President Zelensky threatens to attack Russia's 'weak spots'
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has hinted that Kiev forces will launch more long-range strikes against facilities deep inside Russian territory, a claim echoed by his military commander.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has significantly escalated drone attacks deep into Russian territory, despite ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described the actions as an attempt to derail the peace process.
In a post on his Telegram channel on June 22, Mr. Zelensky wrote that he had a meeting with the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, and declared that Kiev was tracking Russia's "main weaknesses." He pledged to "deliver adequate blows" aimed at "significantly reducing" Moscow's military potential.
Mr. Zelensky also said that Kiev is sharing intelligence information about Russia with Western partners, and together with them "preparing common defense solutions."
Also on June 22, speaking to reporters, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian army, Mr. Aleksandr Syrsky, also said that Kiev "will increase the scale and depth" of attacks on Russian military facilities deep inside the country.
Earlier, on June 1, Ukrainian intelligence carried out a coordinated attack on several Russian air bases across five regions, from Murmansk in the Arctic to Irkutsk in Siberia.
Ukrainian media later reported that the operation, codenamed 'Spiderweb', used dozens of first-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones, at least some of which were believed to have been launched from very close to the target, from commercial trucks smuggled into Russia.
The attacks were said to have been in the works for more than a year and a half and focused on Russia's "strategic aviation forces."
Several planes in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions caught fire as a result of the attack, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said.
Kiev claimed that the attacks damaged or destroyed about 40 Russian military aircraft, including Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov later dismissed these estimates as inaccurate.
“The equipment in question… was not destroyed, but damaged. It will be restored,” the diplomat told TASS news agency in early June.
Around the same time, Keith Kellogg, special envoy to US President Donald Trump, warned that "when you attack a part of an adversary's national survival system, their nuclear triad... that means your risk level increases because you don't know what the other person is going to do."
