Drone attacks hit Moscow, but Russian defenses continue to hold on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine.
In recent days and weeks, Ukraine has launched drone attacks deep inside Russia — including at Moscow itself. The attacks have rattled Russians, who, for the most part, have been accustomed not to have to think about the war that President Vladimir Putin launched almost 18 months ago.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said that his only goal is to reconquer territory that Russia has illegally taken in its two invasions of Ukraine, first in 2014 and then, on a much larger scale, in 2022.
“We are not fighting on their territory,” Zelensky said in the late spring of 2022. “We have the war on our territory.”
Attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles carrying explosives are a low-risk but potent effort to bring at least some of the pain back home to Russia. But they are also something of a sideshow, some say, when the counteroffensive now taking place in eastern Ukraine is far more important for the country’s future.