Putin Claims 700,000 Troops in Ukraine and New AI Drones

Vladimir Putin has announced new military and technological ambitions in the context of the war in Ukraine. According to Putin, Moscow is developing a satellite system to control combat drones while building its own constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, which he said should be capable of competing with the Starlink system used extensively in Ukrainian military operations.

Putin also said Russia is working intensively on the production of drones equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities, and revealed that the number of Russian troops deployed in Ukraine has exceeded 700,000.

While acknowledging that Ukrainian strikes are causing damage to the Russian economy, Putin claimed the country is recovering quickly. Moscow, he said, plans to respond by further increasing the number of strikes against Ukrainian targets.

(reuters, mja)