Ukraine Attacks Russia Again

On Sunday Ukraine delivered not one but at least three reminders that its armed forces are far from toothless and it has the capacity to strike targets within Russia.

The major attack, the one being reported by western media outlets, is a rocket attack the Belgorod Oblast, in which a civilian was killed.

A rocket strike killed at least one person in Russia’s Belgorod region near Ukraine, local officials said, as Russia’s defense minister made a rare visit to the Ukrainian war zone.

A rocket salvo targeting Belgorod on Sunday was intercepted by Russian air defenses, but falling debris and shrapnel killed one resident, injured eight others and caused damage to 14 buildings, the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on social media. He didn’t explicitly blame Ukraine, and Kyiv didn’t acknowledge responsibility for the attack.

What, if any, military targets were being sought during this attack remains very much an open question at this time.

One reason the Belgorod attack is particularly noteworthy is that Vladimir Putin generals have claimed that US-made Harm missiles were shot down during the attack.

Vladimir Putin's defence chiefs have claimed to have downed four US-made Harm anti-radar missiles over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine. The Russian defence ministry offered no further details on the incident which the Pentagon has not confirmed.

The overall attack in the Belgorod region was reportedly thwarted by Russian anti-aircraft batteries, although falling debris claimed the life of a civilian.

A rocket salvo targeting Belgorod on Sunday was intercepted by Russian air defenses, but falling debris and shrapnel killed one resident, injured eight others and caused damage to 14 buildings, the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on social media. He didn’t explicitly blame Ukraine, and Kyiv didn’t acknowledge responsibility for the attack.

Despite the reported claims by Russia’s generals of evidence of Harm missiles, it remains unclear which weapons systems Ukraine used to carry out the attack.

While Ukraine has pledged not to use U.S.-supplied weapons to retaliate against targets inside Russia, it has made no such promises when it comes to weapons in its own arsenal, such as Soviet-designed artillery, drones or Tochka-U missiles. It isn’t clear what weapons systems were used in Sunday’s strike on Belgorod. 

Moreover, this is not the first time the Belgorod region has come under Ukrainan assault. The city itself was shelled on November 15 and again on December 8, according to reports from Russian sources.

Notably, Western media lacks the level of detail that TASS provided to Russians and Russian speakers.

A resident of the city of Shebekina, Belgorod region, was injured during shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). This was announced by the governor of the region Vyacheslav Gladkov in the Telegram channel .

"At the moment, the Shebekinsky urban district is being shelled," the head of the region informed. According to preliminary data, the injured man received fractures of the bones of the forearm.

Shebekina is actually 18 miles southeast of Belgorod, which begs the question of what Ukraine was actually targeting.

Also coming under attack was the Trubchevsky district near Bryansk.

Also earlier, the head of the Bryansk region , Alexander Bogomaz , said that a drone attacked the territory of regional electrical networks in the Trubchevsky district , an office building and a car were hit, and there were no casualties.

While Bryansk itself is fairly deep inside Russia, Trubchevsk is not much farther from the border with Ukraine than Shebekina.

Russian media also reports on a third attack in the Kursk Oblast.

A resident of the village of Makhnovka, Sudzhansky district, Kursk region, was injured as a result of shelling from Ukraine, three houses were also damaged, Governor Roman Starovoit said .

"The Armed Forces of Ukraine again shelled the Sudzhansky district. At least four shells fell in the village of Makhnovka. The SMS alert system worked quickly. One woman was injured. Three houses were damaged. One of them is seriously destroyed, now it is on fire. The house cannot be restored. all necessary assistance to residents. All special services are in place, firefighters are fighting the fire," Starovoit said in Telegram.

As with the other two cities, Makhanovka is also fairly close to the border.

While these attacks were all close to the border, in marked contrast to Ukraine’s provacative (and potentially escalating) attacks on Russian air bases hundreds of miles inside Russia proper, the presence of civilian casualties in at least the Bryansk region stands as a grim reminder that Ukraine is quite capable of taking the fight into Russia.

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One mystery surrounding these strikes is what military targets were the objective of the attacks—assuming that there was a clear military target in any of the locations. Given Russia’s ongoing wanton and indisputably criminal attacks on the Ukrainian civilian populace, the possibility of a revenge strike by Ukraine cannot be excluded.

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Regardless of the military justification (or lack thereof) for Ukraine’s missile and drone attacks, they are nevertheless a demonstration of Ukraine’s military capacities to attack targets within Russia herself. Even a complete lack of a military justification does not alter the larger strategic aspects of the attack: Ukraine once again brought Putin’s war home to Russia, and Ukraine is yet again compelling Putin to worry about how to protect his own cities and his own countrymen while presumably gearing up for fresh offensive come the spring of next year. The vulnerability of Russia’s border cities to Ukrainian rocket and missile attack also creates additional challenges for Putin as he gathers troops towards making a fresh assault towards Kyiv after the spring thaw in 2023.

By all accounts, these attacks are extremely minor. They certainly are not game changers. However, they are testament once again to Ukraine’s determination not to surrender their hard-won momentum in favor of diplomacy and negotiations to resolve Putin’s geopolitical concerns regarding Ukraine.

Ukraine is hardly likely to invade Russia any time soon, but these attacks in the Belgorod, Byransk, and Kursk Oblasts are a reminder that, even without an invasion, Ukraine already possesses the capacity to carry the war into Russia herself, placing Russian civilians in harm’s way.

Thus far, Russian civilians near the border with Ukraine have not been pulled into the conflict, but the decision not to do that is and has always been Ukraine’s and not Russia’s.