Russia proposes to build drone factory in Belarus to 'ensure security'
Russia has proposed building a drone factory in neighbouring Belarus, Belarusian state media reported on Mar. 6.
Kremlin Deputy Chief of Staff Maxim Oreshkin made the announcement during a trip to Minsk where he met Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko at a drone exhibition.
"It's very important that Belarus has its own [drone] production facilities, which would strengthen both its economy and national security," Oreshkin said.
"We are ready to build the plant," Lukashenko said in response.
The plant is expected to produce up to 100,000 units per year but no details were given about the type of drone or if they would be for military use.
Oreshkin said that drone production will strengthen the Belarusian economy, including agriculture, logistics, and power generation, and increase GDP.
"It is vital for Belarus to have production facilities that will make not only the economy, but also the security sphere of the country truly sovereign," he added.
While at the exhibition, the pair were given a demonstration of an 'artistic' drone which painted a mural. Belarusian state media described it as "the largest art object (ever) created by a drone."
Currently Russia uses around 100 to 200 kamikaze drones per attack against Ukraine which occur on a daily basis, but Russian forces plan to increase their capabilities to 500, Vadym Skibitskyi, the deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), said on March 3.
Russia also plans to increase the number of sites from which drones will be launched, he added.
Belarus is one of Russia's staunchest allies and part of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched from its territory.
Belarus is currently under U.S. and European sanctions for supporting Russia's invasion and the detention of political prisoners.
Read also: Trump says he considers sanctioning Russia because it's 'pounding' Ukrainian troops
We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Atlantic
27 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Fathers Don't Just Protect—They Prepare
My grandfather was born in 1882 in the small Ukrainian town of Zawale, which was part of the vast, multiethnic Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1914, this mega-state, like so many European nations, threw itself into a world war with frenzied enthusiasm. My grandfather later told my father how puzzled he had been to watch thousands of happy young men—really still just boys—boarding trains in Vienna, cheering as they went off to what was almost certainly their death. He did not volunteer, he avoided conscription, and he survived. His son, my father, was born in Vienna in 1927. He was 6 years old when Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany. Austria still had a few years of freedom left, and my grandfather used them well: Because an archive had burned down, several of his family documents had to be reissued. Through skillful manipulation, he managed to turn himself from a Jew into what the Nazis would later classify as a 'half Jew.' And as Germany's annexation of Austria became inevitable, he came up with an especially daring idea: In a court proceeding, he had his wife, my grandmother, declared the illegitimate daughter of the janitor in her parents' building. He bribed witnesses who testified that her mother had had an affair with that janitor. It worked: My grandmother was officially declared the daughter of an Aryan. And as a result, my family survived. This Father's Day, I find myself reflecting not only on paternal love but on paternal foresight—the clarity and focus it takes to see what others might not, to act before the danger has a name. Raising children is always a challenge, but never more so than in times of deep insecurity about what the future will look like. To meet that challenge, it can help to look at the generations that came before. Anne Applebaum: This is what Trump does when his revolution sputters Despite my grandfather's efforts, life for my father quickly changed under the Nazis. In swimming school, two boys nearly drowned him while the lifeguard looked on, grinning. When my father finally emerged, gasping for breath, the lifeguard laughed and said, 'Can't swim, Jew?' Around the same time, the man who lived in the neighboring house began watching my father and his sister with dark, brooding looks. But only after Hitler's army had entered Austria did he begin shouting, each and every time they passed: 'Jewwws!' My father would recount these events with amused detachment. He had already learned as a teenager to recognize the profound absurdity of Nazism—the deep, grotesque nonsense of what Charlie Chaplin and Ernst Lubitsch were turning into dark political comedies at the same time in Hollywood. A few months later, two men came to my grandparents and ordered them to leave their house with their children. They moved into a small apartment, and their home was 'bought'—at a tiny, symbolic price—by the 'Jewww'-shouting