SINGAPORE, June 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine's plans for a counteroffensive against Russian occupation remain on track, its deputy defence minister told Reuters on Saturday, despite an "unprecedented" wave of missile and drone attacks across the country in recent weeks.
Havrylov called Russia's heavy use of ballistic missiles in May a "last strategic resort" and noted that his country's air defence systems had been "more than 90 percent effective" against the attacks.
For Russia "it was a huge surprise to find that the effectiveness of (their ballistic missiles) was almost zero against modern air defence systems, which we received from our partners," he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday his country was ready to launch a much-awaited counter-offensive.
The addition of modern fighter aircraft such as F-16s would improve the country's air defence capabilities, Havrylov said.
Persons:
Volodymyr V, Havrylov, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ben Wallace, Kanupriya Kapoor, Gerry Doyle, Raju Gopalakrishnan
Organizations:
Reuters, Patriot, IRIS, NATO, British Storm, Thomson
Locations:
SINGAPORE, Ukraine, Kyiv, Singapore, Russia, United States, Germany, Moscow, Vilnius, Lithuania, Crimea