While the Russians try to encircle Bachmut, Ukraine is looking more and more across the border. The number of attacks on Russian territory is steadily increasing and the targets are increasingly further from the front.
It seemed that Kiev wanted to reinforce earlier statements by the military intelligence service with a series of drone strikes. It announced on Sunday that Ukraine would strike deep into Russia in the upcoming spring offensive. To frighten the Russians, Russian media were hacked on Tuesday morning to raise the alarm about a missile attack.
On Tuesday morning, an alarming message appeared in Russian media: Pulkovo airport in Saint Petersburg was closed after the approach of an “unmanned aircraft.” Planes were diverted to Moscow for an hour. Then the Kremlin reported that it was “an exercise to test cooperation between air defense and civil aviation.” It was remarkable that it was added that President Vladimir Putin had followed the entire operation live. A president of a country at war normally has other things on his mind than monitoring a simple security drill. And it also came at a bad time.
After all, the message contributed to the panic that had already started in various parts of the country in the morning. In several regions of Russia, the repeated message sounded on radio and TV: “Alarm, alarm. Danger of a major missile strike. Take cover immediately.” The Russian authorities had great difficulty in making it clear that the message was false and that the media had been hacked.
Unseen number of drone attacks
It had therefore been raining attacks on Russian territory all night. In Belgorod, just across the Russian border, three drones were shot down, according to local authorities. TU-141s struck in Krasnodar and in Adygea, 100 kilometers away, east of Crimea. According to Russia, the GPS signal was disrupted, causing them to miss their target. But Ukraine’s attacks – although Kiev, as always, has not confirmed any possible operations in Russia – carried far beyond the border region. In Tuapse, east of the Black Sea, an oil depot belonging to state-owned Rosnef was hit after a drone flew over. A fire raged over an area of 200 square meters. The target was 690 kilometers from the nearest front. A drone was also shot down near Kolomna, barely 110 kilometers from Moscow and therefore about 700 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
Prelude to counter-offensive?
It seems very likely that the wave of drone attacks on the night of February 27-28 was a calling card. On Sunday, the number two of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Vadym Skibitsky, gave details of the earlier announcement that Kiev wants to turn the tide in the spring. The army is currently on the defensive. The situation is especially precarious in the east around Bachmoet. A wave of small groups of Russians make progress in an attempt to encircle the city. The fact that they are only lightly armed leads the Institute for the Study of War to conclude that Russia is still seriously short of heavy equipment and men to make a real breakthrough. The encirclement would also leave the troops vulnerable in the flank.
‘Deeper and deeper into Russia’
According to Skibitsky, the aim is to create a breach in the south between Russia and the troops in the occupied territories and Crimea. The statement was remarkable. In the past, Kiev did everything it could to keep the real plans of attack a secret. The big breakthroughs of the autumn also came after the Russian troops were wrong-footed. It was not struck where it was expected, but where the defenses on the 1,500 kilometers front line were weakest.
Skibitsky also announced that an upcoming offensive will involve attacks on depots and military equipment across the border. Tuesday’s raid seems to be a foretaste of that. A few days earlier, his boss Kyrylo Budanov had said that Ukraine would strike “deeper and deeper” into Russian territory.
First Leopard spotted
The timing of the spring offensive, both stated, will depend on Western arms deliveries. On Tuesday morning, a spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic reported that the first Leopard tanks had been spotted in Bachmut. If that information is correct, it will be sooner than expected. Russian media also cheered on Tuesday after images emerged of “the first destroyed German tank.” The photo shown as evidence was one of a Turkish Leopard2 tank destroyed in Syria.