neighbor. Corruption is the most corrosive force in a democracy, but in a dictatorship it can save you. Once a month, a Gestapo officer would appear at my grandparents' apartment and take something valuable—a piece of furniture, a porcelain plate, a painting. In return, the file on my grandparents would sink a little lower in the stack on his desk. At my father's school, the boys had to line up, and all those tall enough were asked—in fact, ordered—to volunteer for the SS. My father raised his hand and said, 'Requesting permission to report—I'm one-quarter Jewish!' To which the SS man shouted in disgust, 'Step back!' And so my father was spared from becoming a war criminal in Hitler's service. In almost every situation, having Jewish ancestry was a mortal danger. But in this one instance, it became his salvation. In the final months of the war, my father was arrested after all and spent three months in a concentration camp close to Vienna, constantly at risk of death. But after the war had ended, there was still a striking atmosphere of leniency toward the perpetrators. When he went to the local police station to give a statement about his time in the camp, he was met with scornful dismissiveness. 'It wasn't really that bad, was it?' the officer asked. 'Aren't we exaggerating a little?' It was then that my father decided to move from Austria to Germany, paradoxically—because there, under pressure from the occupying powers, some reckoning with the past was taking place. Austria, meanwhile, had successfully cast itself as the war's first victim. Timothy W. Ryback: Hitler used a bogus crisis of 'public order' to make himself dictator I tell my son, who never met his grandfather (as I never met mine), that my father was obsessed throughout his life with the idea that what had happened once could happen again—not just to Jews, but to anyone. Of course, my son, raised in a seemingly stable world, feels profoundly safe. And that's a good thing. But we are currently living in the United States, a country that for my grandfather was a refuge impossible to reach, but that is currently in the throes of what some serious scholars now describe as an authoritarian power grab. And even in Germany, where we could easily return, a right-wing extremist party is now so strong that it might come in first in the next election. So I think about the responsibility of raising a child in a time when the future is impossible to predict. I think, more and more, of my grandfather, who in 1914 watched people plunge into war hysteria and decided to resist their excitement, and who would later take very unconventional steps—steps that would, after history took a turn for the worse, ensure his family's survival. My grandfather understood the psychology of fanaticism very early; my father understood the stupidity and mediocrity of the people whom the dictatorship empowered, without mistaking them for harmless clowns. Now, as we watch society once again take a dangerous turn—as books are banned, people are sent to foreign prisons without even a court order, and soldiers are deployed against protesters—I wonder what stories my future grandchildren will one day need to remember. Memory is not a picture book; it's a tool. And fatherhood, especially in times like these, is not just about protection. It is about preparation.
Forbes
39 minutes ago
- Forbes
These Patriot Missiles Are Israel's Trash And Ukraine's Treasure
A Patriot missile launcher is pictured during the "Blue Flag" multinational air defense exercise at ... More the Ovda air force base, north of the Israeli city of Eilat, on November 8, 2017. (JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images) MIM-104 Patriot missile air defense missiles previously in Israel's inventory may have reached Ukraine. Kyiv doubtlessly welcomes with open arms any help it can get bolstering its beleaguered air defenses, especially as it faces its heaviest missile and drone bombardments of the war. In Israel's case, its history with the Patriots suggests it's probably more than happy to dispense with them. In an interview published on June 8, Israel's ambassador to Ukraine, Michael Brodsky, said that ex-Israeli Patriot systems are now in Ukrainian service. 'These are Israeli Patriots that were in service in the early 1990s. We agreed to transfer them to Ukraine,' Brodsky said. 