Wednesday October 27, 2021
Despite the ban
Kiev uses combat drone in eastern Ukraine
The war in eastern Ukraine has already claimed more than 13,000 lives. Now the conflict is getting worse. For the first time, Kiev officially uses a combat drone against the pro-Russian separatists. Observers fear further escalations.
Despite a ban, Ukraine has used a combat drone in its embattled east of the country – officially for the first time. “With the aim of forcing the enemy to cease fire, a Bayraktar drone was deployed on the orders of the commander-in-chief,” the armed forces in Kiev announced on Tuesday evening.
Previously, pro-Russian separatists reportedly fired heavy artillery at positions of the army near Hranitne in the Donetsk region. According to the army, one soldier was killed and another injured. Government troops have been fighting separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions along the Russian border since 2014. According to UN estimates, the conflict has so far cost more than 13,000 people.
A 2015 peace plan is on hold. A ceasefire agreement from September 2014 already banned the use of drones. Nonetheless, Ukraine has acquired at least six Bayraktar (flag-bearer) combat drones from Turkey in recent years. Kiev also wants to set up its own drone production with Ankara.
The Russian-backed insurgents accused government units of having advanced in the area. Ukraine rejected this. There were exchanges of fire on other sections of the front line as well.
Observers fear that Ukraine is arming itself with the aim of military recapture of the breakaway territories along the lines of Azerbaijan. A year ago, the country in the South Caucasus recaptured large parts of the Armenian-inhabited region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a war, mainly with drones.