Ukraine will receive anti-drone systems soon: NATO

NATO says it will deliver anti-drone systems to Ukraine in the coming days to help it fend off Russian aerial attacks, including those carried out with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made the announcement during a security conference in the German capital of Berlin on Tuesday, shortly after Russia launched a wave of drone attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Stoltenberg said the answer to the airstrikes was for the allies to boost their deliveries of air defense systems to Ukraine.

“The most important thing we can do is deliver on what allies have promised, to step up and deliver even more air defense systems,” he said.

“NATO will in the coming days deliver counter-drone systems to counter the specific threat of drones, including those from Iran,” Stoltenberg added, repeating an accusation that Iran has provided Russia with UAVs.

The United States and Ukraine claim that Russia has been using Iranian drones in its recent attacks against targets in Ukraine, particularly its energy infrastructure. Tehran has dismissed those accusations as “baseless.”

Earlier in the day, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov also rejected the allegations and said the hardware that was being used in the war was Russian, when he was asked in a presser whether Russia had used or purchased Iranian drones.

“No, we do not have such information. The hardware that is used is Russian. You know that. It has Russian names,” he said.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Russia’s recent airstrikes, mostly conducted by drones far from the front lines, had destroyed almost a third of Ukraine’s power stations in the past week.

SS