Ukraine responds to intense Russian drone attacks

In Ukraine, increased indiscriminate Russian shelling of civilians is causing more damage. On the ground, the Ukrainians are gaining ground. Journalist and correspondent in Ukraine María Senovilla has analysed the latest developments in the conflict on the ground for Onda Madrid's "De cara al mundo".

María, you had a sweet awakening in Kramatorsk with Russian planes over your heads. What happened? 

It was noisy rather than sweet. It was a new Russian air raid, one of several this August, and if memory serves me correctly, this would be the third. At nine o'clock in the morning, the roar of these planes, which also fly very low, startled us all. It seems to have been a Russian aircraft that also bombed very close to Sloviansk. 

How is the task of identifying the attacks going?

It is very difficult to compare information during the day from where because of the number of shells falling, because we are at war and this is not published, but it has been possible to hear the explosion clearly. There have also been some publications on Telegram saying that Ukrainian anti-aircraft defences had managed to damage the Russian aircraft as it was on its way back. In any case, so far this day, the anti-aircraft sirens will have sounded 15 or 20 times. We seem to be starting September with a high frequency of Russian attacks. 

But the Ukrainians are not standing idly by, they are increasing their attacks on Russian soil, aren't they? 

That's right, in the last few hours there have been a series of explosions starting at the Pskov military airfield and continuing in the Bryansk region and in four other Russian counties, where videos of fires and explosions caused by drones, by those unmanned vehicles that were initially blamed on Ukraine, began to appear. Since then, drone attacks have continued to occur on Russian soil. 

They have not been coordinated attacks in several cities at the same time, such as the one that occurred in the early hours of Tuesday to Wednesday, but in the last few hours, for example, several explosions have been recorded in Bryansk and the Kursk region. In Moscow, in turn, the Kremlin has had to shoot down another drone. This has meant that civilian flights, all air activity in Moscow, has been disrupted because that drone, which the Kremlin says they managed to shoot down, but it seems that the wreckage has fallen somewhere and a fire has broken out. 

What effect are drone strikes having on Russian soil? 

These attacks are putting Putin's government in check, because it is enough to see the map with all the points where these unmanned vehicles have hit or been shot down to understand that this is not something anecdotal, it is a new Ukrainian destabilisation strategy. The most important thing now is to analyse the possible consequences of these attacks, because they could benefit Ukraine more than they seem to. 

How positive will the consequences be for the Ukrainian state? 

The first consequence is that these strikes could deter the Kremlin from systematically bombing Ukrainian electricity infrastructure again, as it did last autumn, because with the threat of retaliation, it is becoming clear that these Ukrainian drones have the range to strike critical infrastructure on Russian soil. 

It also forces the Russian Defence Ministry to relocate military bases, especially those military airfields, further away from the Ukrainian border, and this would give the Ukrainians vital time to detect Russian attacks earlier, because if the Russian bomber has to leave from a longer distance, that is all the time Ukrainian radars have a head start to warn, to turn on their air-raid sirens and to prepare their defence systems to prevent the attacks from succeeding. 

And for the Russian population? 

By the same token, Russia is also likely to move its weapons arsenals away from the Ukrainian border, which would have an impact on the logistics of Russian troops, which would be more costly and time-consuming. In addition, it has a demoralising and generally frightening effect on the Russian population, which has been oblivious to the pain the war is causing on Ukrainian soil. 

This is what the leader of the Corps of Russian Volunteers who are Russian citizens, but who are fighting on the Ukrainian side, Denys Kapustin, who planned and executed the first attack on Russian soil in March last year, spoke to us about, and whose interview can be read in the pages of the magazine Atalayar. It is also an interview that provides many clues as to what is going on. Among other things, he explained that these attacks are politically and propagandistically motivated, and that they can have far greater effects than a simple exploding drone can cause. 

We certainly recommend reading this interview in Atalayar because it does indeed provide many clues. I wanted you to analyse the counteroffensive for our readers, because we listened to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmitro Kuleba, who confronted his European colleagues because some people criticised the offensive. How is the counteroffensive progressing? It seems to be advancing in Bakhmut and Zaporiyia, but in other places such as Liman and Kupyansk there is heavy fighting.  

