Ukraine’s deep drone strikes aim to break Russia’s war machine, sow discontent

Just before sunrise on an otherwise sleepy weekend evening, a Russian eyewitness of Ukraine’s kamikaze drone attack on the Kashira Power Plant near Moscow appeared shocked, unleashing an expletive-laden tirade with his wife alongside.
“They f***g attacked the power plant! Wow, honey!” he said in a video posted on Telegram. “A drone is f***g flying there! What the f***k is going on?”
Such was the scene at one target in Ukraine’s stunning drone attacks last weekend into Russia that successfully hit energy infrastructure in Moscow and 160 kilometers north of the capital in Tver Oblast. While Ukraine has already struck Russian fuel depots and oil refineries, the Sept. 1 attack appears to be the first one to target Russian electricity generation facilities.
Marking the most massive deep aerial counterstrike by Kyiv so far, the Sept. 1 long-range drone strikes highlight intensifying efforts by Ukraine to bring the war home for Russians and break the Kremlin’s military machine.
Targeting power generators and fuel depots, Ukraine aims to disrupt Russian logistics, limit Russia’s ability to launch air strikes, and restrict fuel as well as electricity supplies to military facilities and the defense industry.
Ukrainian military expert Dmytro Zhmailo told the Kyiv Independent that Kyiv aims to “break Russia’s military logistics and its war machine” and “to make them feel the lack of everything necessary.”
“What we are seeing now is most likely the beginning of a larger and longer campaign aimed at the Russian energy system,” Polish military expert Konrad Muzyka said in a social media post.
Coming weeks after Ukraine’s surprise ground incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, the mushrooming long-range deep strikes across Russia also threaten to bring the war Russia started to its territory. Potentially, over time, doing so could sow discontent and stir doubt about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s perception as a strong leader who delivers stability.
“If the Ukrainians want to influence public sentiment in Russia, they should focus on attacks on critical infrastructure,” Myzyka said. His comments suggest Ukraine should, to an extent, copycat Russia’s more than two-year campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which has aimed to break Ukraine’s will to fight on.
Such a strategy by Ukraine in counter-attacking Russia’s energy infrastructure, where winters are colder, would come more than two years into Moscow’s relentless airstrikes campaign. Targeting Ukrainian electricity and fuel generation, supply, and storage systems, Russian air strikes have killed and injured thousands of Ukrainians while plunging their cities and towns into regular power blackouts.
Turning the table on Russia’s full-scale invasion launched more than two and a half years ago, Ukraine is now giving Russia a taste of its own medicine with deepening strikes into the territory of an enemy that still occupies nearly 20% of Ukrainian turf.
Ukraine’s Sept. 1 overnight drone attack on Russia affected a record number of Russian regions. Fifteen, including Moscow, were attacked, according to local officials.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that 158 drones had been downed.
In addition to the Kashira Power Plant in Moscow Oblast, the Moscow Oil Refinery and the Konakovo Power Plant in Tver Oblast were also hit, Russian officials said. Some social media users in Russia expressed shock, posting photos and videos of massive explosions and fires breaking out at the locations.
Ukrainian drones on Aug. 18 set fire to oil reservoirs in the town of Proletarsk in Rostov Oblast. The fires lasted two weeks.
Ukrainian drones on Aug. 21 also attacked an airfield in Russia’s Murmansk Oblast in the Arctic region — the farthest-reaching Ukrainian drone attack so far.
The escalating drone attacks have triggered concerns among Russian propagandists, who have called for massive retaliation.
“We need to start thinking now about how to repel a more massive raid,” pro-war propagandist Andrei Medvedev wrote on Telegram. “However, the best solution is to disable Ukraine’s power generation. Now, this is simply an obvious, necessary measure. Before the enemy turns off our lights.”
Oleksiy Ryabchin, a former Ukrainian deputy energy and environment minister, said that Ukrainian strikes on Russia could influence the country’s energy industry and “destabilize the energy situation in some regions.”
Attacks on oil refineries could decrease Russia’s income from oil product sales and increase prices, thus exacerbating social tensions, he told the Kyiv Independent.
Strikes on Russian refineries are supposed to decrease the fuel supplies for the military, while attacks on power plants aim to cut electricity supplies to military facilities and factories, Zhmailo said.
