Ukraine may be changing strategy against Russia in the war

The death of a senior general in an explosives attack on a Moscow street was the first recorded case linked to Ukraine against a Russian military figure outside the war front.

The episode, which resulted in the death of two people linked to Vladimir Putin’s regime – General Igor Kirillov and his assistant – raised questions about whether Kiev is changing its combat tactics, given that the attack came as a shock to the Russian military and political establishment. .

Sources told the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform, the American newspaper The New York Times and the British broadcaster BBC that the Ukrainian intelligence service was behind the attack, although Volodymyr Zelensky’s government has not officially confirmed this version so far.

The explosion of an electric scooter parked in front of a residential building recalled the case of explosive pagers deployed inside Lebanon and Syria to target members of the Hezbollah terrorist group in September.

At the time, both Beirut and the Lebanese Shiite group held Israel responsible for the attack. Information leaked to the Hebrew press in November would have confirmed that Tel Aviv was responsible for the mass attack against Hezbollah.

According to the Times of Israel newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted for the first time during a cabinet meeting that he was responsible for the attack.

“The pager operation and the elimination of (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah were carried out despite the opposition of senior officials in the defense establishment and those responsible for them in the political echelon,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying, in a clear criticism to recently fired defense minister Yoav Gallant.

For the targeted attack on Russia, Ukraine used a similar tactic to Israel, planting explosives on an electric scooter to target the high-ranking military member in the Russian capital.

Ukrainian security officials told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the SBU, Kiev’s intelligence agency, is taking inspiration from the Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency), known for its relentless pursuit of the country’s enemies abroad.

“Kiev sent a message that even the highest-ranking officials responsible for Russia’s war effort and crimes cannot feel safe, not even in Moscow,” said the consultant for Central and Eastern Europe at the consulting firm Teneo, Andrius Tursa.

This new escalation by Kiev, which appears to have as its main objective to eliminate Russian military authorities and pro-Kremlin public figures within enemy territory, calls into question the effectiveness of Russian security and gives an expanded idea that Ukrainian intelligence has new strategies for the conflict.

An anonymous source involved with Ukraine’s recruitment of hitmen told the Wall Street Journal that the country can contact the perpetrators of the attacks via the Telegram messaging app or the dark web.

“Often, the perpetrators do not know exactly what they are doing,” added the source, saying that several people may be involved in the same attack, with different tasks.

Unlike Kiev, Moscow has not yet managed to expand its strategy to target high-ranking military figures like this Tuesday on Ukrainian territory since the invasion.

In the WSJ’s analysis, this recent episode suggests that Ukraine may have a better operational capability than Russian intelligence.

Although the attack aimed at General Igor Kirillov was the first against a Russian military authority within enemy territory on record, Ukraine had already been carrying out operations against mid- to high-ranking Russian figures in combat areas.

On November 13, Kiev claimed a car bomb attack killed senior Russian naval officer Valery Trankovsky in Crimea, a region belonging to Ukraine that was occupied by the Putin regime in 2014. A source from Ukraine’s security services told the Associated Press (AP) news agency that the country was behind the action.

More recently, days earlier, a former head of a prison in Donetsk, another region of Russian-occupied Ukraine, was killed after his car exploded.

Putin’s regime blamed Kiev for the attack on the prison, but Ukraine responded by saying it was the destruction of evidence of torture and other war crimes committed there against prisoners of war.

Also in December, Ukrainian intelligence was implicated in the murder of Russian scientist Mikhail Shatsky near Moscow. He would have participated in Russia’s missile development program and the development of artificial intelligence software for drones.

Other cases were recorded this year, but not all were claimed by Ukraine. In October, Kiev claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack that killed an employee at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, also occupied by Russia.

In addition to the impact of the death of a high-ranking general, Putin’s regime is facing war ever closer to home. This time in the Russian capital, Moscow.

Ukraine’s possible escalation comes at a crucial moment, a month before Donald Trump’s return to the White House, with promises to “end” the conflict in Eastern Europe, but without giving any clues as to how this would come to fruition.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov had been in charge of Russia’s radiological, chemical and biological defense since 2017 and regularly made press appearances in which he referred, among other things, to “American biological laboratories” in Ukraine.

According to The New York Times, Lieutenant General Kirillov was one of the main responsible for Russia’s military propaganda campaign against Ukraine and the West since the beginning of the war.

He frequently gave interviews to the Russian press with unsubstantiated allegations, according to the newspaper. In 2023, for example, a Russian army officer said the US was planning to use drones “designed to spread infected mosquitoes” within the country.

Earlier this week, the general was charged with using banned chemical weapons in Russia’s war against Ukraine by a Kiev court. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, more than 4,800 cases of Russian use of chemical munitions have been recorded under Kirillov’s orders since the start of the war.