Precisely because we are on the ground, we understand Kuleba's words very well, because this counteroffensive, which is indeed advancing slowly, but it is advancing, is taking many lives and causing an alarming number of casualties. You can see this when you go to the stabilisation points near the front line and they tell you what they are facing. In Zaporiyia, once the Russian first line of defence has been broken, progress is being made. A few days ago they managed to take this town of Robotine. This town, which is not very big, is a very strategic point because it opens a direct route to Melitopol, which is one of the main objectives of the counter-offensive on the southern front. 

What is the role of the Azov battalion at this point in the conflict?

Also in the south of Bakhmut, in this case, at the hands of the Azov brigade, now renamed assault brigade number three, there have been advances, positions have been recovered, they have pushed the Russian army back and, in contrast, in the north of Bakhmut, on the Kremina-Liman axis, it is the Russians who have advanced some positions, the map showing the positions of both sides was updated this morning and a small Russian advance was seen there.

However, I would say that the city that the Ukrainian government is most worried about right now is the city of Kupyansk. The front line is less than 9 kilometres from that city centre. In June, I interviewed the head of the Military Administration, who had already started to come under pressure, although the situation was stable. 

What were the main concerns of the authorities in the region? 

He told me he was particularly concerned that there were more than 500 minors. Many had to return to the city because it seemed more stable after months away, after going through an occupation, and that they had to put the evacuation systems back in place now. 

During the month of August alone, 1,500 of the 11,000 people currently living in Kupyansk have been evacuated, including 350 children, and it is expected that during this month that is beginning, during this month of September, at least the evacuations of minors will be completed. This is a sign that the Russian troops are making progress, because otherwise the population, especially the authorities, would not be so urgent in carrying out these evacuations. 

What about corruption, is it true that a lot of the Ukrainian population pays money not to go to the front line in Ukraine? 

Cases have been uncovered where people have been paid to get out of going to fight on the front line. A few weeks ago, the mass dismissal of all the officers running the recruitment offices for corruption was reported in the press, because it was found that they had received money to spare men from going to the front line.  

This week it was the turn of the medical commissions, which draw up reports on whether or not a person is fit for military service. It has been discovered that there are thousands of false dossiers in which the suitability of these men to fulfil their military obligation was ruled out. And it has also been discovered that these thousands of men have paid between 3,000 and 15,000 euros for doctors to falsify the reports.  

What problems do those who paid not to enlist face at the front? 

Most worryingly now for those who have bribed recruiters in order to avoid military service, Zelensky has announced that all medical exceptions since the large-scale invasion began will be reviewed. Already, as I say, cases have begun to be uncovered.  

Recently, the local press in Donetsk published the case of a man who admitted when he was arrested that he had paid the medical commission, who claimed that he was afraid to go to the front because he was not fit to hold a weapon and pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to three years in prison, although he will not go to prison unless he commits another crime.

In Spain it's two years in which, if you're convicted, you don't go to prison unless you have a criminal record. Here it is three. The penalties are prison sentences. In any case, it should be remembered that in Ukraine it has not yet been necessary to make compulsory mobilisations of soldiers to go and fight, as Russia did last year and will probably do again in September. 

What are the differences between Russian and Ukrainian recruitment methods? 

Here in Ukraine, when you get your conscription letter, what you are obliged to do is compulsory military service, do your training and then go into the reserves. To date, a year and a half after the war began, it has not been necessary to send anyone to the front against their will because men are still being recruited voluntarily who want to sign a contract with the army to go and fight.  

But the fact that Zelensky is now so close to these recruitment centres, to these medical commissions that are part of the recruitment process, suggests that the number of men that Ukraine is putting on the front is finite and that in a few months' time it may be necessary to carry out recruitment work or even compulsory mobilisations to ensure that the front does not run out of soldiers. And, above all, those who have paid or are planning to pay not to go to the front should not get away with it, because at the same time there are others who are showing their faces and giving their lives and others who with money can get away with it. This is absolutely unacceptable.