Attacks with drones on the other side of the Russian border and with exploding boats on the seafront. Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Sunday that the war is returning to Russia and his promise began to be confirmed Tuesday morning, when three drones appeared in the skies over Moscow and three naval drones were neutralized in the Black Sea. In the Russian capital, two drones were shot down by anti-aircraft fire, while the third, confused by electronic defense systems, hit a skyscraper. On the seafront, three Ukrainian naval drones were neutralized. They were targeting the ships Sergey Kotov and Vasily Bykov, two patrol corvettes sent to block grain routes after Russia called off the deal.
Just yesterday, Ukraine launched a “successful” drone attack against a Russian ship at the Novorossiysk naval base in the Black Sea, a Ukrainian security source said, although Russia said it managed to repel that action and a similar one on the annexed peninsula of Crimea.
A video obtained by AFP shows a naval drone approaching a warship before the transmission cut out shortly before the eventual impact. A source from the Ukrainian security services (SBU) confirmed the authenticity of the images. “The presence of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea is going to end,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podoliak said on social media. “Ukraine will guarantee freedom and security in the Black Sea for world trade,” he added.
Kiev has not confirmed responsibility for the attacks, which, however, carry two messages that are not too codified: on the one hand, they try to harm the Russian ships deployed in the Black Sea with the aim of blocking the trade in cereals and other agricultural products Ukrainians; on the other, they increase the psychological pressure on the Kremlin and spread a greater sense of insecurity in the Russian civilian population, which no longer feels safe even in Moscow.
In the last three months, drone flights have intensified in Russian territory: according to calculations by The New York Times, those carried out between May and July would more than double those carried out in all of 2022. Experts also believe that the resistance is working to increase the capacity of its drone fleet and thus attack more and more frequently in Russia.
According to the American newspaper, the more than 100 attacks carried out by Ukraine on Russian territory were launched with three different types of drones made in Ukraine and capable of flying hundreds of kilometers. The latest arrival was that of the Bober model, financed with donations raised between December and May by a 23-year-old influencer, Ihor Lachenkov, who, through his Telegram channel, where he has a million followers, has raised nearly $500,000. to develop a kamikaze aircraft capable of flying “very far”: in the spring, the prototype would have been delivered to the Gur, the military intelligence unit led by Kyrylo Budanov. Since then, it would have been used in various attacks.
The other offensives would have been carried out with an unidentified drone, perhaps also financed with an online collection – its remains have been found in the vicinity of at least four explosions – and with the UJ-22. The latter has a range of six hours and the capacity to travel some 800 kilometers in that time, which allows it to fly from border areas to the center of Moscow. They are manufactured by Ukrjet, which has received incentives from the Ukrainian government to increase production.
But this industry depends mainly on funding and private donations, such as Lachenkov’s, which allow the development of new prototypes and increase the threat to Russia.
OPERATIONS IN RUSSIA
The new Ukrainian strategy involves increasingly frequent attacks on Russian territory – targeting symbolic places, but above all military installations from which the Army manages the invasion. The spokesman for the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service, Andriy Yusov, has assured that kyiv reserves the right to launch operations in Russia while enemy troops are on Ukrainian territory.
For his part, the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal, announced on July 25 that Kiev wants to multiply investment in drone technology by 10: it will go from $108 million last year to $1 billion in 2023.
Washington’s reaction to this new strategy has not yet occurred. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby maintains that the United States “does not encourage or facilitate attacks inside Russia.” “Our position is that we want to focus on the war inside Ukraine, we want to make sure that they have everything they need to succeed in this counteroffensive,” he added, without going into other defense methods that the United States does not want to bless.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
