Zelensky recently boasted about his country’s long-range strikes against Russia in the Urals and Western Siberia, which followed an earlier large-scale strike against Moscow after several months of sporadic strikes against St. Petersburg. He also announced a 40-day influence operation aimed at coercing Russia into freezing the Ukrainian Conflict, which will likely include many more such attacks. These latest moves coincide with the EU disbursing the first €3.2 billion installment of its €90 billion loan to Ukraine.
Palpable war fatigue in the West as reaffirmed by Czechia, Slovakia, and even Hungary under its new EU-friendly government refusing to finance the aforesaid loan, which preceded Bulgaria’s new government banning arms supplies to Ukraine, arguably pushed Zelensky to authorize attacks with dramatic visuals. Trump once described him as “the greatest salesman on Earth”, and true to form, he knows how to put on a show to keep his audience interested and the cash flowing. That’s the first purpose of these strikes.
The second is to reinforce the false narrative that “Ukraine is winning”, which has been gradually reintroduced by the Mainstream Media throughout the past half-year after earlier being completely discredited by summer 2023’s failed counteroffensive. A State Department representative parroted this claim word-for-word just last week, but as RT’s Sergey Poletaev argued, “The drone war is a distraction. Watch the front” as Russia continues gaining ground in Liman, Rai-Aleksandrovka, and Konstantinovka.
Lastly, Zelensky’s final purpose in carrying out his highly publicized spree of strikes is to boost morale at home, which remains very low amidst the continued inconveniences of the conflict and especially the “busification” policy of snatching draft-age men off the streets to send them to the front. There’s close to zero chance of a popular revolt, let alone of one succeeding, but he still wants his people to think that they’re at least “getting revenge” on Russia. In a nutshell, this spree of strikes is all smoke and mirrors.
To be sure, Ukraine has indeed inflicted some damage on Russia’s energy industry, but it’s nothing game-changing and nowhere near what would be required to shift the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict in its favor. Nevertheless, Trump is still smarting from the US’ defeat in the Third Gulf War and hopes in part to distract the electorate with the dramatic visuals that Zelensky is responsible for in Russia ahead of November’s midterms, being just as much of a “salesman” as he is and understanding its value.
This partially explains his decision to “escalate to de-escalate” against Russia through a three-phase “war of attrition”, the first part of which includes strengthening Ukraine’s strike capabilities. His grand strategic goal of coercing Putin into selling him controlling stakes in Russia’s state natural resource companies will likely remain beyond his grasp, but Trump will probably still continue pursuing it regardless. In furtherance of this goal, more US-backed Ukrainian strikes on Russia are expected over the summer.
All in all, Ukraine’s spree of strikes against Russia is more showmanship than strategy, with the primary motive being to produce dramatic visuals for helping Ukraine’s overall cause as war fatigue in the West becomes more palpable and Trump’s political one ahead of November’s midterms after his loss to Iran. He and Zelensky are preparing to dial up the pain against Russia, but their plot isn’t expected to change Putin’s calculations about the conflict’s endgame, nor result in Ukraine actually “winning” for once.
