Ukraine has devastated Russia’s oil export capacity over the past week as its ground forces have stopped Russian advances in their tracks and reclaimed occupied territory.According to one estimate, Ukraine has halved the Russian rate of advance in the past three months.At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has concluded agreements with several Gulf states to export Ukrainian drone know-how in return for joint drone production support.“We already have agreements with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. We are working with Jordan. We are in communication with Kuwait, now also Iraq and Bahrain,” Zelenskyy said in a Wednesday evening video address this week.“They are interested in our experience in countering drones and building a layered system-wide defence against modern threats,” he added.The rate at which Ukraine can produce drones has been key to its success in holding back Russian advances and reclaiming occupied territory, commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii said.“In March, the number of combat sorties of drone interceptors and the number of targets destroyed increased by almost 55% compared to February,” Syrskii wrote on the Telegram messaging platform on Monday.Syrskii has previously said first-person view (FPV), remote-controlled drones are now responsible for 90 percent of Russian casualties.On Thursday, Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Ukraine had also “systematically increased the purchases of engineering mines and ammunition for drones”.He added that purchases in …
