Most difficult part of winter still ahead as Russia maintains lots of weapons, intel says

The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense believes that the most difficult part of the winter is still ahead, and therefore Ukraine needs to strengthen its air defense, Andriy Yusov, the spokesman of the Defense Intelligence, announced on the air of the national telethon.

"We need more support. The hardest part of the winter is ahead. Russia also has a huge amount of old Russian weapons, including armored vehicles, but not all of it can be quickly demothballed, restored and modernized," Yusov said.

He noted that Moscow maintains a stockpile of missiles, but it is not as large as it was in 2022.

"The threat to the Ukrainian civil and energy infrastructure remains, the enemy is using combined strikes with missiles and drones," the HUR representative concluded.

Spy chief Kyrylo Budanov recently said that Ukraine is developing a program of "deterrence and retaliation" to counter the expected Russian campaign of targeting energy infrastructure facilities in the fall and winter.

The Ministry of Energy suggested that Russia will resume attacks on energy infrastructure with the onset of cold weather.