Ukraine has high hopes for “Palyanytsia”: According to President Zelensky, the new missile drone of its own production will enable it to attack Russian military airports. And the attacks are possible without the consent of the allies.
According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine has developed a new, powerful weapon against Russia. On Saturday, the first successful combat use of “our new weapon” took place: “a Ukrainian long-range missile drone of the ‘Palyanytsia’ type,” Zelensky wrote on Facebook. With it, his country can attack the airfields from which Russian fighter jets and bombers take off to attack Ukrainian towns.
Already yesterday, Zelenskyj said that the rocket drone was “much faster than our long-range drones – and more powerful”.
Means against Russian air superiority?
Since the beginning of its war of aggression, Russia has fired almost 10,000 missiles of various types and more than 33,000 glide bombs at Ukraine, the head of state wrote. Now Ukraine has something to stop the Russian air force.
The development of the missile-drone mixture took a year and a half, said Zelensky. He did not provide any information on the range of the “Palyanytsia”. Production is being expanded rapidly. In recent months, Ukraine has increasingly switched to building drones of all kinds. These relatively inexpensive weapons can be produced in large numbers.
Made independent of approval by allies
In the past, Kiev had repeatedly asked its Western partners for permission to use long-range weapons systems such as rockets or cruise missiles against Russian territory. These were to be used, among other things, to attack military airfields in Russia. Western states refused this permission because they were worried about being drawn into the war.
Zelensky did not provide any information about where the new hybrid missile and drone was used. However, according to military experts, the “Palyanytsia” may have been used for the first time to attack an ammunition depot in the central Russian region of Voronezh. According to reports, it was triggered by a drone strike.
