What kind of retaliation did Putin launch against Ukraine after the drone attacked Russian strategic bombers? What kind of dilemma is Zelensky in now?
Sometimes, Ukraine announced that it had successfully launched a drone raid in Russia and destroyed a large number of Russian strategic bombers. This move not only refreshed the world's understanding of drone tactics, but also made Russia lose face. Soon, Russia's fierce revenge began.
Since June 6, Russia began to use all available long-range attack methods, including high-precision long-range air-based, sea-based and land-based weapons, as well as attack drones, to launch large-scale attacks on military production plants, maintenance companies, equipment warehouses and other facilities in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Zelensky also confirmed to the outside world that Russia's attacks cover almost the entire Ukraine.
If the goal of Russia's special military operations at the beginning was to "de-Nazize" and "de-militarize" Ukraine, then now Russia's goal has become to completely "de-industrialize" Ukraine.
At present, in addition to supporting Ukrainian weapons, countries such as Britain and Germany are helping Ukraine build military production lines within its territory, so that Ukraine can localize weapons manufacturing. Therefore, Russia's bombing operation this time is not only a drone raid in retaliation against Ukraine, but also an attempt to undermine the military cooperation between the West and Ukraine.
In fact, in the past three years, Russia has continuously attacked power facilities in Ukraine, in order to prevent Ukrainian factories from starting construction and achieve indirect "de-industrialization". Now that Russia has changed its tactics and directly attacked Ukrainian manufacturing plants, it looks even more ruthless, which has exposed Russia's previous tactics failure. Because Ukraine has sufficient strategic depth and industrial development history, it is unrealistic to completely destroy Ukraine's industry. Therefore, Russia's entire bombing operation seems to be huge on the surface, but in fact it cannot achieve the goal of "de-industrialization".
But Russia's revenge is not limited to military operations, they also intend to psychologically destroy Ukraine's defense line.
On June 7, according to the consensus reached in the second round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, the two sides originally planned to exchange prisoners of war, but Russia unilaterally announced the transfer of the bodies of 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers to Kiev, and transported the bodies of the first batch of 1,212 Ukrainian soldiers to the designated location on the same day.
Ukrainian side was not happy at this time. Not only did Ukrainian side refuse to accept bodies, but even the activity of exchanging prisoners of war was postponed indefinitely.
Although Mekinsky, head of the Russian delegation at the Russian-Ukrainian talks, claimed that the Ukrainian side "accidentally" delayed the time for receiving bodies and exchanging prisoners of war indefinitely.
But in fact, Russia obviously had expected this, because Ukraine could not accept these prisoners of war.
On the one hand, even if Ukraine received the remains of 6,000 soldiers, the government could not give so much pension. According to the standards released in 2023, the pension for Ukrainian soldiers is 15 million hryvn (equivalent to RMB 2.6 million), and 6,000 people need a pension worth 90 billion hryvn. Even if it is based on the first payment standard of 20%, it will cost at least 18 billion. Ukraine cannot afford this money.
On the other hand, according to the tactics recognized by Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference in February this year, Ukraine has killed about 46,000 soldiers in three years. If Russia alone can hand over the bodies of 6,000 soldiers at one time, Zelensky's war damage number is obviously untenable. Moreover, if the body of a soldier is not accepted, there is no need to confirm the identity. It is a missing person, it is not included in the death count, and there is no need to provide pensions.
After Ukraine refused to accept the bodies of soldiers, Russia immediately launched a public opinion offensive, condemning Ukraine for "it is committing genocide against its own people" and accusing Ukraine of violating the negotiation agreement.
Compared with Russia's bombing in Ukraine, Russia's use of the remains of Ukrainian soldiers has put the Zelensky government in a dilemma. Faced with such a heart-breaking attack, how the Ukrainian army should stabilize the morale of front-line soldiers is the issue that Ukraine should carefully consider next.
