Ankara, Turkey – Ukraine’s military – and specifically its “drone army” – has proven that it can now hit any target anywhere in Russia at will. Today, there is also little that Moscow’s armed forces can do to stop them.
Ukraine Proves Its Ability to Now Hit Russian Targets Anywhere and at Any Time
Russia’s President Putin Sitting at a Desk. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The proof came on Saturday, 6 June, when residents of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city and the hometown of Russian President Vladimir Putin, were told not to leave their homes.
The warning was issued after a what was called a “large-scale” Ukraine drone attack hit the city. The event is almost a triple humiliation for the former KGB Lt. Col., who is Russia’s president.
Ukraine is hitting almost any site of any kind wherever it wishes to do so, which is embarrassing enough. But in a second circumstance that adds insult to injury, these attacks take place during Putin’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The event is another Putin vanity project, which he and others in Moscow promote as the Russian counterpart to the World Economic Forum in Davos, which takes place each year in the Swiss luxury resort.
As the delegates to this forum were arriving, the huge plumes of black smoke rising from burning seaport oil terminals and Russian naval vessels were covering the city.
These are the greatest symbols yet of how Putin is losing the PR game in his contest with Ukraine.
And that raises the question of whether he is also losing the conflict itself.
War of Words: Russia vs. Ukraine
But what has also not gone unnoticed is that these attacks occurred a day after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a very direct and almost condescending open letter to Putin proposing that the two meet face-to-face for negotiations on an end to the war.
Putin refused the proposal, leading many to conclude that today’s attack is Kyiv’s response to his intransigence.
Zelensky stated in his letter that “after 26 years in power, age is beginning to take its toll” on Putin and then reminded readers of some of the more recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory – including the first strike on St Petersburg on Thursday, 4 June – which he described as “paying a visit.”
Putin, who is used to being treated with a rather substantial level of veneration in messages from other heads of state, said the letter contained “some rather rude remarks.”
Putin in 2022 Russian State Media
But Ukraine’s former foreign minister commented that the letter had been addressed not just to Putin alone but also to the American President Donald Trump, Ukrainian society, and Europe as a whole.
Other assessments of the letter noted that it had the additional objective of highlighting Putin’s long list of failures during his more than 26 years as Russia’s president and, for a short period from 2008 to 2012, as prime minister.
It Only Gets Worse from Here For Putin’s Russia in the Ukraine War
In the proposal for a meeting with Putin, Zelenskiy suggested neutral countries as a logical venue, since he has no intention of traveling to Moscow, and Putin would likewise never consent to a meeting in Kyiv.
“Everyone heard your representatives smilingly say that I could come to Moscow. But after 26 years, there is nothing for the Ukrainian leader in your capital, just like the Russian leader in Kyiv, to do,” Zelensky’s letter read.
“There are countries that traditionally host leaders to resolve issues of war and peace. Switzerland, Turkey, countries of the Arab world – many can and want to host this meeting,” he added. But this third-country option now again appears to be off the table as the response from the official Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov to this suggestion was “President Putin has said that if Zelensky wants to talk, he can come to Moscow and do so.”
But the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha responded on Saturday to Putin’s rejection of the face-to-face meeting by saying that as a consequence, things would “only get worse for Russia” from here on.
“Failures will get more humiliating,” he wrote on his X account, and warned that there are “no safe places in Russia that can be exempt” from Ukrainian long-range attacks, and that the intensity of attacks “will continue to grow.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, with a specialization in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
