Russia reduces strikes to stockpile drones and missiles ahead of Trump talks, expert warns - video

“The first view is that the Russians are simply lying low ahead of the meeting with [U.S. President Donald] Trump," he said. 

"They don’t want, so to speak, to give him any arguments during negotiations, they don’t want to spoil relations with Trump. Even though they don’t really care much about his opinion, they still don’t want to escalate the situation before the talks.”

Romanenko noted that, excluding today’s attack, Russia has launched 888 drones in August. He also emphasized that missile strikes have decreased:

“In 11 days, no more than five missiles have hit us. This hasn’t happened before. [Russian dictator Vladimir] Putin has reduced the activity of both drone and missile forces to the maximum, lowering the intensity of strikes on Ukraine.”

He explained that in addition to the political factor, this allows the enemy to stockpile forces for future attacks:

“If the talks are unsuccessful, Russia will carry out its threat of launching a thousand drones, let’s say," he added.

"If 888 drones have been launched this month while production last month was 6,400, then the Russians are building up a huge reserve this month. The same goes for missiles. According to the Military Intelligence of Ukraine, the Russians can produce around 150 or more per month, and only five have arrived so far.”

He recalled that the enemy had previously put forward conditions for ending hostilities that Ukraine could never agree to. Therefore, if the talks produce no results, Ukraine should be prepared for much heavier strikes this month.

Earlier, Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Unmanned Systems Forces Commander, Major Robert Madyar (Brovdi), warned of the likelihood that Russia could carry out a simultaneous attack on Ukraine with 1,000 or more drones within a single day.

At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine has found a way to destroy 700–1,000 Russian drones per day.