Ukrainian drone attacks near Moscow are attempts to ‘strike at the Russian psyche’
Mike Brest
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Russian air defenses have largely been able to thwart recent drone attacks near Moscow, but they still demonstrate Ukraine has this new ability to bring the war to them.
Russian forces have largely been able to intercept the drone attacks, which occurred as recently as this past weekend, though it does penetrate the facade propagated by Russian leaders regarding the war, or as they refer to it, “a special military operation,” itself.
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“Ukraine is getting stronger,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during his Sunday night address. “Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process.”
Yurii Ihnat, the Ukrainian Air Force’s spokesman, said the drone attacks, even though frequently neutralized, are aimed to affect Russians who felt that the all-out war was distant, arguing, “Now the war is affecting those who were not concerned.”
There was an explosion early on Sunday in the Moskva-Citi business district, several miles west of the Kremlin, though nobody was hurt, and there was only minor damage. Two drones reached the Kremlin in May, though they were taken down, the most high-profile incident of the sort, but other attacks have targeted buildings near the defense ministry’s headquarters.
John Hardie, an expert with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner, “The goal is more symbolic or psychological, to show the Kremlin and the Russian people that the war can be brought to them.”
Russian officials have characterized these incidents as terrorist attacks.
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“Ukraine is striking back, making a strategic point that Russia is not invulnerable but that Putin is not invulnerable as well. Of course, we saw that with the armed rebellion that happened, what a couple of months now. So I think they’re, they’re punching back, and they’re trying to strike at the Russian psyche in many ways,” former Defense Secretary Mark Esper told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
Dalibor Rohac, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, added, “I think the main rationale for the Ukrainians to be pursuing this strategy is to remind Russians of the fact that they are at war. They are not insulated from it.”