Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has written to U.S. President Donald Trump and Congress asking for more American-made air defense ammunition to counter intensifying Russian ballistic missile attacks, Kyiv said Wednesday.Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers have backed a draft bill to have bank employees join the fight against Ukraine’s long-range drones that strike deep inside Russia — with trained bank staff shooting down the unmanned aircraft.The steps came after a recent escalation in aerial attacks by both sides in the more than four-year war that followed Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor. Neither side has been able to make much progress on the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line.Also on Wednesday, Anne Keast-Butler, head of U.K.’s intelligence agency GCHQ, asserted that Russian President Vladimir “Putin is going backwards on the battlefield.” New data shows that “almost half a million Russian soldiers have now been killed since the conflict began,” she added.
Ukraine has pounded Russian targets, especially oil facilities and manufacturing plants, with its domestically produced drones. At the same time, the Russian military has intensified its aerial attacks, firing almost 90 missiles as well as hundreds of drones at Kyiv last weekend in an effort to overwhelm air defenses.
