Ukraine's strategy of striking deep inside Russia: A military success or risky escalation?

While fighting continues on the ground in Ukraine, Kiev has intensified its strikes deep inside Russian territory. Oil refineries, ammunition plants and energy infrastructure are among the main targets. The attacks are being carried out not only with drones but also with Ukrainian-made missiles. Experts say it's part of Kiev's new strategy to bring the war home to Russia and pressure Moscow into a peace deal. TW Sergey Satanovsky reports on how these strikes are being This is the aftermath of a recent drone attack on a water reservoir dam in Russia's Belgorod. After several Ukrainian strikes, the head of the region urged people from nearby villages to evacuate. And these videos reportedly show Ukrainian drones attacking oil refineries in Ulyanovsk, Ryazan and Samara regions. These aren't isolated incidents. They are believed to be part of a Just in October, Ukraine struck more than a dozen targets inside Russia with drones and missiles. These attacks are spread out across a vast area, from regions near Ukraine's border to targets deep inside Russian territory. Most of the suspected strikes were oil refineries, but some of them hit ammunition plants and even a warship. Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko says Kiev is selecting the targets with a particular objective in mind. One of the main goals of strikes in Russia's rear is to force Russia to end the war, to make the cost of the war higher for Russia and to increase the incentive to bring the war to an end. There's some evidence the campaign is having an effect. Amid ongoing Ukrainian strikes on oil infrastructure, long lines have formed at gas pumps across the country. Some stations have shut down due to fuel shortages, while others are seeing record high prices. Regional authorities are warning of a fuel crisis, and Russia's defense ministry now wants to deploy reservists to guard oil refineries. A decision has been made to involve the most well-trained and patriotically-minded citizens in measures to protect civilian facilities deep inside Russian territory. The effect of the Ukrainian attacks is not clear when it comes to public opinion in Russia. Most Russians still say they support the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. Criticizing the war can lead to a prison sentence. Still, a majority of those surveyed also say they favor peace talks with Ukraine. In polls, Russians say yes, Russia is fighting extremely successfully. And at the same time, they say it's time to end this fighting. Everything is going great. It was right to start this special military operation. But let's wrap it up already, Russians are saying. Public opinion aside, Russian President Vladimir Putin shows he is determined to continue his confrontation with Ukraine and the West. In the past couple of weeks, he has boasted twice about the development of new weapons. The Russian leader said the country had tested the subsonic Burevestniy cruise missile and the Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo. The power of the Poseidon far exceeds that of even our most advanced intercontinental missile, the Sarmat. There's nothing like the Sarmat anywhere in the world. Ukraine seems likely to continue its strikes deep inside Russia. It's calling on Western partners to supply bigger and better long-range missiles, primarily American ones, to strike more effectively and further ramp up pressure on Moscow. But allies' delivery of those weapons and permission to use them has so far been slow and cautious. Let's take a closer look at this and bring in Andras Rats. He is a senior research fellow at the Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia, and joins us from Budapest tonight. Andras, welcome back to DW. Now, Ukraine is striking deep inside Russia. From your perspective, what's driving the strategic shift now? Right now, the Ukrainian intention is to inflict significant enough damage on the Russian energy infrastructure to force the Kremlin to the negotiating table, either by imposing military costs, I mean deploying the fuel supplies, or by causing dissatisfaction among the public. How much pressure is that? Sorry to jump right in, but how much pressure is that really putting on the Kremlin? When it comes to the fuel supplies of the military, the Russian military has a separate network of fuel supply systems. So the military operations themselves are not yet directly hampered. And on the public opinion polls, the effects of the long-range strikes are not visible, or at least not yet. As it was said previously, the dominant majority of the Russian public still supports continuing the so-called special military operation. If you ask a yes or no question, you support it or you don't. If you asked, however, whether you, the average Russian citizen, would prefer continuing the war or start peace negotiations, 62% of Russians would already favor starting peace negotiations. But still, this tendency has already been there for a while, long before the start of Ukraine's long-range strike campaign. Is there then not a sense that this war is coming closer to home, which is what Volodymyr Zelensky set out to provoke among the Russian public? So far, it's not measurable. But with public opinion polls, there is always a certain period of time until you can see the effects in the public opinion. It takes time to do the questionnaires. It takes time to process the data. So we need to wait for the November and particular