{"id":121133,"date":"2023-06-07T07:00:48","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=121133"},"modified":"2023-06-07T18:38:33","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T22:38:33","slug":"wsj-from-drone-strikes-to-ground-incursions-war-comes-to-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=121133","title":{"rendered":"(WSJ) From Drone Strikes to Ground Incursions, War Comes to Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drone strikes inside Russia<\/a>\u00a0are now a near-daily occurrence. Those in Moscow have had limited military impact. But, along with hits on refineries and airfields, ground incursions in the southern Belgorod region and assassinations of several prominent Russian war supporters, the attacks have caused a psychological shift.<\/p>\n

Fifteen months after President\u00a0Vladimir Putin<\/a>\u00a0invaded Ukraine, expecting a quick victory, the war has come to the heart of Russia. The country\u2019s elites, who believed themselves safe as the invasion campaign rumbled far away, are rattled.<\/p>\n

As Moscow struggles with how to respond, each new attack is a blow to the official narrative of Russian supremacy and a challenge to Putin\u2019s image of invincibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe society is starting to worry: Will the war expand inside Russia?\u201d said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. \u201cThere is a slow internal erosion under way, in attitudes towards the war and towards the elites.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Ukraine\u2019s top commander Zaluzhny argued last fall that Russia\u2019s \u201ccenter of gravity\u201d in the war is impunity, a sense among Russians that the war is remote and doesn\u2019t touch their lives. My piece on how recent drone strikes and, now, incursions, upend this. https:\/\/t.co\/4nRRR23dT4<\/a><\/p>\n

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) June 6, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n