Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zalinski says he’ll travel to Turkey on Thursday to take part in peace talks proposed by Russia and he’s called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet him in person. After more than 3 years of war, Russia’s continuing to take Ukrainian land in grinding battles along the front line. It’s taken about 20% of Ukrainian territory shown here in red. Ukrainian troops on the other hand took control of parts of Russia’s Kursk region last year seen here in blue. But Keev has only been able to hold on to a sliver of that. Now there are no independently verified casualty figures, but Russia is estimated to have lost somewhere between 200 and 250,000 troops. In February, uh President Zilinski said Ukraine had lost 46,000, but experts believe the number to be much higher. And let’s not forget civilian deaths. About 13,000 Ukrainian cit civilians have been killed in Russia’s full-scale invasion. Since Ukraine is outmanned and outgunned by Russia’s much larger army, it’s concentrated on developing high techch weapons. My correspondent Xander has more on a newly developed long range military drone. Deployed under the cover of darkness, these long range drones are heading across the border into Russia. The Liut drone is one of many Ukrainian developments used against enemy targets. Researchers are working on other drone programs, small and large. [Music] 100 is the lead engineer. This drone he is working on has a range of 3,000 kilometers. The Russians move their air defense systems during our flight. And it’s very important to maintain communication with our drones even at a distance, but there are ways to contact them and adjust their mission so they don’t pass through a danger area if we know about it in advance. Drones have been used successfully against Russian infrastructure such as oil refineries. Ukrainian attacks are credited with reducing Russian oil revenues by 10%. The company ZSS holding manufactures 30 of these drones a month as well as smaller UAVs. Scaling up production is a challenge. A lot depends on foreign suppliers, delivery conditions, and prices. Often now businesses are faced with the fact that funding from the state is pretty small. So they have to cover costs themselves and this must be done not only for profit but simply because the war continues. It’s also difficult finding foreign investors. Even though the founder says much could be learned from Ukraine as a drone developer. We develop a drone. We have a project. We go to the military. We give it to special forces and they test everything and then give us their feedback and we get some information from this which we then use for modernization. Other countries cannot do this. Ukraine doesn’t have enough of many modern western weapons like cruise missiles. And yet drones are not only a cheaper option. Developers here say drones however are cheaper than missiles. If airplanes cost millions then missiles cost billions. Look at drones. They will never be replaced by anything and they are unlikely to replace the same missiles. Drones can simply occupy a niche between cruise missiles and missiles. They say the industry needs to produce 10,000 long range drones each month to satisfy the demand of the armed forces. Let’s look at this with Frank Sliper who is an arms control expert with the Dutch peace organization of PAX. Welcome to DW. Could you give us a sense of how important drones are for both sides in this war? They’re extremely re important for for both sides as we’ve seen um in particular as as the conflict is going on. Uh both sides have have invested heavily in in both uh very small uh controlled um drones that that are used for uh very close by attacks but also uh in into very long range drones and as you indicate that even up to a distance of 3,000 kilometers which is really really uh very huge and very deep into uh Russia. Right. So they can go far and are they accurate? How are they controlled? Um they’re mostly controlled remotely by by a controller and uh as we’ve seen so far with with drones that cover a little bit uh shorter distance. They they’re mostly quite accurate uh given the fact that they’ve been targeting both ammunition depots um oil um infrastructure in uh in in Russia um with significant effect. Uh we saw in the uh report Ukrainian manufacturers producing and refining these weapons. What’s happening on the Russian side? Who’s supplying them? And are they being uh developed and red uh uh and refined in a similar way? Yeah, to a large extent uh they they follow each other’s developments very closely. Of course, um initially the Russians were very uh dependent on Iranianmade Shahed drones in particular. Um but over over the course of time, Russia has invested a lot of money in in their own development as as well. And there’s a couple of uh companies that uh that that a bit like like Ukraine um both develop uh these first person few very small drones um but in in all the ranges up to uh the the longer distance uh drones. So this technology is being developed in this this this hot war this shooting war. Do you worry about this technology being utilized in other conflicts? Yes. Yes. I mean uh indeed this is a pretty new uh feature of of the war in in Ukraine. uh but already we are seeing uh similar sort of developments in in Sudan where uh both the Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces uh the two uh main uh opposing forces are u using lots and lots of drones in in attacking uh each other’s uh positions and um yeah we are indeed afraid that without proper controls ideally set by the international community. The the further development of drones may may completely go out of hand and make them accessible basically to uh any party in any conflict. And uh this is definitely not uh reducing um uh casualties. uh it’s it’s actually uh risking uh causing a lot more casualties because the technology is so easy to to uh obtain and to uh use in conflict and are there proper controls and are those controls uh being adhered to by waring parties? Um there is the arms trade treaty which is uh the main arms export control uh treaty. Uh but um a lot of countries are not party to that treaty. Not Ukraine, not Russia, not Sudan. Um and not the uh the countries supplying the rapid support forces in Sudan. So that that is a problem. Um and also because drones in in many ways are a relatively new technology that is not necessarily covered by um the current the existing arms export control um framework. So um there’s a lot of work to be done uh in in that area. Okay. Thank you for talking us through that. Frank Siper from the Dutch peace organization packs. Thank you so much. Now there’s still no word from Russia about