The message with Ukraine's drone strike on Moscow

Hello,

Ukraine has conducted the biggest drone strike on Russia so far in the war, on the night before a meeting takes place in Saudi Arabia between Ukrainian and American officials about potential peace negotiations. In this video, I discuss the timing and the message behind this strike.

Watch the video on the website or read a transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

Hi, I am traveling, so you're going to get a quick reaction video from my hotel room. But I wanted to say something about the big Ukrainian drone strike that there was on Moscow last night. This was the biggest Ukrainian drone strike so far, more than 300 drones, some 330 drones or something like that in total, was launched against Russia. And it was also the biggest drone strike on Moscow itself. So many of these drones hit the capital region in Russia.

And that, of course, leaves, well, basically two big questions. The first one is, why is this happening? And the second one is, why has this not happened before? So, and I think those are two very relevant questions considering all the events that are going on in the world. And most importantly, I think it's important that we understand this drone strike also as connected to the big meeting that is happening in Saudi Arabia.

Today, we have the Ukrainian delegation meeting an American delegation in Saudi Arabia to talk about a potential ceasefire and the conditions for that. And I don't think it's a coincidence that this drone strike happened on the same morning that this meeting is going to take place in Saudi Arabia. And, I've seen many people saying that this drone strike was intended not just to damage, of course, Russian infrastructure, oil production, and those things, but also that it was a message to Putin. To remind Putin that peace is also in Russia's interest and that Russia should be interested in making a deal that also gives concessions to Ukraine.

I think actually that is a mistake. I think the real reason why this is happening is that it is a message to the Americans. The situation right now is that the United States has basically cut off all support to Ukraine in the expectation that this will force Ukraine into a peace deal. But what's happening here is that Ukraine is reminding the American delegation that they are far from defeated and that they are fighting on and that they're going to continue doing that and that they have the capacity to do these things, to conduct the biggest drone strike ever and the message that this can continue.

And then I think the fact that this is against Moscow is important because one of the reasons why Ukraine hasn't been attacking Moscow more directly sooner is that the Americans were against it. So this is actually something that the Biden administration was very concerned about the potential of Russian escalation. So one of the reasons that Ukraine has held back on doing this is exactly because they wanted to not do something that the Americans would disapprove of.

But here's the thing. If the Americans have already cut all the support to Ukraine, including intelligence sharing, including air defense missiles, including everything, then why would Ukraine take American concerns into consideration when choosing targets? So this is a reminder to the Americans that if they want influence on what types of targets that Ukraine is hitting inside of Russia, then they better return some of that military assistance because if they don't, they don't get a say in what the targets are.

So I think that's the message with this drone strike. I think it was intended not so much as a message to Putin, but quite a lot as a message to the American administration.

All right. That was just my quick reaction to this very big drone strike in that also hit Moscow. And it will be very interesting to see how how this develops and if Ukraine is going to do more of that, if this is something that will shape the American attitude towards helping Ukraine. I doubt it. But in that case, I think Ukraine has shown that they are going to take steps that the Americans might actually be uncomfortable with. And that this is basically a part of the way that Ukraine is trying to deal with this situation that they're in now. Not just roll around on their back and say "sorry" and "thank you", but also to demonstrate that if the Americans want influence, then they have to be relevant because otherwise you don't get any say in what happens.

All right. That was just my quick video from here. Thanks for watching.