Through the voice of the Kremlin spokesman, Russia threatened to bomb the Bayraktar Turkish drone manufacturing plant in Ukraine.
“Establishing a factory for Turkish Bayraktar drones in Ukraine immediately places it under Ukraine’s disarmament clause and, therefore, will subject it to destruction by the Russian military,” said Wednesday 10 August Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In response, Peskov said that “the construction of the plant will only prolong the suffering of the Ukrainians and will not help to avoid what is the target of a special military operation there”.
He said earlier that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not discuss Turkish drone issues when they met in Sochi last week.
The stance came after Ukraine’s Ambassador to Ankara, Vasyl Bodnar, announced to launch Turkish company Baykar’s plans for Bayraktar attack drone production lines in Ukraine, according to a report. by the American magazine “Newsweek”.
According to the latter, Ukrainian Ambassador Bodnar assured that the Turkish company had already purchased land in Ukraine and developed the station project. According to him, Baykar intended to build the factory in accordance with the personal commitment of the owners of the company to carry out this production in Ukraine.
The magazine pointed out that Bayraktar TB2 drones were considered one of the most valuable weapons for Ukraine in the first months of the war, especially before the arrival of American HIMARS missiles. He also said that Ukraine had more than 20 aircraft when the war started.
“Due to the fact that Kyiv currently has only a limited supply of these devices, and given that Russia has learned a lesson from the weaknesses that emerged during the first phase of the war, it is unlikely that the forces Ukrainians risk losing their TB2s, pushing them into areas where Russian air defenses could easily knock them down,” the magazine said.