The recent spate of drone and ATACM and Storm Shadow missile attacks inside Russia on civilian targets — the latest in Kursk and Kazan — are a sign of Ukraine’s declining military capability and desperation. But these are not just Ukrainian attacks. The United States and the United Kingdom also are complicit. Ukraine could not have launched these attacks, including the drone hits in Kazan, without the US and the UK providing intelligence for targeting.

The attacks in Russia this week, including the assassination of General Kirillov, do nothing to advance Ukraine’s strategic or tactical capabilities in its war against Russia. Attacking oil and gas pipelines, oil refineries or power stations, although civilian in nature, are legitimate military targets. Yet, Ukraine is avoiding those, probably because Zelensky and company realize that those sites are protected by robust air defense.

Maria Zakharova summarized the situation:

 “Kyiv is taking out its impotent anger for tangible military defeats on the civilian population of Russia. The strike on the capital of Tatarstan is also a kind of revenge for the successful BRICS summit held in October this year.”

In addition, Zakharova condemned the silence of the West:

“We are outraged by the demonstrative hypocritical silence of the “collective West” and its mass media, which immediately react to any attack by extremists, and especially terrorist attacks in different parts of the world, but in this case they are pretending that nothing is happening with Russia.”

Larry Johnson

Sonar 21