Ukrainians are racing to build unmanned war machines to counter Russian manpower
Ukrainians are racing to build unmanned war machines to counter Russian manpower
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00:00Russian airstrikes have killed three people in Ukraine overnight.
00:08Two of the victims, a mother and her eight-year-old son,
00:11were killed in Zaporizhzhia when a missile hit a hotel complex.
00:15One man was killed in the Dnipro region.
00:17Ukrainian officials say they shot down dozens of Russian drones.
00:21These new deadly attacks come a day after another wide-ranging
00:24Russian aerosol which wounded four people on the day
00:27the Ukrainian children returned to school for a new term.
00:31Ukraine's successes with its incursion into Russia's Kursk region
00:34and its setbacks in the Donetsk region
00:36are bringing the world's attention back to the war
00:39and local businesses are reacting with urgency.
00:42CNN's Christiane Amanpour takes a closer look at the factory in Kyiv
00:46that's ramping up its efforts to help Ukraine.
00:51The evidence keeps growing.
00:54Even here in Kyiv, far from the front,
00:57memorials occupy ever more space.
01:00And since Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region,
01:04the war has returned to the cities with a vengeance.
01:08Last night, ballistic missiles hit Kyiv,
01:11destroying infrastructure, tripling the energy grid, raising fears.
01:16Ukrainian journalist Natalia Gumenyuk tells me it's been a trade-off.
01:21There is no discussion whether the Kursk was right,
01:24but the question is how much we lose in Pokrovsk,
01:27in the Donbas.
01:28It boosted the morale among the military.
01:30It showed that, you know, Ukraine can do something.
01:34Just outside Kyiv, there's an urgent race against time in this factory
01:39that's building unmanned vehicles, or land drones,
01:42because aerial drones make the front lines
01:45ever more dangerous for soldiers on both sides.
01:49Here's CEO and former special forces officer Oleksandr Bilecki.
01:53That's why we should have technologies to kill more Russians,
01:57with the purpose of using the new technologies,
02:00like using drones, using robots, that's it.
02:05And these all-terrain, all-weather drones are meant to save more Ukrainians.
02:11On the front, they can be controlled from as far as three kilometres away.
02:15Here, we follow along behind.
02:18They can deliver everything from ammunition to water,
02:21and also remove the wounded from the front lines.
02:25Their production has ramped up since the full-scale invasion of 2022,
02:30and the company insists Ukraine must develop more technologically advanced systems
02:35for asymmetrical warfare to counter Russia's overwhelming manpower.
02:40And they want to be much more self-sufficient for the long haul.
02:4630 months into this grinding conflict,
02:48with the prospect of international support fading,
02:51are Ukrainians now ready to negotiate an end to it all?
02:56It's really a matter of survival.
02:58We can't allow them to control our territory.
03:00And what they suggest is unconditional capitulation,
03:05unconditional surrender or occupation.
03:09And here, Natalia quotes her friend and Ukraine's Nobel laureate,
03:13who warns that occupation is not peace, it's just a different way of war.
03:19Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Kyiv.
03:22Well, Salma Abdulaziz is joining me now here to discuss Ukraine.
03:26And Salma, we were just saying there,
03:28the overnight attack on Zaporizhzhya, a mother and a child killed.
03:31What more do we know about that attack?
03:33So, a family caught in this airstrike,
03:35yet another barrage of missiles and drones fired at Russia overnight.
03:39We've seen this continue on for almost two weeks now, I believe.
03:43The latest victims are this mother and her eight-year-old son,
03:47both killed in this attack.
03:48They're staying in a hotel in Zaporizhzhya
03:50that indicates they were probably displaced people.
03:52The husband and another child, a 13-year-old daughter,
03:55are now in hospital with serious wounds.
03:58Just a reminder of the families,
04:00the people who are really stuck in the crosshairs of this conflict.
04:05And as Ukraine tries to hit back at this uptick in Russian bombardment,
04:10it's really been an uptick since the invasion of Kursk a few weeks after that.
04:14That's really when Russian forces started barrelling through
04:17with these drones, missiles, ballistic missiles,
04:19near daily towards Ukrainian cities and towns.
04:22Ukraine's foreign minister is saying,
04:24we're fighting with our hands tied behind our back.
04:27And he is saying that because Ukrainians are pleading
04:30with the White House to lift restrictions
04:32on the use of long-range missiles.
04:33They want to be able to strike deep in the heart of Russia
04:37to hit these sites before they fire that barrage of missiles and drones
04:42to be on the offence here with Russia.
04:45However, the White House is simply not convinced.
04:47There was a meeting last week
04:48in which Ukrainian officials provided a target list.
04:52President Biden's administration believes that very high-value assets
04:55have probably been moved too far to be hit by those long-range missiles.
04:59In the meanwhile, you also have what's happening in the Donbass,
05:03where Ukrainian troops are outmanned and outgunned.
05:05That makes that Kursk offensive look less and less like a shimmering prize
05:10if it means that Russian forces still continue to barrel on through
05:14towards Pogorovsk, because even President Zelensky has admitted
05:17that was the goal of entering Kursk, to divert Russian forces away,
05:20and that does not seem to have played out on the battlefield.
05:23So, very tough days ahead for Ukraine.
05:25And meanwhile, President Putin trying to capture the world's attention
05:29in a very brazen and different way, arriving in Mongolia,
05:32an ICC member, an ICC signatory, and it not resulting in his arrest.
05:37In fact, more than that, they rolled out the red carpet for him, it seems.
05:41President Putin always trying to make headlines,
05:43even calling out Ukraine for their strategy in Kursk,
05:46you know, whisking that away, saying,
05:48I know the game they wanted to play,
05:50I know they wanted me to divert troops to Kursk.
05:52I'm not falling for that.
05:54Absolutely trying to demonstrate not just strength in the face
05:57of Ukrainian troops literally on Russian territory,
06:00literally claiming Russian land, but also trying to demonstrate
06:03that he continues to have a coalition of partners.
06:06And that's really the message there from President Putin.
06:09Interesting. Salma, thank you for now.