{"id":762090,"date":"2026-09-06T17:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T17:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762090\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T17:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T17:50:17","slug":"nobody-will-win-zelenskyy-adviser-warns-of-mutual-destruction-if-war-with-russia-continues-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762090\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Nobody will win\u2019: Zelenskyy adviser warns of mutual destruction if war with Russia continues | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia and Ukraine are locked in an escalating war of long-range strikes with a growing risk to civilians in which neither side can entirely prevail, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s defence technology adviser.<\/p>\n

Serhii Beskrestnov, widely known by his call sign, Flash, said he was worried about the prospects for Kyiv this winter, and suggested elderly people should be evacuated in case Russian bombing were to knock out the capital\u2019s energy supply.<\/p>\n

However, the rapid wartime evolution also gave Ukraine<\/a> the means to strike back, with plans to launch 1,000 drones a night to strike economic and military targets in Russia and halt its commercial air traffic, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, this is a war of cities, a war of infrastructure,\u201d Beskrestnov told the Guardian, describing a conflict that is essentially deadlocked on the frontline, with civilians at increasing risk hundreds of miles away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this war, nobody will win this game, because both countries, after the war, will have destroyed economics, infrastructures. So it\u2019s stupid. We should stop this war. We proposed to Russia to stop this war, but Russia does not want to stop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The ruins of the Rozetka e-commerce distribution hub in Brovary, Kyiv, after Russian strikes in early August. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Beskrestnov, 51, a radio specialist, was first appointed by the former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov as a technology adviser in January, before being taken on directly in July, after the latter\u2019s dismissal.<\/p>\n

The adviser, who survived a drone attack on his home in April, agreed that \u201cattack had become more powerful than defence\u201d, because both sides\u2019 air defences could not keep up with the number of missiles and drones available.<\/p>\n

Russia could engage in a sustained bombing of electricity, water and heating systems in Kyiv this winter with the high-speed ballistic missiles it was producing at a rate of more than 100 a month, Beskrestnov said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin<\/a> said Russia\u2019s military had been \u201cordered to prepare and carry out mass strikes\u201d on Ukraine\u2019s energy facilities, showing no sign of halting the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s horrible,\u201d Beskrestnov said. \u201cWe are talking about 2 to 3 million people, and Russia understands it can create a disaster in Kyiv.\u201d City authorities should think about evacuating civilians in advance, particularly elderly people, he added, while emphasising he was not making an official statement.<\/p>\n

People gathered outside after a Russian attack in the Solomianskyi district of Kyiv last month. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Ukraine is desperately short of US Patriot air defence interceptors, the main weapon capable of halting ballistic missiles, and Beskrestnov said he was \u201cnot sure\u201d that Zelenskyy could obtain enough from abroad to prevent a crisis. Last month, the president said he wanted to secure 300 Patriot interceptors for the winter.<\/p>\n

Beskrestnov predicted Ukraine would \u201cattack Russia more and more with deep strikes\u201d, continuing a campaign that has resulted in factories, warehouses and oil refineries being bombed. \u201cWe have a target from our president to increase the quantity of attacks to 1,000 a day,\u201d he said, rising from its current level of about 300.<\/p>\n

Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced this week that Ukraine would attempt to use drones to halt civilian aviation in Russia. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Addressing Zelenskyy\u2019s announcement this week that there would be a sustained attempt by Ukraine to halt civil aviation inside Russia with the drones, Beskrestnov said: \u201cI think it\u2019s very simple: it\u2019s not necessary for us to attack an airport, it\u2019s just enough for us to fly at the airport and the airport will be closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia has also made a series of advances that have boosted its attack potential, including its first suspected use of artificial intelligence. Ukrainian investigators concluded that a simple Molniya drone that killed a person near a Zaporizhzhia gas station in July was being guided not by radio but by AI.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n

The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just afraid what happens in the future because I think it\u2019s just a question of time before Russia installs this technology in a Shahed,\u201d he said, referring to the country\u2019s standard long-range drone. It could render Ukraine\u2019s \u201chuge jamming network\u201d obsolete without any radio communication to jam.<\/p>\n

Beskrestnov said Ukraine was working on its own autonomous drones \u2013 \u201cWe have a prototype\u201d \u2013 but that he believed Russia appeared to have more scale right now.<\/p>\n

Russia has also developed a new wave of drones and missiles powered by Chinese-made jet engines that can fly at more than 200mph (320km\/h), faster than the first generation of cheap Shahed interceptors that Ukraine has developed.<\/p>\n

Moscow fired 2,500 jet-powered Shahed drones into Ukraine in August, up from 1,500 in July, and was planning to make \u201cabout 36,000 in 2027\u201d, Beskrestnov said. It also planned to build another 30,000 of the slower piston-engine type next year.<\/p>\n

Jet-powered Shaheds are already being used to threaten Kyiv and other big cities for hours at a time, but they will be complemented by another 10,000 cheap Banderol cruise missiles during 2027, plus a further 10,000 Dan-T missiles, boosting Russia\u2019s ability to bomb Ukraine\u2019s infrastructure.<\/p>\n

People sleeping at Dorohozhychi subway station because of the threat of Russian night attacks. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Four to six Ukrainian companies were working on jet interceptors, Beskrestnov said, but they were \u201cnot ready for final production\u201d, giving Moscow a window of advantage. The adviser would not give a timeframe for when the interceptors would be ready. At present, fighter jets take the lead in shooting down jet drones.<\/p>\n

Civilian casualties have been rising as long-range attacks increase. According to the UN, 437 civilians were killed and 2,610 injured in Ukraine in July (the last month for which figures are available), the highest since March 2022. Accurate figures for Russia are not readily available.<\/p>\n

Beskrestnov said the dismissal of Fedorov as defence minister after a clash with Zelenskyy was \u201ca pity\u201d, though the change in his own role meant the scope of his work had expanded beyond the armed forces to include the national guard and across government.<\/p>\n

His role, he said, was technical and advisory and he sought to avoid becoming embroiled in personality clashes. \u201cDon\u2019t mix me with politics. Politics always has a part of garbage, rubbish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia and Ukraine are locked in an escalating war of long-range strikes with a growing risk to civilians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-762090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}