Russia and Ukraine, With an Eye on the Inaugural of Trump, Are Slugging It Out Like Punch-Drunk Boxers

In the countdown to Monday’s inauguration of Donald Trump, Russia and Ukraine are slugging each other like punch-drunk boxers, landing — with drones and missiles — some of the biggest blows of the three-year war. The goal of each side is to bolster its negotiating position at a peace-talks table laid by the president who campaigned to end endless wars.Russia, looking for a big bang, sought to blow up two of Ukraine’s vast underground gas storage reservoirs. Converted from exhausted Soviet-era gas fields, this reservoir network now constitutes the largest gas storage facility of Europe. On Wednesday, Russian missiles followed coordinates lifted from old Soviet mining maps.Streaking hundreds of miles into the remote Carpathian foothills of Western Ukraine, three cruise missiles zeroed in on one tempting target — Oparske, an underground cavern believed to hold up to 70 billion cubic feet of gas. Instead of sending up a mushroom cloud over the Carpathians, the rockets damaged only a few buildings on the surface. Beloved by insurers, Ukraine’s reservoirs start storing gas at safe levels — at a minimum of one quarter-mile below the ground.Yesterday the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said the attacks were revenge for Ukraine’s “energy terrorism,” a drone and missile attack on TurkStream, Russia’s last gas pipeline to the West. Two weeks earlier, Ukraine shut down its own gas pipeline network, ending Russia’s last direct pipeline link with the European Union.The Kremlin charges that on Monday several American and British-made cruise missiles and a swarm of Ukrainian-made drones flew across the Black Sea. Their target was “Russkaya,” Russia’s final compressor station before pipeline gas travels 500 miles below the Black Sea to Western Turkey.Ukraine’s attacks also only damaged the surface. However, they were part of a larger wave of kamikaze drone attacks that hit military and energy targets in 12 Russian regions, one quarter of all the regions of Western Russia. Such mass attacks may be a taste of what is to come for Russia in 2025.Betting heavily on a new tactic in this asymmetrical war, President Zelensky recently announced a 2025 domestic production goal of 3,000 cruise missiles and 30,000 long range drones. Coupled with foreign donations, this means that this year Ukraine could target Western Russia with 100 missiles and drones a day. Ukraine says it now makes drones that can fly 1,200 miles, the distance between Ukraine and the Urals.With all of Russia’s heartland now under threat from Ukrainian drones, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency last week advised all European airlines to avoid flying over Russia between Ukraine and the Urals. The agency cited the December 25 shootdown of an Azerbaijan Airlines jet attempting to land in Grozny, Russia. Hit by a Russian air defense missile, the jet crashed in neighboring Kazakhstan, killing 38 of the 67 people on board. As a result, the airlines of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan suspended flights to Russia. Israel’s El Al and the People’s Republic of China’s largest airline, China Southern, have suspended flights to Moscow through the end of March.“The activation of Russian air defence systems, capable of operating at all altitudes, in response to Ukrainian missile and drone launches, which have extended deep inside Russian territory, may have a direct impact on flight operations at several locations, including major international airports,” the European safety agency said in its warning, which runs to the end of July.On Tuesday, 140 attacks by Ukrainian drone strikes forced at least six Russian cities to restrict their airspaces. In addition to bringing the war home to Russians, these attacks have tangible impacts on Russia’s economy and on Russia’s fighting capabilities. Last week, BBC’s Russian service published a tally of 81 attacks on Russian oil refineries and oil depots last year. Leveraging the small charges carried by drones, 64 of the attacks sparked fires. Partly as a result, Russia’s gasoline production dropped last year by 20 percent, prices increased by 11 percent, and export bans were in place for most of the year. Oil trade analytics platform Seala estimates that in 2024 Russia’s crude oil production averaged 9.4 million barrels per day. This would be a 14 percent drop from 2023 and the lowest level in 20 years. Last year, Ukraine’s drone war shifted from targeting export-oriented oil facilities to hitting refineries and depots that feed Russia’s military machine in southwest Russia and occupied Ukraine.Typical was Ukraine’s drone attack of January 8 on the fuel depot for Engels air base in Saratov region, about 400 miles east of Ukraine. Fires burned for six days, killing two fire fighters and consuming about 6 million barrels of jet fuel. On Tuesday, hours after the fires were finally extinguished, Ukrainian drones struck again, sparking new fires. The new fire has been burning for four days.“With Russia’s air defenses crumbling, there will be no rest for the wicked,” the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communication posted on X of the return attack. The depot provides fuel for Russia’s Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-160 jets, strategic bombers that regularly hit Ukrainian cities with cruise missiles. The strikes also have a propaganda effect in “European Russia,” home to three-quarters of the nation’s population of 144 million. Speaking recently on a popular Russia-1 TV show, “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov,” a government official assured viewers: “We have the best air defense in the world. There is not one better as of today. And sometimes a drone flies somewhere deep in our rear. That is good, so we get experience in repelling massive raids.” Contradicting this state media mantra — that President Putin is protecting Russia’s homeland — the fires and columns of smoke created by Ukrainian drone raids have now been seen by many, if not most, of Western Russia’s 109 million residents. Dispersing over a 1,000-mile north-south front inside Russia, Ukrainian drones and missiles hit these targets over the last week:A military gunpowder plant near Kuzmino-Gat, Tambov region.Four storage tanks at Liskinska oil depot in Voronezh region A liquefied natural gas depot at Kazan, capital of Tatarstan RepublicTaneko, an oil refinery with a 200,000-barrel-a-day capacity, at Nizhnekamsk, TatarstanPort facilities in Novorossiysk, the eastern refuge of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.Aleksinsky chemical plant in Tula regionBryansk Chemical Plant at Seltso, Bryansk regionA military supply warehouse at Vyborg, 85 miles northeast of St. PetersburgDrawing on intelligence about Russia’s far-flung military industrial complex, Ukraine’s military planners aim to deprive Russia’s army of the fuel and munitions needed to keep waging the war. “Knocking out refineries and oil depots directly affects the Russian Federation’s ability to wage an intensive war,” an official with Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Kovalenko, said yesterday in a statement. Reviewing this week’s action, he cited a target 600 miles east of Ukraine, saying the Taneko refinery “plays a key role in providing fuel to the Russian army.”

Russia and Ukraine, With an Eye on the Inaugural of Trump, Are Slugging It Out Like Punch-Drunk Boxers

Russia and Ukraine, With an Eye on the Inaugural of Trump, Are Slugging It Out Like Punch-Drunk Boxers

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