427. Election Bans, Drone Offensives & National Resilience

**Patrick Bishop** (0:12)
Hello and welcome to Battleground with me, Patrick Bishop and Saul David. The story this week is that the tide of the war Vladimir Putin launched four and a half years ago is now lapping at the front doors of major Russian cities, causing a sharp increase in civilian casualties and bringing the folly of the enterprise home to ordinary Russians in a way that is now causing serious alarm in the Kremlin. How do we know? Well, one glaring indication is the fact that the Russian Supreme Court has banned the one party standing on an anti-war platform from taking part in next month's Russian parliamentary elections, certainly on Putin's orders. We'll be talking about that a bit more later on, but though things might be getting tougher for Russians, there's no consequent respite for Ukraine, as we'll be hearing from stalwart friend of the podcast Askold Krushelnycky, who's just got back from a dramatic trip to Sloviansk and Krematorsk on the Eastern Front.
But first Saul, let's talk about that Ukrainian battering of Russia. It doesn't show any sign of letting up, does it?

**Saul David** (1:21)
No, it doesn't. In the last few days alone, we've seen Ukraine mount what I think is accurate to say is an unprecedented, massive long-range drone offensive with more than 450 drones, targeting 16 different Russian regions. So that's a vast swathe of the country and the targets are, as before principally, energy infrastructure. In other words, oil and gas installations and military production tasks. But also continuing the trend, we've seen of striking at commercial logistics hubs. There was another attack on a wild berries depot, the Russian version of Amazon in Tula Oblast, which is 120 miles south of Moscow. Now, the range and intensity of these strikes are astounding. But at the same time, more and more people are being killed. At least 13 died in a drone strike on an oil refinery in the city of Nizhny Komsk. More than 1,100 kilometers, that's 680 miles for the pedants, Patrick, from the Ukrainian border in the Republic of Tatarstan. That's according to local officials. One of them was a child, another 75 were injured. And if accurate, that would make it one of the most, if not the most deadly single attacks on Russia since the start of the full scale war.
According to Russian news agency RIA, most of the victims had been staying in a hostel at the time of the attack. And Russia's investigative committee said that civilian individuals who were not involved in any military operations were present when the drone struck. Now we've no way of knowing whether that's true or not, but there's no doubt that civilian casualties are on the rise.

**Patrick Bishop** (2:56)
Yeah, and they're quite significant now. In the first seven months of the war this year, 327 people have died in Russia from shelling, drone attacks and air strikes.
That's outside the occupied areas. Now this is data that's been compiled by the Conflict Intelligence Team, which is a reputable Russian opposition investigative team based outside Russia. So it's pretty reliable from what I can see.
And that's pretty significant increase on the 145 civilian deaths that the group recorded for the same period last year. And then there's another 2,366 people were wounded, which is double last year's figure for the period. Well, we know what the justification for these attacks is, which is of course that Ukraine is targeting war economy sites in order to pressure Putin into stopping his war. And I, for one, I'm sure you do too, Saul, I accept that. And I also believe, Kiev, when it says that it does not target civilians deliberately, which is in marked contrast, of course, to Russia. But the fact is that weapons are bound to go astray. And the more drones you fire off, the more likely it is that you're going to kill innocent people. The questions I suppose we have to ask ourselves, Saul, is one, whether that's going to significantly damage support for Putin and his war, or conversely strengthen it. There is an argument it might go the other way. And also, I suppose, there's that perennial question of whether this increase in civilian casualties will dent Ukraine's international reputation.

**Saul David** (4:45)
Yeah, Ukraine's certainly been careful about preserving its status as not getting involved in deliberately targeting civilians. And I, like you, Patrick, don't think it's doing that. And yet, of course, the more of these strikes deep into Russia that occur, as you say, the more civilians are bound to be affected. I mean, it was interesting that that attack on the beach recently, or at least that alleged attack on the beach, about a week ago, was in a lot of the Western press, indicating very badly phrased articles, including one in the BBC, actually, Patrick, that kind of indicated that there was a deliberate attack on the beach, or at least that's what the articles seemed to suggest. Almost certainly it was an attack on infrastructure in the area.