All the deadly drones Ukraine is building to fight Russia can't make up for the weapons it really needs but doesn't have, Zelenskyy says

• Ukraine has built up a formidable arsenal of drones capable of attacking Russian forces everywhere.
• But these systems are no alternative to the other weapons Kyiv needs, President Zelenskyy said Tuesday.

Ukraine has made impressive strides in its employment of homemade drones to battle the invading Russian forces, but for Kyiv, these systems are still no substitute for the weapons it desperately needs right now.

"We produce a lot of drones, but they are not an alternative to any kind of weapon," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during an interview with Axel Springer media outlets in the northeastern city of Kharkiv on Tuesday.

"We are proving ourselves with drones, and I think the fact that we have increased production helps us a lot," Zelenskyy added, "but it is not a substitute for air defense, it is not a substitute for long-range weapons, missiles, long-range artillery."

Drones have been a defining aspect of the bloody war in Ukraine, with deadly systems of all shapes and sizes used to attack the enemy on land, in the skies, and at sea. Both Moscow and Kyiv have launched efforts to boost their respective domestic production of drones, which have hindered maneuver by effectively stripping both sides of the ability to make covert moves on the battlefield.

Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian minister of digital transformation who has been a key figure in the country's efforts to scale up its drone innovation and production, said earlier this year that Kyiv plans to make more than 1 million drones in 2024. The development of long-range systems is one key aspect of this initiative.

Ukraine's domestic drone program has, in recent months, awarded it some crucial success as the war grinds on the battlefield. Kyiv, for instance, has relied on an innovative fleet of exploding naval drones to damage and destroy warships belonging to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which has helped ease some economic burdens by opening key maritime corridors.

And that's just one element of this effort that has also turned out thousands of first-person-view drones able to drop grenades or carry explosives on one-way attack missions that have devastated expensive armored vehicles like tanks.

That said, Kyiv's drone program does not make up for the weapons that the country really needs but doesn't have in its arsenal. Ukrainian officials, including Zelenskyy, have repeatedly identified air-defense systems as one of their most pressing needs to shield both front-line troops and civilians in Ukrainian cities from Russia's aerial bombardments.

Speaking to reporters at the NATO headquarters in Brussels last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he urged members of the military alliance to provide Kyiv with new air defenses. He singled out the US-made MIM-104 Patriot as "the best" of them because of its effectiveness at downing ballistic missiles.

"Patriots should now be deployed in Ukraine, so that later on they will not have to be used at least along the entire eastern flank of NATO," Zelenskyy said in a Sunday address to the nation. He said that additional air defenses are needed around Kharkiv, which has fallen victim to unrelenting Russian attacks in recent weeks.

The future of US security assistance to Ukraine, however, remains in flux as Republican lawmakers maintain their blockade on around $60 billion in military aid. Western experts and officials have warned it is critical that Washington continues to arm Kyiv.

For Zelenskyy, such Western support is imperative because he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not put a stop to the onslaught until Ukrainian cities are left completely in ruin.

"If we don't have air-defense systems and the appropriate long-range weapons to match Putin, he will destroy our country," Zelenskyy said Tuesday. "This is what this war will look like: complete destruction, destruction of border areas, cities, villages, and so on."

"He will destroy everything," the Ukrainian leader said.