President Putin Targets Russia To Produce Around 1.4 Million Drones To Win In The Battlefield

President Putin visited the Special Technology Center of Russia. (Source: Valery Sharifulin/TASS/Kremlin)

JAKARTA - President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Russia increased drone production by about tenfold to nearly 1.4 million this year in a bid to ensure Russia's armed forces win in the war.

Since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in February 2022, the war has largely been a formidable artillery and drone strike along a 1.000 km (620 miles) front line that is heavily fortified by involving hundreds of thousands of troops.

"In total, about 140,000 unmanned aerial vehicles of various types have been sent to the armed forces in 2023," Putin said.

"This year, drone production is planned to increase significantly. More precisely, almost 10 times," continued President Putin.

The conflict has been a forum for the development of unmanned aircraft - and an overview of the importance of drones for modern warfare, ranging from terrorizing infantry and gathering intelligence to sabotaging infrastructure and attacking arsenals.

"Anyone who reacts more quickly to these demands on the battlefield will win," President Putin said at a meeting on drone production in St Petersburg.

President Putin said Russia is making progress almost every week in drone technology and it is also necessary to develop its unmanned aircraft defenses, basically sensing, confusing technology, and then shooting down an attacking drone.

"The main task is to produce various kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles, to build serial production as quickly as possible," said President Putin.

It is known that Russia and Ukraine have purchased drones from abroad and increased their own production.

Videos of drones have described the horrors of battlefields, which show deadly attacks on infantry, artillery, and tanks.

The low-cost first-person view drone (FPV) - originally developed for civilian racers - is controlled by pilots on land and often hits targets, which are loaded with explosives.

With just a few hundred dollars, soldiers on both sides can cause massive damage on the other.

Earlier, a large-scale Ukrainian drone strike against Russia triggered an earthquake-sized explosion in the main arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday.