Drones explode over the golden domes of the Kremlin. They hit strategic Russian air bases hundreds of miles from Ukraine. They hit a Moscow tower that housed several government ministry offices, including the one responsible for the military-industrial complex.
And they have arrived at a very high speed from one of the main Russian military headquarters, where officers sitting in large situation rooms with wide screens on its walls directly manage and manage the war in Ukraine .
As Ukraine ramps up its strikes inside Russia’s borders this summer, it is also making clear the nature of its targets: military-aligned sites aiding Moscow’s all-out offensive, which is in th -It’s been 18 months.
“Gradually, the war is returning to Russian territory – to its symbolic centers and military bases,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday evening. “And it’s an inevitable, natural and completely fair process.”
His secret, public acknowledgment of Ukraine’s growing campaign to strike Russia marked a turnaround after months in which Kyiv had maintained a stance of either public silence or obscurity about such attacks.
Hours after his statement, two Russian missiles blew up a residential building and a university complex on Monday in Mr. Zelensky, Kryvyi Rih, which killed at least six people and wounded 75 others, officials said – a deadly reminder that Kyiv’s mostly small-scale strikes on Russia pale in comparison to the destruction Moscow has rained down on Ukraine .
Moscow has used its larger arsenal of missiles, bombs, drones and artillery — with longer ranges and often larger explosives than anything Ukraine can launch — to bomb Ukraine’s cities and towns, every day since when President Vladimir V. Putin ordered the invasion of Russia. The United Nations said until sundayit confirmed that 9,369 civilians were killed in Ukraine and 16,646 others were injured — and it believes “the actual numbers are much higher.”
Ukraine’s attacks on Russia are little more than token retaliation, military analysts say, and could be critical to Kyiv’s broader efforts to degrade the Kremlin’s ability to wage war. They could force Russian military planners to make difficult decisions about how to deploy resources and prompt deep divisions in the Russian command.
Frederick B. Hodges, a retired lieutenant general and former top commander of the US Army in Europe, said the strikes on Russia should be seen in the context of Ukraine’s counter-offensive to regain land occupied by Russia in the south and east of country.
“The only advantage the Russians have is mass,” he said. “Massed infantry and massed artillery.”
The best way to neutralize that advantage is to destroy, degrade or disrupt the headquarters and logistics, he said. The strikes on Russia, in particular, “created priority problems for the Russian high command.”
Every time a drone explodes in the center of Moscow, the Russian capital, the uncertainty about where Ukraine will strike next grows, he said.
The targets chosen by Ukraine are both militarily aligned and cherished by the Kremlin as symbols of modern Russia. Over the weekend, for example, two drones struck the glittering towers of the Moscow City complex, home to some of Europe’s tallest buildings. Built on the banks of the Moskva River since the 1990s, the towers would look at home in London or Manhattan.
Over the years, skyscrapers have become a postcard of the new Russia, meant to reflect the country’s integration into the global economy. But over the years, they have also reflected Moscow’s growing conflict with the West. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, for example, some of the new towers remained empty, filled only by government agencies.
One of the drones hit the offices of the Ministry of Digital Development, which shares a high-rise with the Economy Ministry and the Ministry of Industrial Development, which is responsible for the military-industrial complex. The ministries moved into the tower in 2019, leaving behind their old, cramped Soviet-style offices.
Last week, another drone destroyed a residential building in central Moscow, located near the Russian National Defense Management Center, which serves as the country’s main military headquarters.
Then, on Friday, there was a strike in Taganrog — though Ukraine did not take credit for it — a quaint provincial city in southern Russia that housed a military air base and a port, and in the 19th century was home to playwright Anton. Chekhov. A missile, apparently fired by Russian air defenses, caused extensive damage to a branch of the local fine-arts museum, destroying a wall and roof.
While Ukraine may be showing more transparency about its efforts to bring the war home to Russia, it is still walking a delicate line: Kyiv’s Western allies have long expressed trepidation about being perceived which supports strikes on Russia. That anxiety remains a key reason why the United States has refused to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles despite assurances from Kyiv that it would only use such weapons to target Russians on the ground. of Ukraine.
The Kremlin is quick to blame Ukraine’s allies for the Russian strikes, though it cites no evidence. Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, said without evidence that the strikes were carried out “in coordination with Western curators.”
In fact, Ukrainian officials say it was their Western partners who warned of restraint.
But as the toll grows from Russia’s daily bombing of cities from Odesa to Kyiv and Lviv to Kharkiv, the Zelensky government is trying to use every tool at its disposal to fight back. Alarms blare nightly as air-defense teams scramble to meet incoming Russian ballistic and cruise missiles, and attack drones.
The anger, exhaustion and anguish felt by millions of Ukrainians was captured an animated video issued by the Ukrainian Air Force. It shows a child examining the remains of a house destroyed by Russian bombs, finding a drawing of his family and folding it into the shape of an airplane. The paper plane turns into a fleet of drones, and a series of arrows show the path the fleet is flying. The last line points to Moscow.
While Ukrainian officials do not speak publicly about how the strikes were carried out or about the weapons used – for operational security and to maintain the balance of the Russians – Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Monday that Russians should expect more violence in their country.
“Until the invaders leave Ukrainian territory, until the criminals are punished, there is no safe place in the aggressor state,” said Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence.
The Ukrainian government, with its United24 program to collect private donations, is engaged in an ambitious campaign to expand its fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles, including long-range drones capable of flying more than 600 miles . Kyiv is also developing more sophisticated maritime drones capable of striking Russian ships in Russian ports.
Seven Ukrainian companies were building drones at the start of the war. Today, there are more than 40 with contracts, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine is still overpopulated and overpopulated — Russia expands conscription and the call-up of reservists. But Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts say that the drone strike in Russia, along with other factors, carries a huge psychological impact.
“The increased chance of being forced to fight back, drone attacks on Moscow, extraordinary levels of domestic repression and the recent Wagner uprising have combined to highlight the failure of the Russian state to insulate the population from in war,” the British military defense intelligence agency. reported on Monday.