Dmitry Kuznets, a military expert at the independent Russian publication Meduza, said in an Aug. 29 podcast that “the most effective way to counter Russian aviation is to strike airfields, push Russian aviation out of border regions, and inflict losses.”
Zhmailo and Kuznets said, however, that the impact of drone attacks conducted so far remains limited in curbing Russia’s military firepower and energy stability, which is why Ukraine has been pushing its Western allies to let Kyiv strike Russian territory with long-range missiles like ATACMS and Storm Shadow.
The outgoing Biden administration is close to approving supplies of long-range JASSM cruise missiles for Ukraine that could strike deep into Russia, Reuters reported on Sept. 3, citing multiple sources, including U.S. officials.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sept. 2 again urged Ukraine’s Western allies to both allow Ukraine to strike Russia with long-range weapons and to supply more of these weapons.
“Not only the permission (to strike Russian territory) is needed, but we also need to receive these weapons,” Zelensky said.
While continuing to plead for permission from Western allies, Kyiv has also recently announced the production of a new Ukrainian-made Palyanytsia missile-drone system, as well as ballistic missiles.
“When using slow-moving drones, one cannot count on winning this air war,” Kuznets said. “So far, there is no indication that this has led to a reduction in the intensity of the use of Russian aviation.”
Russian columnist Sergei Parkhomenko believes that “strikes on Russian territory could have an impact” on the political situation, something analysts believe is a likely goal of Ukraine’s recent strikes.
“This influence will develop very gradually if the number of such strikes increases and the territory they can reach expands,” he told the Kyiv Independent, adding that some people in Russia are growing dissatisfied with the war.
“For such people, strikes on Russian territory will be an additional argument … the realization that the war affects them too, (that it’s) not somewhere far away but right at their doorstep,” Parkhomenko said.
But there is no one to lead potential protesters in Russia, and a rebellion is unlikely, Zhmailo said. Recent surveys show, however, that bringing the war to Russia could chip away at support in Russia for the war and Putin.
According to opinion polls, societal discontent has risen in Russia since the start of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast on Aug. 6.
“Outrage or dissatisfaction” with Russian authorities rose from 18% of the respondents on July 12 to 28% on Aug. 25, according to the state-owned Public Opinion Foundation (FOM).
The state-controlled Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) recorded a drop in Putin’s approval rating of 3.5% to 73.6% between Aug. 12 and Aug. 18.
VCIOM and FOM polls should be considered with caution due to their affiliation with the Russian government. There is evidence that they have manipulated their surveys to favor the Kremlin.
According to an Aug. 30 poll by the independent Russian pollster Levada Center, 91% of Russians are worried about Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast.
The Levada Center also said that 78% of the respondents supported Russia’s war against Ukraine, and 17% were against it.
The number of those who support peace talks with Ukraine fell from 58% in July to 50% in August, while the number of those in favor of continuing the war increased from 34% in July to 41% in August, according to the Levada Center.
Although Levada is seen as independent from the Kremlin, its polls have been questioned due to alleged distortions caused by respondents’ fear of the authorities that have been actively persecuting those who oppose the country’s war against Ukraine.
If Ukrainian strikes deepen doubts and frustrations for some in Russia, for others, it is fresh evidence that Russia is doing everything right and only strengthens their support for the war.
Russian political analyst Sergei Kolesnikov argued that Ukrainian strikes would not affect the population’s mood and the political situation in Russia.
“(The polls were done) before the attacks (on Russia), but it changes little in public sentiment. People will get used to this, too, and the collective West will be blamed. Additional consolidation around Putin is also possible, in the context of what Erich Fromm called the ‘instinct of defensive aggression’,” Kolesnikov added.
Whether the attacks make them less or more supportive of the war, Ukraine’s far-reaching strikes are undoubtedly a shock for Russia’s residents.
One, in the city of Podolsk in Moscow Oblast, was stunned by the spectacle of drones flying towards Moscow on Sept. 1.
“There was another explosion somewhere in that direction. F***k!” he said in a video posted on Telegram. “Air defense is shooting it down just in front of the camera! I f***g filmed it, f***k!”