December data, whether there is a measurable or large enough shift that could be clearly attributed to the deep strike campaign. So far, it's not yet visible. Would you expect to see a public mobilization that could actually provoke a reaction in the Kremlin that could have an effect on the outcome of this war or on how this war is being fought? Not really, unfortunately. The Kremlin and its media apparatus has an extremely strong control over the Russian public discourse, the public narrative, and also the mood of the society. So I do not expect any kind of bottom-up protest that would force the Kremlin to alter its strategic calculations vis-a-vis the war. If there would be such changes happening, they would not be manifested in open street protests, simply because protesting on the street has become way too dangerous for the average Russian citizen. Let's look at another aspect. The US, until now at least, is holding back on giving Ukraine longer range missiles that they have been asking for repeatedly. Tomahawks, namely, of course, are the option that is right now being discussed. How might a decision on that front affect what happens next? Well, there are plenty of illusions around when it comes to the Tomahawks. Tomahawks are primarily naval systems to be launched from larger warships or submarines. Ukraine is in possession of none of them. And there is a land-launched version, ground-launched version of the Tomahawk, but that one is available only in very limited numbers even in the United States, not to mention the time necessary for training the Ukrainian crews, deploy the logistics, and all that. So I do not think that the transfer of the Tomahawks could be done anytime soon, I mean in the upcoming few months, even if the US would have enough Tomahawks to supply them to Ukraine. So here I think one needs to take a much more realistic ground than much of the public discourse does. Andras Ats, thank you so much. Always great to have you on the show. Thank you. And let's bring in Orysia Lutsevich. She's deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program and head of the Ukraine forum at Chatham House and joins us from London. Good to see you again. Ukraine is now striking oil refineries, as we mentioned, ammunition plants, even ships inside Russia. How do you interpret this new phase in Kyiv's strategy? What's the main calculation behind it? So this is not such a new strategy. Perhaps the intensity has increased, but now over a year, Ukraine is using its long-range drone capability to bring war home to Russia so that the Kremlin leadership understands that it will not be able to keep its society insulated and only involve those who are willing to subscribe for money to fight in Ukraine. And that is causing, as we have seen, the shortages of fuel, the growth of prices of fuel, and general feeling of the sense of insecurity. We do know that there was a major attack on Belgorod with a partial blackout of the city. And this is a kind of a symmetrical response to what Russia does in Ukraine. The missile attacks on Ukraine have nearly doubled if you compare September to October. And Russia is striking heavily to deplete Ukraine from its energy sources. Gas generation, gas transmission and gas storages are all targeted this month. I want to ask you about morale, which you mentioned there in a moment. But first, US President Donald Trump says he's not considering a deal to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, at least for now. How big of a setback is that for Kyiv's campaign to hit deeper into Russia, as you put it? We have to be very careful to distinguish what actually is being said publicly and what is being done. I mean, this decision is still being way in, way in, in the White House. We know that the Pentagon recommended that it can't do it if Donald Trump decides to do it. But let's remember that there are other countries, other allies of Ukraine who do have long-range missiles, such as UK and France. They're already supplying so-called Scalp missiles. Germany has also long-range missiles that could be deployed, should such decision be taken. And I think we should remember that what is unexpected is the important part of the war. So I think we should also be changing our rhetoric. Instead of telegraphing everything to Moscow, what we would and wouldn't do, keep the element of surprise in order to raise costs for them and to understand that the West is committed to back Ukraine and Putin will not get his upper hand and will not achieve any political aims in Ukraine. And what do you think Ukraine is achieving in these fuel shortages and panic buying in parts of Russia? As you mentioned before, do you think Ukraine is beginning to shake Russia's confidence in the war effort? Well, absolutely. I think by bringing more war to Ukraine, to Russian soil, it will change the mood. It may not be reflected on Russian television or in public opinion polling because these kind of things in autocratic societies are not reflective of the real situation on the ground. I think that increasingly Ukraine, with its European allies, understanding that Russia, with encroachment, especially more frequent encroachment of Russia also in NATO airspace, with drone attacks on Poland, the airport strikes, that means that there is a consensus that Russia is not willing to end the war and that Ukraine must be given more and more capabilities to punish Russia for its unprovoked invasion. We'll have to leave it there, unfortunately. Thank you very much for being on DW News again.