Ukraine Successfully Destroys Pro-Russian Separatist Artillery Using Turkish Drone, Kremlin Touches On Ankara: Disrupts Situation

JAKARTA - Ukraine succeeded in destroying artillery of pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, in the first deployment of a Turkish-made drone strike, the Ukrainian military said.

Footage published on the Facebook page of the Ukrainian armed forces shows the Bayraktar TB2k drone targeting and shooting down a Soviet-era howitzer identified as a D-30 of pro-Russian forces.

"Bayraktar was used to force the enemy to stop firing. After that, the firing of Ukrainian positions stopped," the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said in a statement, citing The Moscow Times Oct. 27.

The drone strike resulted in no military or civilian casualties, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed source in the self-proclaimed and separatist-controlled Donetsk People's Republic on Wednesday.

Tuesday's drone strike was the first since Turkey delivered the first batch of Bayraktar TB2 drones to Ukraine in July.

Media reports said Kiev plans to buy around 50 Bayraktar TB2 drones, the flagship model that has been used in conflicts against Russian proxies in Syria, Libya and the Nagorno-Karabakh region at the center of decades of dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Ukraine and Turkey signed a memorandum in late September to establish a joint training and maintenance center for drones in Ukraine. This month, Ukraine's foreign minister said it planned to build a factory to produce Bayraktar drones in the country.

Meanwhile, the sale of drones to Kiev puts Ankara in a difficult position, as Turkey also cooperates in the defense sector with Russia, Ukraine's rival.

Separately, Russia said the delivery of Turkish drones to Ukraine could destabilize the situation on contact lines in the Donbass region, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

"We really have a special and good relationship with Turkey but this case, unfortunately, confirms our concern, the delivery of such weapons to the Ukrainian military, has the potential to destabilize the situation on the battle line," Peskov said, as reported by TASS.

"We saw as soon as these weapons fell into the hands of the military, they could potentially be used in that area of Ukraine and this only destabilizes the situation," Peskov continued.

"This does not contribute to solving this intra-Ukrainian problem," he stressed.

For information, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed on October 26, the military has used Turkey's Bayraktar combat drone in the Donbass area for the first time.