Russia also is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region. It has also conducted a devastating aerial campaign against civilian areas in Ukraine.
Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian rocket attack in Poltava region Ukraine.Credit: AP
Missile production
Satellite images show major expansions at five complexes where Russia has made solid-fuel missile engines, indicating the Kremlin plans to significantly boost missile production as it pursues its war in Ukraine, according to a European researcher.
Fabian Hinz, a Berlin-based researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a global security think tank, identified the complexes using Russia media reports and declassified Cold War-era CIA documents that listed facilities where the Soviet Union produced solid-fuel missile engines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Moscow-appointed head of Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Yevgeny Balitsky during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.Credit: AP
The sites are in the Altai Republic in Siberia, Rostov in southern Russia, outside Moscow and St. Petersburg, and in Perm, in western Russia. Satellite photos taken by Maxar Technologies in July, September and October, reviewed by Reuters, show cleared vegetation and extensive new construction next to buildings that Hinz identified as solid-fuel research and production facilities at the five complexes.
Following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered increased funding to expand defense production. “Satellite imagery suggests that solid-propellant rocket motor-production capacity appears to be one focus of this effort,” Hinz wrote in his report, which was published in Military Balance Plus, an IISS blog.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said on Monday that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “strategic mistake” that weakened European unity in the face of Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
In an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Tsahkna said he hoped widespread international criticism of Scholz’s call would dissuade any other European leaders from talking to Putin.
Scholz held a one-hour call with Putin on Friday – his first direct communication with Russia’s leader in almost two years. He defended the call as a way to make clear to Putin that German, European and other support for Ukraine would not wane.
Shlisselburg solid-propellant motor production site, Russia.Credit: Maxar, IISS
But Tsahkna, whose Baltic nation is one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters and one of Moscow’s fiercest critics, said the call had damaged Western efforts to isolate Putin.
“It was a strategic mistake,” he said. “We have had a principle agreed that we keep Putin in isolation.”
Tsahkna said that position should be maintained until Putin showed a willingness to take part in meaningful negotiations and withdraw his troops from Ukraine.
But currently Putin was doing the opposite, Tsahkna said, pointing out that Russia mounted one of its most severe attacks on Ukraine in months in the days after Scholz’s call.
“It just weakened our unity and our positions,” Tsahkna said.
Matthew Lee in Washington, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Danica Kirka in London, Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Karel Janicek in Prague, Czech Republic, contributed.
AP, Reuters
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.
