KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian drones struck a large military base in a town deep in Russia overnight, starting a large fire and forcing some local residents to flee, Ukrainian officials and Russian media reported Wednesday. The attack came after a senior U.S. diplomat said a recently announced but still secret plan to win the war by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could “work” and help end the war with Russia. The conflict is in its third year.
Ukraine claimed the attack destroyed a military warehouse in the town of Toropets in Russia’s Tver region, about 240 miles northwest of Moscow and 300 miles from the Ukrainian border.
A Kiev security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that the attack was carried out by Ukrainian security services, Ukrainian intelligence and special operations forces. The depot stored Iskander and Tochka-U missiles, as well as glide bombs and artillery shells, the official said. The attack set the depot on fire, which is burning across a four-mile width, the official said.
Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency quoted local authorities as saying air defense systems were being activated to repel a “major drone attack” on Toropets, a town of about 11,000 people. The agency also reported that fires had broken out and some local residents had been evacuated.
There was no immediate information on whether the attack caused any casualties.
success Ukraine attacks targets in Russia This became more common as the war progressed. Kiev has developed drone technology.
Zelenskiy has been pushing for Western approval, including from the United States, to use advanced weaponry provided by Ukraine to attack targets in Russia, a possibility that some Western leaders have balked at for fear of becoming embroiled in conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the United States and its NATO allies Ukraine Using Western missiles to attack targets deep inside Russian soil would be seen as “tantamount to direct participation by NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine.”
It is part of Kyiv’s strategy to use drones and other weaponry already in Ukraine’s possession to target Russian military equipment, ammunition and infrastructure deep inside Russian territory, making Russian civilians feel some of the consequences of a war being fought primarily on Ukrainian soil.
Last month’s radical incursion by Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk border region also fits into that plan, in an apparent attempt to pressure Putin to back down.
But Putin shows no signs of doing so, instead seeking to weaken Ukrainian resolve with a war of attrition while prolonging the conflict to weaken Western resolve to support Kiev – at a high cost, with the UK Ministry of Defence estimating that more than 600,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the war.
On Tuesday, President Putin ordered the Russian military to increase its strength by 180,000 troops by December 1, bringing the total to 1.5 million.
Zelenskiy said last month that his plan for victory included diplomatic and economic victories as well as battlefield objectives. The plan has been kept secret, but U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at a press conference on Tuesday that officials in Washington had seen it.
“We think this presents a viable strategy and plan,” he said, adding that the United States plans to present the plan to other world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York next week. He declined to comment on the plan’s contents.
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