'Unfortunately, not much was said about this… when people claim that Israel didn't provide military aid, that's simply not true.' The Israeli Foreign Ministry swiftly denied Brodsky's comment, stating, 'It is not correct. Israel did not transfer Patriot systems to Ukraine.' From the moment Israel decided to retire its Patriots in 2024, it was clear that Ukraine hoped it would receive at least some of them. By then, Kyiv had received some Patriot systems and already succeeded in shooting down some of Russia's most advanced missiles and aircraft. The Israeli denial was noteworthy in light of a year's worth of reports indicating the contrary. The Wall Street Journal reported in June 2024 that the U.S. and Israel were nearing an agreement to transfer up to eight Patriot systems from Israel's inventory to Ukraine, a move it correctly noted would 'dramatically increase' Ukrainian air defenses. Axios reported in January that the U.S. military had transferred approximately 90 Patriot interceptor missiles from Israel to Poland en route to Ukraine. Furthermore, the New York Times reported in May that an Israel-based Patriot system would be sent to Ukraine following refurbishment. Israel may not want to acknowledge a transfer. The wording of the denial specifies it did not send systems but doesn't mention the interceptor missiles, which Ukraine could fire from its existing Patriot batteries. Consequently, Israel could truthfully say that it gave Ukraine the bullets but not the gun. According to that Axios report, Israel reassured Russia it was 'only returning' a Patriot system to the U.S., not transferring it to Ukraine. A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an Israeli Patriot was returned to the U.S. but also clarified that 'it is not known to us whether it was delivered to Ukraine.' Israel's official denial may indicate it doesn't want any credit for helping beef up Ukrainian air defenses to avoid antagonizing Russia, which recently wanted to stay in Syria to counterbalance Turkey. When Russia's ally Bashar al-Assad was still in power, the Russian military was in a much more powerful strategic position in Syria than today. During those years, Israel invariably said it did not want to risk antagonizing Moscow, with which it had a deconfliction mechanism in Syria permitting it to bomb Iran-linked targets throughout the country, by supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons. It even refused an American request for vintage Hawk missiles it had retired long ago. Now, Israel may be happy to dispense with its Patriots without acknowledgment. Israel noticeably did not use any Patriots during Iran's April and October 2024 missile attacks and the more recent Iranian bombardments that began on June 13, after Israel's Operation Rising Lion against Iran. That's not surprising, considering Israel's Arrow and David's Sling systems are more suitable for intercepting ballistic missiles compared to its older Patriot PAC-2s. Furthermore, Israel's experience during its first major missile attack—during the Persian Gulf War all the way back in 1991—fostered a long-running distaste for the system. America rushed Patriot systems to Israel ahead of that war to help defend against Saddam Hussein's Scud missiles. Washington feared an Israeli retaliation would splinter the coalition, which included many Arab states it had carefully united around the goal of ejecting Iraq from Kuwait. While over 40 Scud missiles hit Tel Aviv and Haifa during the war, an agitated Israel sat tight. Adding insult to injury was the inability of the Patriot interceptors to counter the overwhelming majority of the Scuds, despite widespread reports of its efficiency at the time. The Israeli Air Force concluded after the war that there was 'no evidence of a single successful intercept' with 'circumstantial evidence for one possible intercept' at best. Defense Minister Moshe Arens recalled after the war that the number of Scuds intercepted was 'minuscule and is in fact meaningless.' With some conspicuous exceptions, the Israeli Patriots spent the intervening decades, in the words of one Israeli news outlet, 'mostly gathering dust' and never scoring any intercepts until it shot down a Hamas drone during the 2014 Gaza war. Israeli Patriots saw rare combat in the summer of 2014, just under a quarter century after entering service, when they shot down Hamas drones from Gaza and a Su-24 bomber over the Golan Heights. However, by then, Israel had the Iron Dome in service, and its David's Sling was just three years away from becoming operational. The older Patriots' days in Israeli service were numbered. But its combat-proven efficiencies against drones and Russian-built aircraft in 2014 show, in retrospect, how suited it is for Ukraine at the moment. Since Kyiv launched its daring Spider's Web operation against Russia's strategic bombers on June 1, it has faced no fewer than 1,451 drones from Russia against its cities. Kyiv needs all the help it can get. And even some extra PAC-2s for its existing systems from Israel would go a long way in keeping its critical air defenses online. Given Ukraine's present need and Israel's historical dislike of them, one could hardly find a more clear-cut example of the saying one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
Trump, Putin Discuss Middle East Tensions in Hour-Long Call
By Updated on Save Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump discussed the escalating crisis between Israel and Iran in a roughly hour-long phone call on Saturday. In a post on Truth Social, the US president didn't discuss the substance of the conversation beyond saying that Putin 'feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end.'
