In his war against Ukraine, does the large size of Russia become responsibility? | Russia-Ukraine War News

Kyiv, Ukraine – A Moscow flight at the Pacific port of Vladivostok takes almost nine hours – an inner flight which covers two thirds of the duration of Russia between the Baltic and the Pacific.

There are around 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) from East to West in Russia, or 17 million square kilometers (6.6 million square miles), including 11% of the earth’s earthly mass – a little more than the regions of China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

Even if two thirds are permafrost, the pure immensity used to save Russia from invasions, whether the great army of Napoleon in 1812 or the 3.8 million soldiers from Nazi Germany and its allies in 1941.

However, while war with Ukraine, a former province whose Cossack armies, formerly led by the Tsarist, cling to his fourth year, the size of Russia has become a responsibility.

“The territory of Russia offers maximum capacity for strikes,” the Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanek, former deputy chief of Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.

Ukrainians – from the best brass to civilian volunteers assembling drones in their garages – rewrite the rules of war and cancel the obsolete stratages of Russia.

These days, Kyiv proves daily that the border between Russia and Ukraine which extends almost 2,000 kilometers (1,230 miles) is penetrable in both directions.

He was carved out in two Western Russian regions – Kursk and Bryansk – who distracted tens of thousands of soldiers.

Meanwhile, air defense systems in the Soviet era of Moscow, designed to intercept NATO missiles, are distributed too thin in western Russia and often prove to be powerless against attacks by Ukrainian drones more and more sophisticated.

“If a group of people is sufficiently professional and motivated, it will always find a way to achieve a goal, and it is something that SBU has proven,” said Romanenko, referring to the Ukrainian security service, the main intelligence agency that has led dozens of bites to Russia.

On June 1, the SBU executed Operation EnouredA massive drone attack that has reached Siberia for the first time since the start of the large -scale invasion in 2022.

Ukrainian drones – perhaps smuggling in Kazakhstan – stole a truck near Belaya air base in the Irkutsk region, nearly 4,000 kilometers (2500 miles) east of the Ukrainian border, to destroy or damage several strategic bombers.

The same bite targeted bombers in the Amur region, 7,500 kilometers (4,660 miles) east of Ukraine, and only a technical problem saved the bombers on the Ukrainka landing track (“Ukrainian woman”).

The bite “is a lesson that military bases, in war areas and at home, are now more vulnerable than ever to cheap, easily hidden and quickly deployed weapons that can appear with little notice,” wrote Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general and comrade to The Lowy Institute, a military reflection group in Sydney,.

The scale and audacity of kyiv campaigns on Russian soil follow humiliating defeats.

Moscow was embraced by the annexation of Crimea in 2014, when Ukrainian troops and the police were ordered to make government buildings and military bases without shooting a single blow – and many joined the occupants.

A few weeks later, separatists supported by Moscow seized a third of the Southeast Donbas region and postponed Ukrainian forces.

Thus, in 2022, Moscow expected a Blitzkrieg, and the idea of ​​defending his own territories may not have come with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his best brass.

“They didn’t think about it at all, they did not plan a long operation,” the Penta reflection group based in kyiv was told Al Jazeera Volodyr Fseenkyr. “Moscow did not expect Ukraine to resist so long and to strike so effectively in the Russian territories.”

In addition, Ukrainian drones target sites in Moscow and in the surrounding region, where many military plants and bases are concentrated.

In May 2023, two Ukrainian drones exploded on the Kremlin which slightly damaged one of the palaces.

Two years later, swarms of Ukrainian drones regularly buzzes from Moscow suburbs.

“I cherish nights without sirens of air raid,” said a woman who asked for anonymity and lives southwest of Moscow in Al Jazeera.

Civil flights are delayed or canceled in western Russia so often that some travelers take a train for northern Kazakhstan airports.

In addition to hitting military sites, Ukraine has started to target the backbone of the Russian economy.

Dozens of strikes on petroleum refineries and pipelines have disrupted almost a sixth – 14% – from the oil refining capacity of Russia, the Pentagon Defense Intelligence Agency said in mid-May.

A response to Russia’s campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, strikes have caused a six -month ban on petrol exports, increased interior fuel prices by 30% and triggered the import of fuel of neighboring Belarus.

The attacks were so devastating that Washington bristled in Kyiv for having increased world oil prices.

Kyiv also exploits the excessive dependence of Russia on the lines of railways in a country of roads notoriously.

On May 30, two bridges collapsed in the Kursk and Bryansk regions in western Russia, giving up two trains, killing seven and injuring 69 people.

Moscow blamed Ukraine and described the explosions of “terrorist attacks”.

Some analysts say, however, that kyiv strikes on Russia are too late, insufficient and blurred to cause serious damage.

Ukraine “has long ignored the outdoor ammunition deposits but symbolically and insensily struck Moscow,” Nikolay Mitrookin, researcher at the German University of Bremen, told Al Jazeera.

When he started hitting deposits and bases, Russia responded by building hangars and moving planes in even further aerodromes, he said.

“The main question is what Ukraine can destroy without the possibility of restoring, or will result in huge punctual losses for Russia,” he said. “And that’s where I don’t see any real success.”

But the retirement general Romanenko thinks that the real successes await us.

“We lack tools,” he said, referring to Ukrainian manufacturing missiles and more sophisticated drones that have not yet been made in series. “Once we have the tools – Putin will be more realistic, because he only understands force.”