Russia Rocked by Massive Ukrainian Drone Strike, Exposing Putin’s Vulnerability

Though the knock-on furnishings are unclear, some aggressive commentators accept alleged the bang Russia’s “Pearl Harbor.” Hopes for absolute accord talks, which resume Monday, abide low.

It was a stunning, adventurous advance whose boundless furnishings are alone aloof acceptable clear.

Ukraine managed to bootleg 117 aeriform drones on the backs of trucks that deposited them at the ambit of four Its air bases — one of them abysmal central Siberia some 2,500 afar from Ukraine’s borders, according to Ukrainian officials.

While there are differing accounts on the admeasurement of the after accident of Sunday’s “Spiderweb” operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 40 Russian aircraft — 34% of Russia’s cardinal cruise missile carriers — were hit. Ukraine’s aegis service, the SBU, put the estimated amount to the Kremlin at $7 billion.

Some aggressive commentators and pro-Russian bloggers accept alleged it the country’s “Pearl Harbor” — a advertence to Japanese beforehand in 1941 that saw the United States access World War II.

It came Sunday, a day afore the latest annular of absolute accord talks amid Ukraine and Russia on Monday.

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There was little optimism for adept beforehand alike afore the strike, with Ukraine sending its aegis minister, Rustem Umerov, but Russia alone auctioning the far added inferior Putin aide, Vladimir Medinsky, to the Çırağan Palace in Istanbul.

Those talks accept now assured for the day, Zelenskyy said at a account appointment in the Lithuanian basic of Vilnius aloof afterwards midday bounded time (9 a.m. ET). The admiral said that the two abandon exchanged abstracts and were advancing a beginning annular of captive exchanges, extending the alone actual aftereffect from the two sides’ aboriginal affair aftermost month.

“I am cat-and-mouse to apprehend abbot Umerov’s abounding report,” Zelenskyy said.

A far added acceptable aftereffect of Sunday’s bang is Russia continuing to bomb Ukrainian civilians — this time beneath the affectation of retaliation, “even admitting in absoluteness these strikes are planned continued in advance,” said Keir Giles, a chief consulting adolescent with the London-based think-tank Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia program.

Less adamantine to quantify will be the huge draft to Vladimir Putin’s pride, with Western analysts in acceding that this was a abasement for the Russian president.

Ukraine’s Precision Strike Exposes Russian Vulnerability Ahead of Peace Talks

“At a time back Putin seems to anticipate that he is acceptable on the battlefield, this demonstrates that his armament are in actuality actual vulnerable,” said Sven Biscop, a administrator at the Egmont Institute, a anticipate catchbasin in Brussels. “This may not change the advance of the war, but it does beggarly that every accretion Russia makes will be at aerial cost.”

He added it was “quite amazing” that “a cogent allotment of their adviser force” could “be destroyed like that.”

The bang took a year and a bisected to plan, according to Zelenskyy, and played out on the eve of the latest annular of accord talks amid Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul.

It’s still cryptic what appulse the surgical bang will accept on Monday’s negotiations, hopes for which were already dim acknowledgment to the abysmal capacity amid the positions of Kyiv and Moscow. Ukraine says it is accessible to assurance an actual 30-day ceasefire; Russia is about ambitious Ukraine’s surrender.

Brokering the talks, Admiral Donald Trump has confused from the actually pro-Ukrainian attitude of his predecessor, Admiral Joe Biden, and offered concessions to the Kremlin that accept affronted abounding in the West.

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At the aforementioned time, he accused Putin aftermost anniversary of activity “absolutely crazy” by continuing to barrage approved attacks on Ukraine civilians. Ultimately, he has threatened to airing abroad from the accord talks if they do not crop the after-effects he already promised he would accomplish in aloof 24 hours.

Indeed, brief into Sunday, Russia launched some 500 advance drones into Ukraine, Zelenskyy said. The night abutting came 84 more, with at atomic 10 bodies dead and dozens added afflicted beyond the country, Ukraine’s air force said.

Other pro-Russia assemblage are calling for alike added desperate measures.

“We achievement that the acknowledgment will be the aforementioned as the U.S. acknowledgment to the advance on Pearl Harbor, or alike tougher,” one Russian aggressive blogger, Roman Alekhin, said on the messaging app Telegram.

Another pro-war Telegram channel, Dva Mayora, added that it was “a acumen to barrage nuclear strikes on Ukraine” — a blackmail generally fabricated by Putin back ablution the aggression three years ago.

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“We can apprehend a abundant accord of complete and acerbity from Moscow,” Giles said. Russia “will be alive adamantine on acceptable the United States to attack to rein Ukraine in, in adjustment to anticipate any added accident to Russia’s agency of bombarding Ukrainian cities with continued ambit missiles,” he added.

“In a way, the added important catechism is how the United States reacts, and how acquisitive it is to booty Moscow‘s ancillary and constrain Ukraine,” he said.