By ILLIA NOVIKOV
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Long-range Ukrainian drones and missiles hit a major Russian ammunition plant, a key oil terminal and an important weapons depot behind the front line, Ukraine’s president and military said Monday, as Kyiv cranked up pressure on Moscow’s military logistics.
The Ukrainian General Staff said it struck the Sverdlov ammunition plant in the Nizhny Novgorod region of western Russia overnight, causing multiple explosions and a fire. It said the plant supplies Russian forces with aviation and artillery ordnance, aviation bombs, and anti-aircraft and anti-tank munitions.
Ukraine also hit an oil terminal in Crimea, starting a blaze, and an ammunition depot of Russia’s 18th Combined Arms Army, the General Staff said.
Russian authorities acknowledged a major Ukrainian drone attack over 14 Russian regions, as well as the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and around the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. But they gave few details beyond claiming that air defenses shot down 251 Ukrainian drones — making it one of the biggest Ukrainian barrages of Russian territory since the war began more than three years ago.
Gleb Nikitin, the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, said that air defenses fended off an attack by 20 Ukrainian drones on a local industrial zone that includes the ammo plant and that no facilities were damaged.
Ukraine’s long-range attacks on refineries and other oil facilities contributed to Russian fuel shortages at the pump in August.
Ukraine’s own weapons productions grows
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.
Uncertain of what Western military support it can count on to thwart Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has swiftly developed its defense manufacturing capacity. It is already sharing its drone expertise with European countries and is discussing possible technology and production cooperation with the United States.
Ukrainian officials have suggested they would like the United States to supply Tomahawk cruise missiles so that more Russian assets in the rear can be targeted. Meantime, Ukraine is increasingly using domestically developed long-range drones, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, and Ukraine expects to expand such capabilities if it can ensure funding from abroad.
He also indicated that Ukraine had used its own missiles for the strikes on Russian soil.
“The main thing to understand is that in recent days Ukraine has used exclusively Ukrainian-made weapons, not only drones,” Zelenskyy said during a press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof in Kyiv.
“We expect greater capabilities, but they depend on financial resources,” he said.
Many Ukrainian weapons on the front are domestically produced
Ukraine’s mushrooming defense industry could begin exporting surplus weapons production by the end of this year, using the revenue to help buy sophisticated systems it can’t make itself, Zelenskyy said Monday.
By the end of this year, Ukraine hopes to provide at least half the weapons its troops need on the front line, Zelenskyy told a defense industry forum in Kyiv.
“Already at the front, more than 40% of the weapons used are weapons produced in Ukraine or with Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a speech.
Ukraine last year produced and delivered 2.4 million shells to the front line, according to the Ukrainian leader.
Ukraine is currently producing 40 Bohdana self-propelled artillery systems a month, Zelenskyy said. By comparison, the production rate in April 2024 stood at 10 units per month.
“The time has come to launch the export of our Ukrainian weapons — those types of weapons that we have in surplus, and therefore can be exported, so that there is funding for those types of weapons that are especially needed for defense,” Zelenskyy said in a speech, possibly referring to American-made Patriot air defense systems.
He said Ukraine already has agreements to start exports to Europe, the United States and the Middle East, and purchases could begin by the end of this year.
Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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