The latest statements by the U.S. State Department suggest that the Ukrainians were indeed behind the spate of likely drone attacks which hit Russian airbases from Monday into the overnight hours.
“Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told media that while ‘nobody has claimed responsibility’ for the drone strikes - at least one of which struck a base hundreds of miles inside Russian territory, it remains that the ‘targets were the very precise bombers that the Russians have been using to attack critical infrastructure’, and that's when she said, ‘the Ukrainian people are incredibly innovative; they are making their own drones, air and sea, that are incredibly effective’.
However, she underscored that the U.S. policy of wanting the Ukrainians to avoid direct attacks on Russia hasn't changed. A separate State Dept. briefing also sought to distance the Biden administration from the brazen cross-border attacks, which reportedly resulted in multiple Russian troop casualties and likely damage to long-range bombers.
Overnight into Tuesday a third airfield deep inside Russia came under attack, suffering a fire after an oil storage depot was bombarded by what the Kremlin described as a drone attack that was repelled after the initial blast. A large blaze raged throughout the night as emergency crews responded.
It came the day after two explosions rocked a pair of air bases even further inside Russian territory, which killed three military personnel in the Ryazan region, and Russian Engels-1 airbase in Saratov. Those incidents were also subsequently described by the defense ministry as the result of drone attacks.
The Russian city of Kursk, which lies closer to Ukraine than the other two sites of attack, had thick black smoke rising over its airfield in the early Tuesday hours. ‘Oil tankers at a base near the city of Kursk, around 60 miles from the border, were on fire and streaming smoke into the sky early Tuesday morning’.
 |
Smoke rises from the area of Kursk airport outside Kursk, Russia. |
International reports say the large Kursk fire has burned for some ten hours, given a large oil depot was ignited, following the attack.
Increasingly it is looking like Ukraine has made the decision to try and hit much more aggressively inside Russian territory, whether utilizing drones or possibly the longer-range missiles being provided by the West, marking a huge escalation.
The Monday attacks had damaged ‘two nuclear-capable bombers that were thought to be preparing for an attack on Ukraine, killed three ground crew and injured two more’.
As for the fresh probable drone attack on the Kursk base, Britain’s ministry of defense said, 'If Russia assesses the incidents were deliberate attacks, it will probably consider them as some of the most strategically significant failures of force protection since its invasion of Ukraine'.
This significance of this can't be overestimated - it takes all sides into dangerous, new and unpredictable territory which makes eventual direct Russian-NATO confrontation all the more likely”. -Zero Hedge
With Russians already well aware that they require significant buffer space between NATO and their border, these drone attacks deep inside Russia only serve to vindicate the Kremlin’s decisiveness throughout their special military operation in hostile Ukraine.
Given the fact that the drones targeted air bases known to be host to heavy bombers, the drone attacks appear to be nothing more than futile attempts to forestall an upcoming Russian air campaign.
If NATO and its proxy in Ukraine sincerely hope to broaden this conflict into a war between Russia and the United States, repeated enemy drone strikes within the borders of the Russian Federation should achieve precisely that.