Ukraine using drones to 'great effect' on Russian forces: Pentagon updates

The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine's efforts to resist.

Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Friday:

Russia flying 20 times as many sorties as Ukraine

Russian military planes are flying an average of 200 sorties per day, compared to only about 10 per day flown by Ukraine, according to the official.

Much of the airspace above Ukraine is heavily guarded by both Ukrainian and Russian surface-to-air missiles, making air operations risky for both sides.

But Russian aircraft don't have to enter Ukrainian airspace to do damage.

"You can launch cruise missiles from aircraft from a great distance away. And if your target is relatively close, you don't need to enter the airspace," the official said.

For the first time, the official gave details on the total number of functioning Ukrainian fighter jets and how much they're being used.

"They have 56 available to them now, fully operational, and they're only flying them five to 10 hours a day," the official said.
Ukraine needs drones, not jets: Official

Noting Russia's vast umbrella of anti-aircraft capability over Ukraine and its larger air force, the official repeated some of the arguments we heard from the Pentagon earlier this week about the relative ineffectiveness of sending more aircraft to Ukraine.

"It makes little sense to us that additional fixed-wing aircraft is going to have somehow solve all these problems. What they need are surface-to-air missile systems, they need MANPADS, they need anti-armor, and they need small arms and ammunition, and they need these drones, because that's what they're using with great effect. And so, that's what we're focused on," the official said.

Ukrainian forces are making "terrific" use of drones, especially against Russian ground movements, according to the official. The drones can be also used both for reconnaissance and surveillance.

"They're trained on how to use them, they can fly below radar coverage by the Russians," the official said.

They are also much cheaper than fighter aircraft, and being unmanned, don't risk pilots being killed or captured.
Chemical weapons and false flags

The official said that despite claims from China and Russia, the U.S. is not helping Ukraine create or use any chemical or biological weapons.

"This is bio research with regard to two things: One, helping Ukraine over the years decrease the pathogen inventory that they had under Soviet years, and then to develop strategies to defeat pathogens going forward," the official said. "It's scientific research, it's not bio-weapons capabilities."

The official said the U.S. has nothing to hide, and that information on its role in scientific work in Ukraine was already publicly available.

"The only reason why we elevated the discussion is because the Russians and the Chinese decided to lie about it -- just flat out lie," the official said.

The official would not offer any U.S. intelligence assessment of the likelihood of Russian President Vladimir Putin deploying chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine.

"We know that the Russians have had -- and we assess that they still have -- a sophisticated chemical and biological weapons program. I'm not going to talk about intelligence assessments about what they may do with that program or what, if any, designs they might have on Ukraine in that regard," the official said.

The official said Russia's "ridiculous narrative" could possibly "be building a pretext for some sort of false flag event."