From the foothills of the Ural Mountains to the arid coast of the Caspian Sea, Russian regions far from the front line are bearing the brunt of a widening Ukrainian deep-strike campaign using drones and missiles.
Recent months have shown just how willing Ukraine is to hit them hard. Look no further than the capital. Last week, Moscow experienced its largest drone onslaught of the war, painting the sky with black clouds from a strike on an oil refinery.
While Ukraine is attacking with increasing numbers of drones, it is also targeting regions previously untouched by fighting. In April, a high-rise building was set ablaze in Yekaterinburg, the country’s fourth-largest city, while drones were reportedly shot down near a metallurgical plant in Chelyabinsk. Both cities are more than 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles) from Ukraine.
“It’s bringing the war home in a way that it hasn’t been brought home before,” Samuel Bendett, a drone expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, told The Moscow Times.
The result of a drone attack on a large oil refinery in southern Moscow’s Kapotnya district. These satellite images were captured on June 12 and 21.
