MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. The deliveries of Turkish strike drones to Ukraine may destabilize the situation at the contact line in the Donbass region, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
"We really have special and good relations with Turkey but this case, unfortunately, confirms our concerns that the deliveries of such armaments to the Ukrainian military may potentially destabilize the situation at the engagement line," the Russian presidential spokesman said, responding to a request to comment on the use of Turkish strike drones by the Ukrainian armed forces.
"We see that as soon as these armaments fall into the hands of the military, they potentially may be used in that area in Ukraine and this only destabilizes the situation," Peskov pointed out.
As the Kremlin spokesman stressed, "this does not contribute to settling this intra-Ukrainian problem."
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed on October 26 that the military had employed a Turkish Bayraktar combat drone in the Donbass area for the first time.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry announced on December 14, 2020 that it had signed a deal with Turkey on the production of corvettes and strike drones for the Ukrainian army. In 2019, Kiev purchased and tested Bayraktar drones that are intended to be furnished with MAM-L precision air bombs produced by the Turkish company Roketsan. According to unofficial data, the deal was worth $69 million.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Andrei Taran said on October 13 that the Turkish drone producer would build a maintenance and training center in Ukraine.