Ukrainian strikes inside Russia and Moscow-controlled territory are an increasingly common feature of the war, and Kyiv has effectively served notice that the attacks will continue, with President Volodymyr Zelensky declaring the conflict is «returning to Russia.»
Here’s what we know about some of the recent attacks:
- Sunday’s bridge strikes: Missiles rocked a pair of bridges linking occupied regions of Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014. Ukraine’s military said the strikes «hit two key routes of communication» for Russia. Kyiv has made it clear that it will prioritize cutting off the annexed peninsula from land newly captured since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of 2022.
- Attacks at sea: Ukraine hit one of Russia’s largest oil tankers with a sea drone late Friday, within 24 hours of an attack on a naval base in Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. The first assault left a Russian warship badly damaged. The attacks were carried out using an emerging Ukrainian tool: sea drones that can travel long distances and have proven difficult to defend.
- Drones cross the border: A string of aerial drone strikes have also peppered Russian cities, including Moscow, throughout the summer. Though recent strikes on the Russian capital did not reportedly cause any injuries or fatalities, they have unsettled residents and created a sense that the scope of the conflict is drifting across the border. On Sunday, an attempted Ukrainian drone attack briefly halted traffic at an airport in Moscow, according to the city’s mayor.
- Ukraine says more is coming: Ukraine on Saturday pledged there would be more attacks on Russian shipping in the Black Sea and another key bridge to Crimea — the structure linking the peninsula to mainland Russia, which Kyiv has also targeted on multiple occasions. Any explosions that happen on Russia’s ships or bridges in the region are «an absolutely logical and effective step,» the head of the Ukrainian Security Service said this week. If Russia wants such explosions to stop, he added, «they have the only option to do so — to leave the territorial waters of Ukraine and our land.»
