ref:topbtw-3252.html/ 26 Febbraio 2022/A
With Kyiv's refusal to implement the Minsk agreement, coupled with threats of restarting a nuclear program
from a production facility in the city of Dnipro, Russia lost patience with protracted negotiations
that did not lead to a resolution on Ukraine's NATO membership or resolve the situation in Donbass after eight years.
Moscow then took the drastic step of pre-emptively striking Ukraine's military capabilities to ensure
the security of Russia and Donbass.
Such an action could open the way for Turkey to reconcile with Washington after estrangement following
Joe Biden's ascendency to the White House.
Russian strikes reportedly destroyed Ukraine's fleet of Bayraktar drones, something that will
surely anger the Turkish military industrial complex and war hawks in Ankara.
As recently as February 3, Ankara and Kyiv agreed to coproduce the Turkish-made drone at a production
site in Ukraine.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Olesii Reznikov told reporters in Kyiv at the time that the coproduction
compound would also include a training center where Ukrainian pilots would be trained.
This agreement comes as in September last year, the Ukrainian government announced that it was planning
to buy 24 more Turkish drones.
Reznikov said that the coproduced drones would be dubbed the Turkish-Ukrainian Bayraktar.
However, it appears that hopes for the Turkish-Ukrainian Bayraktar were dashed even before they
could be mass produced as Russian forces allegedly destroyed the production facility in Ukraine.
It is recalled that the distribution of Bayraktar drones to Russia's borders were welcomed by the US and it
was naively expected that it would be a gamechanger or tip the balance of power.
In one instance, Senior Hudson Institution fellow Michael Doran audaciously tweeted in May 2021 that:
"Turkish drones are slowly beginning to surround Russia.
Ukraine and Poland to the west, Turkey and Azerbaijan to the south and possibly Kazakhstan to the east.
That's how you contain Russia."
The prevailing idea was that because of the success of Bayraktar drones against impoverished militias
from Ethiopia or a country like Armenia, whose population is four times smaller then Moscow's alone,
it would be replicated against the Russian military, which is ranked second out of the 140 countries considered
in the annual Global Fire Power review.
Russia achieved a "perfect score" of 0.0000 according to their 2022 index.
According to Dr Spyros Plakoudas, a professor on security studies at Rabdan Academy, Turkish-Ukrainian
drones "were destroyed on the ground most likely.
The Russian military forces targeted not only the bases of the Bayraktar but also the factory
of Motor Sich (supplier of the engines for Bayraktar and Akinji UAVs)."
( GAGRULE )
