Zelensky hints at ‘asymmetrical responses’ to Russia’s attacks
Joel Gehrke
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Ukraine is planning “asymmetrical responses” to Russia‘s persistent bombardment of civilian energy infrastructure, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“This Russian terror requires asymmetrical responses,” Zelensky said in his Thursday address. “We need a new movement of our forces at the front. We need to ensure the defeat of the terrorists’ ground forces. Whatever the Russian occupiers are planning, our preparation must be stronger.”
Ukrainian forces are expected to attempt to renew their counteroffensive against the invading Russian troops, empowered by the Western main battle tanks that several NATO members have promised to provide over the coming months. Yet Zelensky’s reference to “asymmetrical” raises the possibility of more covert operations against Russia, particularly following statements from his team that forecast attacks on Russian cities.
“Nevertheless, military escalation inside Russia is inevitable,” one of Zelensky’s advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, said this week. “As part of it, cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and others — those lazy, coddled cities convinced that they inhabit a different reality — will be affected too.”
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Podolyak maintained that Ukrainian forces would not conduct those attacks. “The war will move completely and totally to the Russian territory and will be conducted not so much by means of Ukrainian military as by internal means related to protest,” he said, according to a translation by Meduza, a website of “Russia’s free press in-exile” based in Latvia. “Regardless of Ukraine, internal military escalation in Russia is imminent, and there will be strikes on different targets.”
That forecast comes weeks after the release of a documentary claiming that about 30 “cells” of dissident Russians are responsible for fires and other incidents across the country.
“There’s this thing like, ‘Well, it must be the CIA,’” British documentarian Jake Hanrahan told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded outlet. “How about, ‘No’? How about some Russians are genuinely so sick of Putin that they’re going to do something about it.”
Russia and Ukraine both have attempted to deny responsibility for at least some attacks during the war. President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly believes that Ukraine is responsible for a car bombing that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent ultranationalist Russian intellectual.
Zelensky kept the spotlight on the need for weapons to drive back the Russian forces and thwart a fresh offensive that the Kremlin is expected to unleash this spring. Ukrainian troops currently are attempting to fend off an attack on Vuhledar, a city in Donetsk, one of the regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed as new Russian territory to be seized from Ukraine.
“The capture of Vuhledar will significantly improve the strategic position of the Russian army in the Donbas, and will allow the defense to be deepened,” a Ukrainian military reporter wrote on social media, according to the War Translated project. “The goal of the Russian command in the 2023 campaign is to capture the entire Donbas, or push our army away from the Crimean corridor. To capture Vuhledar, the Russians concentrated their best forces — brigades of marines and airborne troops, ammunition stocks.”
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Zelensky acknowledged that clash in his latest statement. “I am grateful to all our units who demonstrate the resilience Ukraine needs, exhausting the occupier and destroying it,” he said. “The more Russia loses in this battle for Donbas, the less its overall potential will be.”