Ukraine’s fight inside Russia, behind enemy lines

Bloggers and news outlets in Russia are abuzz with speculation about what could be the start of Ukraine’s long-awaited spring counteroffensive. Experts have had months to speculate about what shape the counteroffensive might take and what its chances of success are, but recent attacks in Moscow, Crimea, and border regions raise other questions about how the Russian authorities are guarding territories that are, from Kyiv’s perspective, behind enemy lines.

To learn more about how Russia defends against Ukrainian drone attacks and special operations, and what these tactics mean for Kyiv’s war effort, Meduza spoke to military analyst and Foreign Policy Research Institute senior fellow Rob Lee and investigative journalist and The Insider editor-in-chief Roman Dobrokhotov.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (4:21) Were the May 3, 2023, drone strikes on the Kremlin a Russian false-flag operation or a Ukrainian special operation?
• (9:09) How hard is it to track UAVs?
• (12:16) The war’s growing symmetry
• (18:30) The costs of a drone attack fleet
• (23:02) Attributing attacks inside Russia and Crimea
• (25:46) The effects of bombings inside Russia
• (29:04) The state of Russia’s homeland defenses

New episodes of The Naked Pravda are released at the end of every week. Catch each show by subscribing through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or one of these other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the podcast, please write to Kevin Rothrock at kevin@meduza.io with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Production by Ania Kovalenko. Sound editing and mixing by Kevin Rothrock.