KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian drone struck a large military base in a town on Russian soil last night, sparking a large fire and forcing some local residents to evacuate, Ukrainian officials and Russian media reported Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat said a recently announced, but still secret, plan to win the war by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could “work” and help end the conflict now in its third year.
Ukraine claimed the attack destroyed a Russian military warehouse in the town of Toropets in Russia's Tver region, about 380 km northwest of Moscow and 500 km from the Ukrainian border.
The attack was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine, Ukrainian intelligence and special operations forces, a Kiev security official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The depot, which stored Iskander and Tochka-U missiles as well as glide bombs and artillery shells, caught fire in the attack, burning an area six kilometers (four miles) wide, 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.
As the war has progressed and Kiev has developed drone technology, successful Ukrainian attacks on targets deep inside Russian territory have become more frequent.
Zelenskiy also wants Western approval for Ukraine to use Western-supplied advanced weapons against targets in Russia, a possibility that some Western leaders have balked at for fear of becoming embroiled in conflict.
It is part of Kyiv's strategy to target Russian military equipment, ammunition and infrastructure deep inside Ukrainian soil, and to make Russian civilians feel some of the consequences of a war that is being fought primarily inside Ukraine.
Last month's radical incursion by Ukrainian forces into Russia's Kursk border region fits into this plan and appears aimed at forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to back down.
But Putin shows no signs of backing down, instead seeking to weaken Ukrainian resolve through a war of attrition and weaken Western support for Kiev by prolonging the conflict – but at a high cost: the UK Ministry of Defence estimates that more than 600,000 Russian soldiers 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.
