Ukraine Power Strike Knocked Out Electricity In Russian Border Region

There are good military reasons why Ukraine would want to knock out power in the Russian region from which much of the invasion army's supplies and replacement troops are staged. 

But it is also a reminder that two can play that game. JL 

Thomas Grove reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Fires erupted at a power station in the Russian border region of Belgorod that left part of the regional capital without power and that the Russian military attributed to a Ukrainian drone attack. Moscow has blamed Ukraine for a string of cross-border strikes which have hit Russian installations, including a fuel depot and ammunition warehouse last year. Kyiv has also carried out attacks on Russian military targets on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

Fires erupted at a power station in the Russian border region of Belgorod overnight, a blaze that left part of the regional capital without power and that Russian military correspondents attributed to a Ukrainian drone attack.

“The cause of this is the actions of our enemies,” wrote Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov on Russian social-media platform VKontakte. “The most important thing is that no one was injured,” he said.

Moscow has blamed Ukraine for a string of cross-border strikes which have hit Russian installations, including a fuel depot and ammunition warehouse last year, threatening to expand the conflict beyond Ukraine. Kyiv has also carried out attacks on Russian military targets on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

Ukrainian officials on Monday didn’t comment on the fires in Belgorod.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has previously threatened that Moscow would retaliate against cross-border strikes by launching attacks on Ukraine’s decision-making centers, including Kyiv.

 

Since early spring, Russia has been pressing an offensive, making limited gains, most notably in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, where Kyiv says fighting has reached its most intense level yet. Russia has lost tens of thousands of soldiers to injury or death in Bakhmut, where Moscow’s troops have launched relentless attacks that have won them inching gains inside the city and cut Ukrainian troops off from the north, east and south. Kyiv’s forces have only one reliable artery to resupply troops inside the city.

Ukraine, which is expected to launch its own offensive in the coming weeks, has asked repeatedly for air defenses and additional war planes to rebuild its stocks after more than a year of fighting that has yet to see either side gain air superiority.

Kyiv’s constant use of its antiaircraft missiles has depleted supplies, however, threatening to hand Moscow superiority in the skies, according to purported Pentagon presentations that have leaked on social media.

While members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization haven’t so far reached an agreement on the transfer of more sophisticated F-16 planes, a number of European countries have handed Ukraine MiG-29 war planes in recent months, backfilling Kyiv’s stocks.

On Monday, Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad’ said all 13 promised MiG-29s had been transferred to Ukraine. Poland, which has also emerged as one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters, has also delivered eight planes, out of a planned 31.

Following naval-training exercises for Russia’s Pacific Fleet in the country’s far east, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday delivered a report to President Vladimir Putin on the wargames, meant to show Russia’s robust defenses on its eastern flank, which is only miles away from Alaska.

“We have clear priorities regarding the Armed Forces and, first and foremost, those revolve around the Ukrainian direction…But no one has called off the task of developing our fleet, including in the Pacific theater, therefore I ask you to unconditionally continue this work,” Mr. Shoigu said in a televised exchange.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, a Russian court sentenced Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison on treason charges for his criticism of the Russian invasion. The U.S. and U.K. condemned the conviction.

Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky is expected to engage in talks with Polish authorities this week after Warsaw, in a surprise decision, ordered a temporary ban on the import of Ukrainian grain, a move meant to pacify Polish farmers who had been suffering from falling grain prices. Hungary has since announced a similar move.