Kyiv, Ukraine β Slovakia's prime minister Robert Fico has called on the European Union to end sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports in order to tackle the energy crisis stemming from the war in Iran.
Fico said in a statement after a call with Hungarian prime minister Viktor OrbΓ‘n that the EU should renew dialogue with Russia so member states can get missing gas and oil supplies from all sources, including Russia. Hungary and Slovakia's leaders are outliers in the EU for maintaining relations with Moscow.
Oil prices have surged since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on 28 February, holding up shipments from the Gulf and creating what the International Energy Agency has called the biggest oil supply disruption in history.
Key developments:
- Slovakia PM calls on EU to lift Russian oil and gas sanctions amid global energy crisis
- Ukraine's ground robots now account for 90% of army logistics; "frontline is like Terminator"
- Russian drone strike kills five, wounds 25 at market in Nikopol, eastern Ukraine
- Ukraine intercepts 260 of 286 Russian drones launched overnight
- Zelenskyy announces greater security cooperation with Turkey in Istanbul meeting
- US envoys Witkoff and Kushner could visit Kyiv in April for peace talks
- Ukrainian forces hit railroad infrastructure in occupied Luhansk, killing family of three
Ukraine's Robot Revolution
Victor Pavlov showed off Ukraine's newest and most versatile weapon: a battery-powered land robot. The unmanned ground vehicles come in various shapes and sizes. One runs on caterpillar tracks and resembles a roofless milk float. Another has wheels and antennas. A third carries anti-tank mines. Since spring 2024 their use has grown exponentially.
"This is what modern warfare looks like. Armies everywhere will have to robotise," said Pavlov, a lieutenant with Ukraine's 3rd army corps.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine is now in its fifth year and the conflict β Europe's biggest since 1945 β has seen an astonishing transformation of battlefield weapons and tactics. The war has become a technological contest, fought not with expensive tanks but with cheap and expendable drones that can deliver bombs with deadly accuracy.
'The Frontline is Like Terminator'
"It's not Star Wars, where there are lots of lasers. The frontline is more like Terminator. A land robot arrives at your position and there is nothing you can do about it," said Bambi, a drone operator with the 25th airborne brigade.
He added: "You can shoot a person in the chest and they stop firing. If you shoot a ground robot it doesn't feel pain. There is a guy looking at a screen who is going to fire back."
Land robots now account for 90% of Ukrainian army logistics. "It's very difficult to move around because of enemy first-person-view drones. So we use robotic systems," said Pavlov. In January, Ukraine's armed forces carried out a record 7,000 operations using ground vehicles.
Robots are increasingly taking a key role in combat and replacing human infantry. They have been kitted out with remote control machine guns and grenade launchers. One system β a DevDroid TW 12.7 β defended a position for 45 days. Last summer a kamikaze robot carrying 200kg of explosives trundled 12 miles to a school building used by Russian troops and blew it up.
Zelenskyy Seeks Turkey Cooperation
Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced greater security cooperation with Turkey after meeting his counterpart Recep Tayyip ErdoΔan in Istanbul on Saturday, as Kyiv seeks to leverage its wartime knowhow on the international stage.
"This applies above all to the areas in which we can support Turkey: expertise, technology and experience," the Ukrainian president wrote on Telegram. Erdogan told Zelenskyy that Turkey would continue to support negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to end their war, the Turkish presidency said.
US Envoys May Visit Kyiv
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner could travel to Kyiv in April, the Ukrainian president's top aide Kyrylo Budanov has said, amid efforts to revive peace talks with Russia which stalled after the outbreak of war in the Gulf.
"Kushner, Witkoff, Lindsey Graham β those are the ones expected to come. Who else will be there, we'll see," Budanov told Bloomberg, adding that the meeting could take place shortly after Orthodox Easter on 12 April.
Deadly Russian Strikes
A Russian drone hit a covered market in the eastern Ukrainian city of Nikopol on Saturday, killing five people and wounding 25, officials said. Russia has been firing aerial broadsides at Ukraine throughout its more than four-year invasion, mostly at night, but in recent weeks it has stepped up daytime attacks.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 286 drones overnight, of which 260 were intercepted. In the city of Sumy, not far from the border with Russia, a strike wounded 11 people, the national police said.
The Russian-installed head of the occupied Luhansk region, Leonid Pasechnik, said Ukrainian forces hit railroad infrastructure in the region and private houses, killing a family of three β a couple and their 8-year-old child.
Ukraine's Drone Expertise Sought Globally
Ukraine's drone expertise is now highly sought after amid the US-Israeli war against Iran. Last week Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed 10-year defence agreements with several Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to provide them with low-cost Ukrainian interceptors capable of shooting down long-range kamikaze Shahed drones.
Stay updated with the latest developments on the Russia-Ukraine war on our Russia-Ukraine War Page.
