Drone strike embarrasses Putin
Drones that slammed into high-rise office blocks in Moscow’s financial district on Sunday show Vladimir Putin’s miscalculation in launching a war that, after more than 500 days, has made the Russian capital a target for Ukrainian counter-attack. Russia’s defence ministry claimed that damage from the third drone strike on Moscow in a week, and the fourth in a month, was relatively slight. But the embarrassment for Mr Putin of Kyiv being able to strike targets that led to the temporary closure of Vnukovo international airport is significant.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Gradually, the war is (turning around and) returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centres and military bases. Ukraine is getting stronger.” With the return of the northern hemisphere winter, Mr Zelensky warned, Mr Putin was likely to resume military strikes on Ukraine’s energy sector to make life even more intolerable for Ukrainians.
In response to the drone strikes, Mr Putin’s lackey Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, warned again that Moscow “would be forced” to deploy nuclear weapons if Kyiv’s counteroffensive succeeded. “Imagine if the offensive, which is backed by NATO, was a success … then we would be forced to use nuclear weapons,” he said. Mr Medvedev’s reiteration of that warning is clear. It is a sign of exasperation at the highest levels of the Kremlin of how badly Russia’s war effort is going. Given Mr Medvedev’s seniority, resorting to Russia’s stockpile of nuclear weapons remains a possibility.
As exasperated as Mr Putin must be about the drones, he is also doubtless annoyed about the failure of his vaunted weekend summit with African leaders in St Petersburg. Heads of state or government of only 17 of 54 African countries bothered to take up gilt-edged invitations to attend. Previous similar summits attracted 43 guests. Leaders of major nations have snubbed Mr Putin at a time when the Wagner Group has taken over several West African states. But several African leaders are expected to attend a summit of 30 nations hosted by Saudi Arabia during the coming weekend, aimed at consolidating support for Kyiv’s peace demands to end the war. Ukraine and Western officials hope the summit with developing countries will culminate in a peace conference later in the year at which global leaders will sign up to shared principles for resolving the conflict.