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‘Hundreds of thousands of components’ in Russian war equipment being supplied by the West, Zelensky says
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Volodymyr Zelensky has criticised allied nations, including the UK and the US, after Western parts were found in Russian drones used to attack Ukraine on Sunday.
Writing on X, Zelensky said microcomputers for flight control, manufactured in the UK, were found in drones involved in the assault. Other parts from allied countries, including the US, were also identified.
Sunday’s combined drone and missile strike on Lviv resulted in the deaths of four people, including a 15-year-old, and left six others injured.
“Unfortunately, many critical components are still being supplied to Russia from Europe and the US. And we are not talking about a dozen components, but hundreds of thousands of components, purely commercial supplies,” he said in his nightly address.
This comes after former German chancellor Angela Merkel said Poland and the Baltic states bear some of the blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, citing the Minsk accords.
“Not everyone supported this, above all the Baltic states, but Poland was also against it,” Merkel told The Telegraph.
And Donald Trump has said he would like to know how Ukraine plans to use US-made Tomahawk missiles before supplying them to the war-hit nation.
Ukraine’s long-range attacks on refineries and other oil facilities contributed to Russian fuel shortages at the pump in August.
Improving domestically produced weapons, especially drones, has been one of Ukrainian authorities’ chief goals as it strives to counter Russian’s invasion and reach deeper into Russia with strikes that put military, political and social pressure on President Vladimir Putin.
Though Russia’s national economy and army are much bigger than Ukraine’s, Kyiv has largely limited Russian battlefield gains to slow and costly progress across the Ukrainian countryside as cutting-edge drone technology makes up in part for its shortage of soldiers.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said its team at Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia had heard several rounds of incoming and outgoing shelling from near the site on Monday.
The UN nuclear watchdog’s chief Rafael Grossi said in a post on X the shelling “adds to nuclear safety risks at ZNPP, which has had no off-site power for nearly two weeks.”
Donald Trump said he would want to know what Ukraine planned to do with US-made Tomahawk missiles before agreeing to supply them because he does not want to escalate Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked the US to sell Tomahawks to European nations that would send them to Ukraine.
Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500 km (1,550 miles), putting Moscow in the range of Ukraine’s arsenal, were Kyiv to be granted them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a video clip released on Sunday that if Washington supplied Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for long-range strikes deep into Russia, it would lead to the destruction of Moscow’s relationship with Washington.
Asked by reporters at the White House whether he had decided about supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks, Trump did not rule it out and said he had “sort of made a decision” on the matter.
“I think I want to find out what they’re doing with them,” he said. “Where are they sending them? I guess I’d have to ask that question.”
“I would ask some questions. I’m not looking to escalate that war,” he added.
Volodymyr Zelensky is calling for more stringent sanctions against British companies implicated in supplying components for Russian drones, which are actively being deployed in attacks across Ukraine.
Writing on X, Mr Zelensky stated that microcomputers for flight control, manufactured in the UK, were discovered in drones involved in the assault.
Other parts from allied countries, including the US, were also identified.
Read our full story below.
The end of the Czech initiative for delivering ammunition to Ukraine would hurt the Czech Republic as well as Kyiv’s defence against Russia, Czech president Petr Pavel said on Monday.
His comments came after parliamentary elections in the country won by billionaire populist Andrej Babis’ party. Babis, who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021 has supported ending the programme.
“If we were to reduce or even end this support, we would primarily harm ourselves, but ending this support would also have a negative impact on Ukraine, if many more lost their lives,” Mr Pavel said after holding talks with political parties.
Russian sabotage groups are operating inside the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, where forces from both sides have clashed, said the commander of a Ukrainian drone unit.
Dmytro Lavro, a deputy commander in Ukraine’s 25th Airborne Brigade, said fighting rages “on the ground and in the sky” for the city, a strategic hub for Kyiv’s forces on the eastern front.
“The enemy is putting pressure on us (and) we are doing our best to repel them,” he said. “At the moment, we are evenly matched.”
Russia has been attacking Pokrovsk for many months as it grinds out incremental gains in the east and south of Ukraine. Open source maps showing Russian military positions indicate the city is being gradually surrounded in a pincer movement.
Lavro added that the proportion of Ukrainian-made drones and ammunition had increased since 2023, the result of Kyiv’s efforts to scale up its burgeoning domestic defence industry.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that recent attacks by Ukraine’s military on Russian infrastructure included domestically produced missiles.
“It’s important to understand that in recent days Ukraine has been using exclusively Ukrainian products (and) not just drones,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv, when asked whether Ukraine has fired its new long-range Flamingo missile against Russian targets.
“And judging by the strikes, I think it’s clear to people where drones were used, and where drones were not used.”
Mr Zelensky added that the supply of US-produced weapons to Ukraine has not been affected by the ongoing government shutdown in Washington.
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