor drones into service, is increasing their production, and is testing new reactive unmanned aerial vehicles of the “Geran-4“ and “Geran-5“ series in combat conditions.
“These actions force us to accelerate the development of our own technological and management solutions to counter Russian drones and overcome their multi-layered air defense,“ Syrsky emphasized. He added that Ukraine is expanding the unmanned component of its assault units, with additional battalions for unmanned systems being added to individual assault regiments. The drone component in the Territorial Defense brigades is also being strengthened.
Meanwhile, analysts report that Russia is actively expanding the launch site for attack drones of the “Shahed“ type at the Shatalovo airport in the Smolensk region. The increase in the number of launch positions goes hand in hand with the country's growing production capacity for this type of drones.
Moscow also presented a new unmanned mother boat for FPV drones named “Knyaz Vandal Novgorodsky“. According to military analyst Alexander Kovalenko, such a platform poses a serious threat to Ukrainian river routes and the Black Sea coast.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that on the night of Saturday, Ukraine was subjected to a massive air attack with over 400 drones and about 40 missiles of various types. The main target of the strikes was the energy infrastructure - power generation facilities and distribution substations.
Damage was recorded in the Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Rivne regions. In the city of Rivne, a multi-storey residential building was hit, and in Ladyzhyn, Vinnytsia region, drones hit an administrative building of an agricultural college.