As the very symbolic date of May 9 approaches in Russia, actions against Russian infrastructure are multiplying, and are likely to intensify.
A taste of the counter-offensive promised by kyiv? In recent days, Russian territory has been the scene of a series of spectacular incidents, which has come to remind us that the Moscow regime remains exposed to enemy blows, even hundreds of kilometers from the Ukrainian front.
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On Monday and Tuesday, “explosive devices” derailed two freight trains in a region bordering Ukraine, incidents never before reported in Russia since the start, on February 24, 2022, of the offensive against Kiev. What awaken the memory of the “battle of the rail”, this strategy used during the Second World War.
Also on Monday, much further from Ukraine, a power line near a village south of Saint Petersburg was damaged by an explosive device, according to the security services (FSB) which opened an investigation for “sabotage”. .
And overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, a fuel depot caught fire in a Russian village near annexed Crimea. Before, in the morning, the FSB – the Russian security services – announced that it had dismantled a Ukrainian “terrorist” network in the peninsula.
Last weekend, an oil depot in Crimea itself was hit by a drone attack, while a bombardment on a Russian village in the border region of Bryansk killed four people.
“Not to touch the civilian populations”
If Ukraine has not claimed any of these attacks, as usual, their multiplication comes at a time when kyiv claims to have completed its preparations for a major spring offensive announced for weeks. With BFMTV.com, General Jérôme Pellistrandi, defense consultant, lists the potential perpetrators of these acts.
“In Belarus, there are opposition movements that have carried out acts of sabotage, there are also Ukrainian clandestine agents. If they are led by the Ukrainians, they will never be claimed,” he said, recalling the episode of the explosion of the Kerch bridge.
According to the expert, “this type of action will continue with increasingly significant elongations in Russian territory”. He also points out that, for the time being, it is military targets or military logistics that are concerned.
“The fuel depots, it’s easy to hit, to blow up, and it’s spectacular and it’s humiliating for the Russians,” he describes.
On the other hand, there remains a pitfall to these actions, if they are indeed the work of Ukrainian illegal immigrants, “we must not touch the civilian populations so as not to give the Russians a pretext to say that they are in legitimate defence” , he recalls.
“Humiliating for Russia”
In this context, several Russian cities have canceled the celebrations traditionally organized on May 9 for the “Day of Victory” marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
For the time being, the big military parade on Red Square in Moscow, the main event of this day, is maintained. For the authorities, the challenge is to ensure that it goes off without a hitch.
“May 9 is all the more humiliating since a year ago it had already been canceled because of the weather,” recalls General Pellistrandi.
Usually, these military parades, for which thousands of spectators are present, as a family, are one of the major annual meetings of Vladimir Putin’s regime.
“I will not be surprised if something happens on May 9. The hatred between Russia and Ukraine is such that there is a desire to humiliate the adversary. Actions that humiliate Russia can resonate with the Russian population,” he concludes.
Moscow has strongly tightened its legislation against “sabotage”, now punishable by very heavy prison sentences. More than 65 people, including a third of minors, have been arrested since the fall in around 20 Russian regions after being accused of railway sabotage, according to a count by independent media Mediazona published in mid-April.
