Germany & Ukraine to jointly produce 1,500-km-capable drones | Ukraine Brief

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Good evening. I'm Benjamin Lee and this is the Ukraine brief on TVP World.

[00:00:05]Tonight marks 1,538 days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And here is the latest update.

[00:00:14]A 3-day ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia ends today. Both sides accuse each other of violating the truce with attack over the weekend. The deadliest attacks were in the Harkiv Han and Zaparia regions. Ukrainian police say a Russian kamicazi drone struck a civilian vehicle and killed the driver.

[00:00:32]Additional casualties were reported in Mikav and Donk regions where drone strikes and shilling injured several civilians. Ukraine's military says Russia launched 180 attacks in the past day along with thousands of drones and artillery strikes targeting military positions and civilian areas.

[00:00:50]Berlin and Kev are working together to produce drones, including long range systems capable of striking targets up to 1500 kilometers away. During an announced visit to Kee today, German defense minister Boris Pestorius says Moscow continues to undermine ceasefire efforts while failing to make major gains on the battlefield.

[00:01:11]>> The supposedly 3-day ceasefire over the weekend has been broken again. It is up to Putin to end this war and its terror.

[00:01:18]It is what it is, especially with regards to the Ukrainian civilian population.

[00:01:24]>> I believe that Putin is ultimately trying to distract from his own weakness with this approach. As of right now, he can point to hardly any territorial gains and his army keeps losing parts of conquered territory.

[00:01:38]It is important to say that today Germany is the number one country in the world in terms of security assistance to Ukraine. It accounts for about a third of all assistance to our country. And I would like to separately thank them for supporting our country's key areas of defense, most importantly our air defense. Before today's EU Foreign Affairs Council, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andre Speha told reporters that Ukraine is holding the line and that the tide is turning.

[00:02:08]He said Ukraine's so-called longrange sanctions against Russia are proving effective in exposing Moscow's weak weaknesses.

[00:02:16]We stabilized front and uh we also in the position that we close close the sky. If we are talking about drones now we could shoot down up to 90% of aerial objects by which Russians uh attack us. After visiting the United States, Ukraine's top negotiator RTM Amirov briefed President Volan Zalinski on the result of his meetings. He said that they are considering a possible format for talks between Zilinski and Vladimir Putin.

[00:02:53]Following the victory day ceasefire, Ukraine handed the Kremlin a list of a thousand Russian prisoners for a 10,000 for 10,000 exchange mediated by the United States.

[00:03:04]The main issue is the agreement mediated by American partners on a prisoner exchange in the 1000 for 1000 format.

[00:03:11]This is one of the key humanitarian outcomes that has been the focus of active work with our US partners over the past week. We are grateful to the United States for its readiness to continue acting as a mediator in matters related to the return of our people.

[00:03:24]Bringing every Ukrainian home remains an unconditional priority for the state.

[00:03:28]And now joining us to discuss the visit of German defense minister Boris Ptori as well as the latest development from Ukraine is Victoria Vitiska from the international center for Ukrainian victory. Hello and welcome to TVP World.

[00:03:44]>> Good evening. Thank you for having me.

[00:03:46]>> So we before we dive into the meeting between the ministers, I would actually like to ask you a little bit about your take on the uh victory day parade in Moscow and how that went down.

[00:03:59]Well, my prediction is that it was the last parade that was headed by Mr. Putin.

[00:04:07]uh because it was a total humiliation for him and his regime even before the parade started. All the preparations for the parade where the internet was blocked when all the military equipment that Russia is so proud of was not on the red square. It was the shortest uh parade since 2007 from the perspective of the time only 45 minutes. So as I said it was a complete humiliation and humiliation that was actually the one that was propagating Russia not being able to win another war. And for Russians not winning the war is equal to losing the war. and Russians and Russia doesn't like uh leaders who are losing the wars that Russia is fighting. Let's take 1917 of the last century of the previous century. Let's look at uh Ching war in 1996, the first one that was actually lost by uh Moscow and uh Yetsen and in a couple of years he actually lost his uh presidency.

[00:05:27]So I expect that uh this particular parade uh was not a demonstration of strength but of the weakness of the regime and I expect that it might actually turn out to be the last one for for example Mr. Putin in particular.

[00:05:47]>> All right definitely not the morale boost that they are looking for.

