Today at 17:24
Ukraine holds military exercises with the use of Bayraktar drones, Javelin, and NLAW missiles. Ukraine’s Armed Forces will hold the drills from February 10 to February 20. It will be performing training maneuvers in parallel with the joint Belarusian-Russian exercises as Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on the air of one of the Ukrainian TV channels.
“Today we have some parallel exercises at polygons in Rivne, Kovel, Ovruch, Shyroky lan, Oleshkivsky pisky, Chuhuyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Odesa… Besides, Ukrainian Armed Forces will hold military drills from February 10 to February 20, which would include training of Bayraktar, Javelin, as well as NLAW usage,” Reznikov noted.
The Defense Minister drew attention to the concentration of Russian soldiers along the borders with Ukraine and the temporarily occupied territories. All in all, Russia’s air and sea forces might amount to 140,000 people, including 72 battalion and tactical groups, 11 of which are deployed in Belarus.
“Today, I had a very good, warm conversation with UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, we talked about further aid, both with weapons and by certain communications on his side. We’ve got everything under control,” Reznikov said.
Read also: A modern Ukrainian army. Citizens’ voices (VIDEO)
As reported before, over the last four years, Turkey and Ukraine have signed defense contracts for $ 1 billion. In February 2022, the countries launched joint production of Bayraktar drones, which Ukraine has been using in Donbas since October 2021.
Read also: The Russian Federation is increasing military equipment on the border with Ukraine
The U.S. has sold Ukraine Javelin missiles twice. The first sale in 2018 (210 missiles and 37 command launch units), while the second sale involved 10 additional command launch units and 150 missiles. In January 2022, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania announced they have received approvals from Washington to send US-made anti-tank weaponry to Kyiv to defend Ukraine against a potential Russian invasion.
In addition, UK has sent 30 elite troops and 2,000 NLAW anti-tank missile systems to Ukraine amid fears of Russian invasion.
As reported earlier, Ukraine’s armed forces have the highest level of trust among the population. Ukraine ranks 22nd in the American Global Firepower Index 2022 – higher than the Armed Forces of Poland and Canada (24th and 23rd places, respectively). Ukraine’s Armed Forces today are the largest land army in Europe.
