When it comes to the fog of war in 2024, it doesn’t get much denser than in the skies above Belgorod, the Russian region that borders eastern Ukraine. That is where on Wednesday a military transport plane Russia said was carrying 74 people, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war to be swapped, crashed, killing everyone on board — according to a regional Russian governor, that is. 

“An Il-76 airplane crashed in the Belgorod region at around 11:00 a.m. Moscow time while performing a scheduled flight,” a Russian defense ministry statement said. However, a Ukrainian newspaper reported that the four-engine plane was actually carrying a number of S-300 missiles.  

Early Ukrainian press reports indicated that Ukrainian forces may have downed the plane, but those claims could not be immediately corroborated. The Associated Press reported that two senior Russian lawmakers alleged, without providing evidence, that the plane was brought down by missiles launched by Ukrainian forces.

Video of the crash posted on social media showed a plane falling from the sky in a snowy, rural area, and a massive ball of fire erupting where it apparently hit the ground. Via Telegram, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said that it was investigating the information about prisoners, but offered little else. 

So, other than Russia having one less $10 million cargo plane in its aging airborne fleet, what really is going on here? 

Earlier this month, Kyiv claimed to have shot  down two Russian command and control planes. Ukraine recently has increased its attacks on Russia’s Belgorod region, a Russian staging ground for attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. 

The deadliest of those was one month ago, when 21 people were killed in Belgorod city. Last week, Ukrainian shelling took the lives of at least 25 people in the Russian-held portion of Donetsk. 

As the country remains fractured, all of this means more pain for Ukraine. Obscuring it is a change of tactics by Kyiv. President Zelensky knows that a frontline  stalemate is yesterday’s news. This positional confrontation continues. However, the Russian army has recently achieved some small tactical gains at the cost of thousands of its soldiers. After three months, it may  be closing in on Avdiivka.

Ukraine is running against the Kremlin, but also against the clock. Mr. Zelensky fears the West will not give military assistance to Ukraine indefinitely. Military planners likely sense that they need to freeze the situation at the front. Doing so could mute criticisms of those dissatisfied with Western support of Ukraine. It might spur quarreling Western elites to calm down and reach a consensus about resuming arms supplies to Kyiv.

Given this new state of play, it appears from recent attacks in Belgorod and in Donetsk that a decision has been made to switch gears to more aggressive cross-border action. The goal is to try to destabilize Russia’s war machine. 

As Sunday’s attack on Donetsk city demonstrated, that includes targeted attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure in areas illegally annexed by Russia. Conceivably, it could include downing Russian planes that are concealing lethal military hardware for use against Ukrainian  targets. 

Is this getting messy? Worse by the day, it seems. President Putin can be expected to use any Ukrainian strikes for maximum propaganda effect. Russia will keep attacking Ukraine’s cities in retaliation. 

For Kyiv’s defense, still obscured by events in the Middle East and Americans’ and Europeans’ domestic politics, the pressure is  enormous. Time is short, and so is money. 

According to some, Mr. Zelensky is facing a financial war hell. The Wall Street Journal reports that this year the Ukrainian budget deficit will be more than $40 billion. Even if $30 billion will reportedly be covered by Western infusions, it is difficult to keep a country at war running. 

Mr. Zelensky was an actor before he was a wartime leader, so flipping the script on the Kremlin with an array of lethal attacks that echo Mad Vlad’s playbook makes tactical sense.

It is cold in Ukraine, though, and with so much fog hanging around, there is still no Hollywood ending in sight.