Ukraine Pounds Russia And Vice Versa. Kyiv’s Blitz Signals A Strategic Shift

Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia, launching hundreds of drones in an attack that killed six on Sunday, the Associated Press reported.

This is considered as one of Ukraine’s largest aerial strikes in its protracted war with Russia, which is in its fourth year.

Ukraine has struck Russia many times this year, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones targeting mainly Russia’s energy facilities. Ukraine is of the view that Russia’s vast energy reservoirs are bankrolling its appetite for war and hence it is unleashing the coordinated strikes on these facilities across Russia.

Kyiv has also made some advances recently by striking military industries. Recently, it also struck depots of Russia’s online retail giant Wildberries, managing to burn merchandise worth billions of dollars. These strikes are aimed at bringing the impact of the war and causing misery to the Russian public, which has also been bearing the economic and military consequences of the conflict, triggered by Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four and a half year ago.

President Vladimir Putin has also shown no leniency in strikes against Ukraine, indicating that Moscow is not at all keen to accommodate global concerns on the prolonged war.

Ukraine also came under Russian attack, with drone strikes destroying homes and torching Kyiv’s landmark book market over the weekend.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it had destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to the AP report. It quoted Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin as saying nearly 600 drones headed toward the Russian capital were detected. A third of those drones were destroyed over the Moscow region itself, according to Russian officials.

An 83-year-old man died after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, Local Governor Andrey Vorobyov also confirmed an attack that sparked a blaze at a Wildberries warehouse in the town of Podolsk.

With the US occupied by the Middle East war, the global community has been by and large ignoring the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that between 30,000 and 50,000 North Korean troops are being deployed in Russia as part of the war.

“If we are talking about crises and escalation in another region – in the Pacific – which could pose a threat to other Asian countries, then North Korea will certainly gain experience in modern warfare under Russia,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.

The Ukrainian president has also repeatedly sought more interceptor missiles from the US, which it says is urgently needed to stop Russian missile attacks, according to a CNN report.

Zelenskyy has also reportedly urged US President Donald Trump to facilitate Elon Musk-backed Starlink’s support for guiding Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russian territory.