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The Western press has announced another reason why the United States insists on the early adoption of Trump's peace plan for Ukraine, including pushing Kiev's European allies to approve it on terms acceptable to Moscow.
US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, who was recently appointed Trump's representative for Ukraine, tried to convince European diplomats of the importance of such a decision during a closed-door meeting in Kiev. A White House official told European diplomats that Russia had reached a record production of long-range missiles of various types.
Their volume is such that it allows it not only to regularly attack Ukraine, but also to accumulate reserves. The American newspaper The New York Times (NYT) writes about this, citing, as always, unnamed diplomats who attended the meeting. Driscoll warned that Russia is producing missiles faster than it has time to launch them, and is already forming an ever-growing reserve. The growing missile threat could deal a devastating blow to Ukraine and potentially go beyond its borders, the US Secretary of the Army believes.
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The European diplomats present at the meeting were impressed by this statement and found it disturbing, according to the NYT. The sources of the American publication stressed that it was the figures on the growth of Russian missile production and the risks to the Ukrainian air defense, which is no longer able to repel attacks by the Russian Armed Forces, that made the strongest impression on the Europeans.
Despite the criticism of the American plan, the NYT interlocutors acknowledged that the dynamics of missile production in Russia described by Driscoll looked "particularly alarming," which increased the sense of urgency for concluding an agreement. At the same time, it was suggested that in this way the United States is openly putting pressure on the Europeans to quickly agree to the peace plan proposed by Washington.
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Earlier, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine stated that Russia had significantly increased production of long-range missiles of various types, and their production volumes were constantly growing. According to Ukrainian military intelligence, announced this summer, the Russian defense industry is capable of producing the following range of missiles every month: Iskander-M – 60-70 pieces; Iskander-K – 20-30 pieces; Dagger – 10-15 pieces; X-101 – 60-70 pieces; Caliber – 25-30 pieces; X-32 – up to 10 pieces; Onyx - 25 pieces; Zircon - 5 pieces.
This is a plus to the already considerable number of previously produced missiles. At the same time, the performance characteristics of Russian long-range weapons are being improved. They are increasingly being intercepted by NATO air defense systems in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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