“Ukraine seeks initiative with Black Sea attack due to setbacks in eastern counterattack”
Guerrilla warfare using drones… A surprise raid on the mainland to shake public opinion in Russia
is also forming a new front in the Black Sea in the Ukraine war. There has been a sharp increase in the number of attacks by Russia and Ukraine targeting each other’s key industries.
Ukrainian forces attacked the Russian oil tanker SIG with a maritime drone in the Kerch Strait near Crimea, which connects the Black and Azau Seas on the 4th (local time).
On the previous day, on the 3rd, a maritime drone hit a Russian warship at the Russian naval base in Novorossiysk, Russia’s main export port on the Black Sea. The port of Novorossiysk is an infrastructure through which Russia exports crude oil, which accounts for a large portion of its economic growth.
This is the first time Ukrainian forces have attacked the coast of mainland Russia since the start of the war in February last year. This series of attacks is in the nature of a counterattack against Russia’s obstruction of Ukraine’s major industry, grain exports, and destruction of infrastructure.
Russia has been raiding key facilities in Odessa, Ukraine’s largest export port, after suspending the Black Sea Grain Agreement, which guarantees the safe operation of Ukrainian grain exporters in the Black Sea.
It is a general observation that the conflict between the two countries in the Black Sea is highly likely to intensify in the future. The Ukrainian government issued a statement and warned that six Russian ports on the Black Sea, including Novorossiysk and Anapa, were “war zones”. The move further fleshed out a warning issued by the Ukrainian government last month that it would regard any ships heading into Russian ports as military targets.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has vowed to retaliate against Ukraine’s attack on the Black Sea.
Some critics say that behind the rise of the Black Sea as a new front is the Ukrainian strategy to move the base of this war to mainland Russia. Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in early June, but it is hampered by Russia’s defense.
Recently, it has even changed its strategy to reduce Russia’s combat capability, but even this has not yielded significant results. The New York Times ( NYT ) analyzed that it was Ukraine’s calculation to seize the initiative by moving the center of the war to Russia through drone raids.
In fact, not only the Black Sea, but also mainland Russia such as Moscow have been frequently exposed to drone attacks over the past few months. Ukraine’s Minister of Information and Communications Mikhailo Fedorou, who is in charge of drone distribution, has declared more drone strikes. Experts say Ukraine’s increasingly frequent raids on the Russian mainland are aimed at swaying public opinion among Russians안전놀이터. It is intended to shake the long-term strategy of the Putin regime by stimulating anxiety and fear in citizens who have lived a peaceful daily life regardless of the war.
As evidence of this purpose, Ukraine launched a series of drone raids on high-rise buildings in the center of Moscow, which had been considered the safest. “Ukraine has confirmed that Russian public opinion on the war is one of the key factors for ending the war,” Kaye Giles, a Russian expert at Chatham
House, a British think tank, said in an interview with CNN .
Ukraine does not bother to hide its intentions either. Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Inat said: “The war is now affecting even those who were not worried about it (Russians).”