Ukraine attacks Russian air base

Engels air base, about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border.Maxar Technologies, via Reuters

Ukraine launched a drone attack on the Engels air base deep within Russian territory, killing three troops, the Kremlin said yesterday, as Kyiv’s forces demonstrated that they were increasingly prepared to take the fight to Russia. Engels, home to some of Russia’s nuclear-capable strategic bombers, was one of two air bases targeted by Ukrainian drones on Dec. 5.

It was the third such strike this month, reflecting an assessment by Ukraine’s political and military leaders that there was little risk of Moscow’s escalating its war in retaliation. The Russian military is already fighting at the limits of its conventional capabilities, Ukrainians say, and the Kremlin’s hints of using nuclear weapons ring hollow.

In the months after Russia invaded, Ukraine’s allies voiced concern about attacks on Russian soil and the risk of retaliatory escalation, as the Kremlin has threatened repeatedly. The U.S. and others still refuse to supply Ukraine with long-range weapons and insist that the weapons they do provide not be used to fire into Russia, but the fear of escalation has abated.

Context: Ukraine has struck repeatedly at military targets in Crimea and other Russian-occupied territory that Moscow now claims as its own, as well as at infrastructure like the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Crimea to Russia. Now Ukraine is stepping up attacks into Russia itself.

In other news from the war:

Russian mercenaries with the same shadowy Wagner Group now fighting in Ukraine have already established control in the Central African Republic, where Moscow has gold and diamond mining interests. Ukraine’s foreign minister said that his government hopes to have a peace summit by the end of February, about one year after Russia invaded Ukraine.