Will Biden support Ukraine’s attacks on Russia?

This time last year, Volodymyr Zelensky was touring western capitals, calling for weapons and money to launch a decisive summer offensive. Nato eventually provided Leopard and Challenger tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, M777 howitzers, Himars rocket artillery and Patriot air defences – but too little, too late. The much-vaunted offensive went nowhere, despite a mutiny by the Wagner Group and widespread disarray in the Russian army. Instead, Soledar, Bakhmut and Avdiivka were seized. Today, Russian missile assaults are intensifying, not receding. In March, Russia hit Ukraine with 264 missiles and 515 drones. A relentless bombardment of Kharkiv is making Ukraine’s second city uninhabitable.

In response, Kyiv’s most successful strategy to date has been its ingenious use of Ukrainian-made long-range drones to strike oil refineries, gas liquefaction plants, military airfields, arms factories and petrol storage facilities deep inside Russia. These daily attacks are growing bolder and more sophisticated, from a musical drone that blared German music – Apocalypse Now-style – as it honed in on its target, to a converted pilot-less Cessna plane backed with explosives that struck a Shahed drone factory in Tatarstan, 750 miles from Ukraine.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War has said that the attacks represent ‘a significant inflection in Ukraine’s demonstrated capability to conduct long-range strikes far into the Russian rear’. And the strategy is hurting Russia: 15 of its 30 oil refineries have been struck since January, knocking out 10 to 14 per cent of the refinery capacity, driving prices up at the pumps and prompting the Kremlin to impose restrictions on gasoline exports from March to September. Moscow and other major battlefield targets are protected by air defence systems, but the country can’t possibly defend every installation in its vast territory; its size is its vulnerability.