a ceasefire or peace talks. Ukrainian President Volunteer Zilinski says Moscow has not responded to his proposal to meet for talks with Vladimir Putin in Turkey on Thursday. US President Donald Trump also offered to join those talks if they take place. The Kremlin, meanwhile, missed a deadline to start a 30-day ceasefire or face new sanctions by European countries. A joint statement from European leaders meeting in London accused Russia of not showing any serious intent to make progress on the deal. As the date approaches for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine’s President Wadimmer Zalinski stresses that he expects to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin face to face. Ukraine has always supported diplomacy. I am ready to go to Turkey. Unfortunately, the world still hasn’t received a clear response from Russia regarding numerous proposals for a ceasefire. Russian shelling and assaults continue. Moscow has remained silent all day regarding the proposal for a direct meeting. Meanwhile, Russia says its foreign minister Serge Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart have discussed the talks with Ukraine but gave no further details. The Russian president was the one who proposed that Ukraine and Russia hold direct talks in Istanbul on May 15th. However, it was not clear that Putin had proposed to attend in person. The US President Donald Trump said that he thinks both Zilinski and Putin would show up. Trump even suggested that he could attend the meeting as well. I think you may have a good result out of the Thursday meeting in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine and I believe the two leaders were going to be there. I was thinking about flying over. I don’t know where I’m going to be on Thursday. I’ve got so many meetings, but uh I was thinking about actually flying over there. It remains unclear who exactly Russia would send to the talks, but if the talks go ahead, this would be the first direct meeting between Russia and Ukraine since the early weeks of the full-scale war back in 20122. And joining me here in the studio is Mikola Biliskov. He works at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, which is attached to the office of the Ukrainian President, and he’s also a senior analyst with the Come Back Alive charity. Welcome. Now, Russia did not respond to a Monday ultimatum for a 30-day ceasefire. What does that tell us about Russia’s willingness to have direct talks with Ukraine? It means that Russia thinks that the price of the absence of agreement is bearable for them. So, we basically need to implement sanctions, implement pressure, which was stated before. Basically, we need to change their calculation because right now Moscow thinks that if there is no agreement, it’s acceptable for them. You’re talking about sanctions. I think the European Union was talking about passing the 17th package of sanctions. Why do we believe that that is going to change Russia’s behavior now? Uh well, there is one powerful actions that can be done immediately. It’s taking frozen assets and giving them to Ukraine. It would be both a major blow to Russia and major boost for Ukraine. So that’s the single actions that can in my opinion be a powerful signal to Kremlin in terms of Russia in terms of unity to support Ukraine. This is not the first time this suggestion has been brought up. this has been coming it’s been there for the past 3 years it’s coming coming up at various points yet you’re making this suggestion to me here now what does that tell you about the kind of support that the west is providing Ukraine uh well it’s really difficult to build consensus uh unfortunately that’s I would say the downside of democracy you spend a lot of time to build consensus it requires a lot of effort but uh that’s a natural thing so yes I can criticize our partners but uh we should uh preserve unity unity of transatlantic coalition of Europe is most important scene in strategy towards Russia. President Trump is very optimistic about these potential talks that might happen in Turkey on Thursday. Will these talks even happen given that you’re saying that Russia can bear the cost of sanctions and any other actions against it? Unfortunately, we’re not sure. Um but we use every single opportunity. So in this case we exploit first Putin statement then Ukrainian readiness to come at the very highest level and then Trump hinting that he can come. So we create a kind of condition that uh Putin can turn down easily. So let’s look at Russia right now. We’re talking about President Putin who has just hosted Xi Jinping of China in Moscow for the victory day parade. You have President Trump who is arguably tougher on Ukraine than on Moscow. Using President Trump’s language, it would appear President Putin has all the cards. I don’t think so. Ukrainians are ready to fight and we see a powerful signal of unity of support to Ukraine last weekend when there was European leaders coming to K. And in terms of immediate ceasefire before any meaningful negotiation, there is a transatlantic unity. So this is an idea that Trump subscribe, European leaders subscribe and Ukraine subscribe to. If these talks do go ahead on Thursday, what will Ukraine bring to the table? What will be Ukraine’s demands? Uh Ukraine demands a very simple one. We want sovereignty and security to be preserved. So these are the conditions that can be surrendered. We can’t make any compromises on them. Otherwise, we can negotiate. We already said that in terms of territorial dimension, we are ready to pursue political diplomatic uh means to recover them, not military means. But sovereignty and security are most important one. Sovereignty and security. Let’s look at uh what President Trump’s proposed peace plan was before these talks. He was talking about potential recognition of Russian control over Crimea and Russian control over four eastern Ukrainian territories. There is also no commitment from the United States about any security guarantee for Ukraine in any shape or form after any sort of talks. Where does that leave Ukraine? Well, on the other side, there is no pressure to Ukraine to limit its own armed forces and there is readiness to support Ukrainian armed forces development in different ways. Yes, there are differences uh about NATO membership. Unfortunately, Trump is very critical of NATO in general and Ukraine prospects to join NATO with regards to territorial. mention again Trump is very wagu I mean we haven’t heard any specific terms and I think for us it would be also very risky to legally recognize either control of Crimea or any uh conquered territory since 2022 we’ll leave it there for the moment thanks so much for coming into the studio for