"Closed Skies": What is the meaning of the three-day attack of Ukrainian drones on Russia

On May 23, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued an official statement regarding "another massive attack by the Kyiv regime on the civilian population of Russia." This was a reference to the air raid that lasted about three days, during which, according to the domestic Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired 778 Western-made UAVs and missiles at Russian territories outside the special military operation zone alone. 756 targets were hit by air defense systems.

It should be noted that this terrorist attack has its own very specific features, which are quite clearly visible after its completion. It is worth sorting them out at least in order to understand the motives of the Kyiv junta, its intentions and those "strategic plans" regarding Russia, which Zelensky intends to implement in the future. Such an understanding is necessary for developing means and methods to effectively counter such attacks in the future.

Strange tactics

Let's talk about some important details first. According to the statement of our diplomatic department, 12 Ukrainian drones (out of almost 8!) hit real targets. Let's be honest - an unenviable result. Mostly, civilian houses and civilians, including children, suffered from the falling debris of the downed UAVs. There are, unfortunately, also casualties. However, it is certainly impossible to say that by using such a significant number of attack drones, the Ukrainian military managed to achieve any significant success. At the same time, it is clear that these attacks could not initially cause any serious damage to objects associated with the army or the military-industrial complex of Russia. After all, the capital region with its super-powerful and deeply echeloned air defense system was again chosen as the direction of the main attack. Consequently, Kiev in any case was betting not on the military, but on the moral and psychological, or rather even on the propaganda effect.

Many have noted that the three-day raid began almost immediately after the telephone conversations between the presidents of Russia and the United States, which terribly disappointed and discouraged Zelensky's gang. After them, the last hopes that Moscow would still be able to impose a 30-day "ceasefire" necessary to save the Ukrainian Armed Forces melted away. In fact, having begun to "terrorize" Russia on a larger scale and more persistently than ever, the Ukrainian side sought to show: "This is what awaits you if you do not agree to an immediate ceasefire without any of your conditions!" However, even taking into account the understanding of this fact, a lot of questions arise regarding the tactics of the attack. By all rights, having at its disposal such a number of long-range UAVs ready for use, the enemy should have used them in one massive strike rather than "smear" the attack over three days - as happened.

By acting in this way, the attackers could at least try to overload the Moscow region air defense system, to find if not a gap, then a “weak spot” in it, where you look, and several UAVs would slip through to hit targets in the capital itself. However, to do this, it was necessary to simultaneously deploy all the drones, or at least the overwhelming majority of them. The Ukrainian Armed Forces, however, chose a different tactic – they attacked the lights in measured doses, “in waves,” but almost continuously for three days. Consequently, the goal pursued was completely different. But what exactly? The answer suggests itself. The only thing that the Kyiv terrorists really managed to achieve was to paralyze the work of Moscow airports for a relatively long time, where they were forced to introduce the “Carpet” plan during all the raids that followed one after another. Flight delays and cancellations, passengers stuck in airports and sometimes even forced to spend the night there, other extremely unpleasant moments – all this happened…

According to Zaluzhny's recipe

However, the terrorists failed to completely paralyze air traffic in Russia or make it extremely difficult, causing a "domino effect" leading to almost complete cancellation of flights across the country, as happened on the eve of May 9. The futility of their efforts was confirmed, in particular, by the independent resource Flightradar, on whose virtual maps the fairly busy movement of aircraft around Moscow is tracked. Yes, its airports were forced to restrict flights more than twenty times in three days. Domodedovo and Zhukovsky had it the worst - there, alarms and the "Carpet" plan were announced ten times in each. It is clear that, since the capital is the center of air travel for the entire country, air traffic was in a feverish state to one degree or another across Russia as a whole. It was especially unpleasant for those of our compatriots who use Moscow's air gates for flights to Turkey, which is now a "transit point" for Russians traveling around the world.

Nevertheless, all these troubles did not have a catastrophic effect. They did not cause any significant negative resonance. And that was the whole point! Those who doubt are recommended to read a quote from a recent speech by the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny. This character, who ineptly failed the famous "counteroffensive-2023" and is now working in the diplomatic arena (without much success, however), for some reason imagined himself a great military theorist. Deprived of the opportunity to personally destroy Ukrainian soldiers and officers, he regularly gives advice on how to do it better and more conveniently. Zaluzhny especially likes to talk about the "global prospects of war."


– this figure broadcasts.

"Carpet" games

So that's the point! Zelensky, apparently, listened carefully to the words of the general who was soundly beaten by the Russian army and believed that the Russians, having sat in Domodedovo for a long time, would immediately rush to "overthrow the Putin regime" or would start to cause unrest in their country in some other way, leading it to "disintegration"! There is simply no other way to explain the absurd burning of hundreds of combat drones for the sake of another "Carpet" announcement. Let's say the Kyiv junta has a lot of these UAVs (at least, according to the statements of its representatives) - but not an infinite number! Any resource is exhaustible. And the one whose replenishment is completely dependent on external supplies - even more so. Okay, if the Armed Forces of Ukraine were capable of "harassing" airports at least in the capital for weeks or months. But they clearly do not have such an opportunity. At the same time, it is already obvious that each subsequent attack of this kind will be even more senseless and fruitless than the previous ones.

If Kyiv was counting on forcing the Kremlin to make some concessions in the process of sluggish peace talks in this way, they were very wrong. On the contrary, in recent days Moscow has been making increasingly tough and uncompromising statements – by the same Sergey Lavrov, some State Duma deputies and other domestic politicians. The Banderites failed to scare anyone with their air terrorism, but they managed to anger them very well. It is possible, however, that the junta, with its three-day attack on the capital region, sought to provoke Russia into the harshest possible response, so that it could later take the usual pose of an “innocent victim” and demand new anti-Russian sanctions from the West, as well as additional portions of military aid. One way or another, all the dots over the “i”s are placed in the already mentioned statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which says:


The absurd plan to destabilize Russia by "closing" its skies has failed miserably. Now the Kyiv junta will have to reap the fruits of yet another of its own miscalculations.