Ukraine army chief vows to expand strikes on Russia

KIEV

Ukraine's top military commander vowed to increase the "scale and depth" of strikes on Russia in remarks made public on June 22.

He said the strikes were proving "effective" and that Kiev would only attack military targets.

"Of course, we will continue. We will increase the scale and depth," Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky told reporters.

His comments came amid a lull in diplomatic efforts to end the three-year-long war. The last direct meeting between the two sides was almost three weeks ago and no follow-up talks have been scheduled.

"We will not just sit in defense. Because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories," Syrsky said.

In wide-ranging remarks, Syrsky also conceded that Russia had some advantages in drone warfare, particularly in making fiber-optic drones which are tethered and difficult to jam.

"Here, unfortunately, they have an advantage in both the number and range of their use," he said.

He also claimed that Ukraine still held 90 square kilometers of territory in Russia's Kursk region, where Kiev launched an audacious cross-border incursion last August.

"These are our preemptive actions in response to a possible enemy offensive," he said.

Russia said in April that it had gained full control of the Kursk region and denies that Kiev has a presence there.

Moscow currently occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and has claimed four Ukrainian regions as its own since launching its invasion in 2022, in addition to Crimea, which it captured in 2014.

Kiev has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging a peace deal to prolong its full-scale offensive on the country and to seize more territory.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Western firms of supplying Russia with "machine tools" used to make weapons, in remarks made public on June 21.

He said companies from Germany, the Czech Republic, South Korea and Japan were among them, as well as one business "supplying a small number of components from the United States."

"The Russian Federation receives machine tools from some countries, machine tools that they use to manufacture weapons," Zelensky said.

He said most of the companies supplying tools to Russia were from China, but that dozens of Western firms were also culpable.

"We have passed on all this information to all countries, our partners, everyone... We strongly urge everyone to impose sanctions on these companies," the Ukrainian leader added.

The Czech Republic said it was "completely open" to reviewing Ukraine's evidence, but that it could not respond to general allegations.

"I would add that Czechia keeps looking for ways to minimize the bypassing of sanctions," Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said in a comment to AFP via his spokeswoman.