Ukraine Defense Minister Fedorov: Military to Prioritize Russian Mass KIA Casualties, Drones

January 23 ------ Ukraine’s new Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the priorities for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in coming months will be big increases in drone-operating combat units and attack weapons for them with the goal of inflicting at least 50,000 irrecoverable casualties, i.e., KIA (killed in action), on Kremlin forces every month those Russian solders remain on Ukrainian territory.

Fedorov, an IT entrepreneur who formerly served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, officially took over as Minister of Defense following election to the job by Ukraine’s legislature on Jan. 14. His remarks to Kyiv reporters were his first public statement to the media about his plans for the ministry.

Fedorov said his main focus would be systemic reform, modernization, and “comprehensive changes” within the Defense Ministry with the objective of making the AFU more lethal and more capable of sustaining a long, attrition war against Russia. Ukraine’s military already is inflicting more casualties on Russian forces than the Kremlin can replace, around 35,000 soldiers a month, he said.

But to force Russia to the negotiating table or to quit its war in Ukraine and bring the Russian forces home, that figure should rise to 50,000 Russian soldiers killed – not including wounded – every month, Fedorov said. In comments reported by the news platform Babel.ua, Fedorov said: “President Volodymyr Zelensky has set a clear task – to build a system that is capable of stopping the enemy in the sky, [halting its] advance on the ground, strengthening asymmetric and cyber strikes against the enemy and its economy. To make the price of war for Russia such that it will not be able to bear it, and thereby force peace by force.”

Top AFU officers in early January reported their forces in December, primarily using drones, artillery, mortars, and land mines, had almost certainly inflicted 35,000 casualties on mostly attacking Russian forces, and claimed that for the first time in the war, Russian losses had exceeded monthly recruitment figures claimed by Kyiv to be around 33,000 personnel a month.

Source: kyivpost.com