[00:05:50]Meanwhile, what do you make of these ceasefire violations?

[00:05:55]Well, the ceasefire violations, if you're talking about uh the attacks that were still continuing uh during the so-called ceasefire, it was expected. Um my concern and uh the concern of lots of people in Ukraine is whether actually Russia will deliver on it promise to uh have the prisoners exchanged because it was actually one of the points that Putin was so desperate to get the confirmation that Ukrainians are not going to send drones during the parade on the 9th of May. that he was the one who offered this prisoners exchange.

[00:06:38]Here the question is whether he will stick to the promises and whether he will deliver. That is my concern and the concern of many people.

[00:06:48]>> Right. Speaking of promises, let's actually go to the meeting between the defense ministers. Now, uh German defense minister is in Ke to talk about development of a long range missiles. Uh the chancellor of Germany a while back promised to help Ukraine produce a long range weapon. Is this the case that we are seeing that promise coming into action? Now >> what we're seeing is a clear message and indication that for Germany, one of the biggest uh uh economies in the European Union, one of the strongest players in European Union, Ukraine is from now on a strategic partner, not a country that is begging for help, not the one that is asking for another round of ammunition.

[00:07:36]and uh financial support, but as an equal partner that can and will contribute to the security of the entire European continent and who is capable to deliver the modern solutions especially in Miltech that will strengthen the defense of NATO and of European Union in particular with the help and support of the strategic partner near Germany.

[00:08:07]Also, the fact that there were clear messages and commitments to provide us with additional air defense uh such as Irish systems with the missiles for so needed patriot systems that allow us to protect our cities from the ballistic uh attacks from Russia. It's again this is what is friendship and partnership is called and this is what I believe true friends of Ukraine's of are um ready to deliver to strengthen Ukraine because strong Ukraine means strong Europe and it's in interest of the entire continent and in particular NATO members of European Union countries >> right and speaking of millettech we just saw some very impressive looking drones.

[00:08:57]I would assume those are the 1,500 kilometer very kind of advanced system as well. I'm curious about whether or not we will be able to see them on the front lines sooner rather than later.

[00:09:11]Well, we have already seen actually Ukraine missiles uh quite successfully delivering the long range strikes on uh Russia in those territories that were considered to be safe zone especially for military production uh facilities.

[00:09:31]And we've seen already successful cases of Ukrainian drones reaching as far as 2,000 kilometers and beyond. So um I believe it's uh fair to say that we no longer depend that much on the technologies of our western partners when it comes to mid to long range uh uh hits but what we definitely need is financial support, technical support and among other things we clearly understand that it's important to diversify the location of the facilities that are producing such missiles, such drones because of course such facilities in Ukraine are always will be on the hit list of Russians and it's important to diversify such productions and locate them outside of Ukraine as well and in this regard Germany is uh one of the options for the joint uh production facilities. All right. And last but not least, if you can help us understand what's the current situation in the front line. Are we seeing any significant changes for the past couple of days?

[00:10:42]>> What we've seen so far is that of course Russians are trying to accumulate as much forces as possible around Kromatsk uh region. Kromatsk is one of the strongholds of which we control and it's in Dyetsk region. those the the region that Russians are not being capable to uh take control over during all of those years since 2014 by the way. So uh of course everyone is uh not just waiting but seeing the Russians attempts to at least show some progress with regard to the spring summer offensive but we believe that it will be completely uh ineffective. The Russians will not gain territory or if there any gains there will be really minor. But what we also see and it's very important it's like a strategic change is that Ukrainians with drones are reaching as far as 100 to 120 kilometers deep into occupied territories of Marupal and um the southern part of Ukraine that is occupied that is used as a bridge from Russia to Crimea through Ukrainian territories and uh um in particular Arzovv our brigades. They have demonstrated successful operations of depriving the uh Russians of ability to use those roots for the delivery of their military equipment for >> and perhaps this is one of the reasons why the defense ministers are saying that the tide is turning. Of course, time will tell, but in the meantime, thank you so much for your input and insight. Victoria from the international center for Ukrainian victory. Thank you for being with us on TV World.

[00:12:33]>> Cheers. And thank you for tuning in to this edition of Ukraine Brief. But for more news, update, and commentary, please stay tuned to TVP