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Ukraine is carrying out strikes on targets deep inside Russian territory.
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Many attacks targeted air bases or energy infrastructure.
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Experts told BI that Ukraine hoped to inflict strategic, economic and psychological damage on Russia.
In late July, Ukraine said it had been hit by a Russian missile Tu-22M3 supersonic bomber at the Olenya air base in Murmansk, a record distance of 1,770 kilometers within Russian territory.
While the news made headlines, it was not the first time that Ukraine reportedly attacked locations deep inside Russia.
In June, the Defense Intelligence Agency GUR said Ukrainian forces hit a prized Russian Su-57 fighter jet stationed at an airfield in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia, about 580 kilometers from the front line.
And in May, the Ukrainian security service said that Ukrainian long-range drone attacks Gazprom oil refinery about 1,500 kilometers away in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan.
Ukraine is currently not authorized to use long-range guided weapons such as ATACMS to attack such targets in Russia.
Instead, it uses cheap, domestically produced drones for long-range attacks, Mark Cancian, senior adviser to the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI.
“They are packed with explosives and flown deep into Russia,” Cancian said.
While attacks on targets so far from the front lines could be seen as an attempt by Ukraine to spread itself, such attacks have three key advantages, experts told BI.
Physical and economic damage
Attacks on military sites, such as air bases or defense industrial facilities, aim to disable or temporarily neutralize assets that Russia uses to facilitate its war against Ukraine.
And even seemingly small strikes can have a big impact.
In the case of the attack on the Olenya air base, which Ukraine later said damaged two Tu-22M3 bombers, Justin Bronk, a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said it would have had a “measurable effect”.
“The active Russian fleet is not large and even the temporary loss of two aircraft for missile launches on Ukraine will have a measurable effect,” he said.
According to John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the strikes at oil refineries are also aimed at “hitting Moscow’s pocketbook.”
Although, he added, the extent to which they have done so is “up for debate.”
Russian oil revenues more than doubled in April compared to last yearBloomberg reported earlier, noting the Kremlin’s apparent success in diverting operations.
Reuters reported in April that Russia also appeared able to quickly repair a number of key refineries damaged by the Ukrainian attacks, cutting capacity from nearly 14% at the end of March to around 10%, according to the agency’s calculations.
Putting pressure on Russian air defenses
Ukraine also hopes to “overwhelm Russian air defenses” with “massive” drone strikes, Hardie said, adding that it “may be difficult for air defense systems to detect and shoot down UAVs that are small or flying low to the ground.”
“Russia has already adjusted its air defense posture after previous drone attacks and has reportedly set up mobile counter-UAS (unmanned aircraft system) teams. But Russia is a big country, so defending everywhere is difficult,” he said.
Moscow also “began developing countermeasures to the long-range UAV threat well after Ukraine did,” Hardie said, and it “has not yet implemented anything resembling the system of low-cost, distributed sensors that Ukraine uses to detect Shahed UAVs.”
According to Bronk, these attacks pose a “serious dilemma” for Russia.
Given the vastness of Russia’s territory and the number of potential targets that could hit Ukraine, “Moscow is forced to protect itself by withdrawing air defense systems from frontline areas, or to leave (domestic targets) undefended, resulting in continuous, disruptive damage,” he said.
Psychological warfare
Deep Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory also pose a serious political problem for the Kremlin: ordinary Russians are beginning to realize that “the state cannot fully defend its own airspace,” Bronk said.
Cancian agreed, saying the “psychological” impact of these attacks was crucial. One of Ukraine’s main goals was “military shame and popular fear,” he said.
It shows the Russian people that “there is a price tag for the attack on Ukraine,” he added.
Read the original article at Company Insider
