For more than a year after Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin launched his brutal and unprovoked war against neighboring Ukraine, Russia has launched attacks from behind its borders as a "safe zone" away from possible attack. Ukraine is stepping up its offensive on the ground and now for the first time, with the aid of drones and other long-range devices, putting Russian airfields, ammunition dumps and military facilities in their cross hairs:
"Russia has seen a sharp rise in unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, carrying out assaults on western, central and southern Russian regions as well as the capital Moscow and Russian-occupied Crimea in recent weeks.
While Ukraine is continuing a counteroffensive on its own soil to regain Russian-occupied territory in the south and east of the country, and aiming to break Russia's so-called land-bridge to occupied Crimea, the increasing use of drones to assault Russian soil shows another facet of Ukraine's military strategy.
'The war is coming home to Russia,' Timothy Ash, emerging markets strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, said in emailed comments Wednesday.
'Ukraine is demonstrating that it can make life very difficult for Russia, Russians and Putin,' he added." (our emphasis)
Ukraine is significantly increasing its production of drones, and has announced the development of a long-range weapon able to strike targets 435 mile away:
"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Thursday that his country has developed a long-range weapon that can hit targets up to 400 miles away, signaling potential responsibility for a strike on a Russian airport near Estonia on Wednesday.
The Wednesday strikes hit targets in four regions all over southern Russia, as well as Moscow and the airport in Pskov.
Pskov is about 400 miles from the Ukrainian border. Russia says that Ukraine is responsible for the attacks, while the country has not claimed responsibility."
It's past time that the Biden Administration provide Ukraine with the long range rocket artillery ATACMS system that can reach targets in occupied Crimea and force Russia to adjust its tactics and strategy. Fearful of Putin's response, we won't permit Ukraine to fire ATACMS into Russia, but it will put strong pressure on the invaders who enjoy an advantage in artillery.
