(Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked his government on Tuesday to seek help from Ukraine’s Western allies to develop interceptor drones he said were vital to protecting the country from air attacks in the more than three-year-old war with Russia.
Speaking in his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said a meeting of Ukraine’s top military command had discussed the use of technology to develop drones capable of downing other drones – mainly Russia’s Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones.
“This is one of the most advanced technologies of modern warfare. Today, I instructed the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work more actively with partners to finance the production of these interceptors,” he said.
“We will develop this direction as much as possible and each region will have its own responsibility specifically for this task.”
Zelenskiy has repeatedly pleaded with Ukraine’s Western allies to provide greater numbers of sophisticated air defence systems to protect the country’s cities from air attack.
From early in the conflict, he has stressed the need for developing drones as a means of modern warfare.
Last October, the president told arms manufacturers that Ukraine was able to produce 4 million drones annually and was quickly ramping up its production of other weapons.
Ukraine produced virtually no drones before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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