Now, the very fact that these unknown drones (it is not clear where they came from or whose production they were, but some good people tried) have successfully overcome the Russian air defense grid, overcome their electronic warfare equipment, and reached the heart of Moscow.
So it is clear: it will continue. I am convinced that it will become even more interesting.
We are now looking at the new manuals that Russian propagandists are distributing. Their military commanders and their popular telegram channels have started to write amusing things: that no one in Ukraine will feel the effect that the Ukrainian special services, which are allegedly behind the attack on the Moscow City skyscrapers. Ukrainians will see how cool Moscow City is and start to envy us.
The level of inadequacy, frankly, is already off the charts. Every time it seems to me that there is nowhere deeper to go, it goes deeper and deeper.
Zakharova told the African representatives that Russia is at war with Ukraine for the freedom of African countries. Honestly, I felt slightly in the Soviet Union, but I can't remember such nonsense even there. Although, it would seem, all the roots grow from there.
So our case with you is simple: where we have the opportunity to help the Defense Forces, we must continue to help them so that they can bring the Russians back to the damp ground with their bare asses, work in opposition to Russian propaganda, and work effectively.
We see that they are succeeding. This week was quite fruitful - some oil depots were hit. We have already knocked on the windows of the relevant ministries of the Russian Federation. So we continue to work and lend a shoulder to the Defense Forces.
In this context, our Western partners are quite pragmatic. They are clear about their wishes: even if Ukraine is going to work on the territory of Russia, they cannot use the weapons provided by the West for this purpose. We can clearly understand this.
Secondly, with all due respect to our friends in Europe and North America, they certainly cannot impose on Ukraine's military and political command whether we can or cannot strike at the territory of Russia with our own weapons.
we differ from the Russians in that we hit legitimate targets
Thirdly, I think this is crucial: . That is, the absolute indiscriminate targeting of targets in Ukraine by the Russians is precisely why they are not perceived as anything other than freaks who don't care whether it's a military facility or a high-rise building in Dnipro. The large number of civilian casualties, victims of rocket attacks and missile strikes, tipped the scales in favor of Ukraine and sympathy for Ukrainians, who are victims of this war.
That's why we must continue adhering to this vector of selective targeting. If civilians are killed in large numbers by attacks by unknown drones or artillery shelling, this could potentially cheer up a Ukrainian social media user who will enjoy it and say: "Finally, retribution."
But Western society will be quite sensitive to such things. Then the scales may swing. Russian propaganda will use every corpse of an "innocent old lady" to make us feel bad.
About Western aid
Frankly speaking, before criticizing our Western partners, we need to put the question squarely to the previous and current leaders of the state: where were or are our missile programs? We had safe times - the 2000s. And there was enough money even in the 2000s (at least we remember the economic leap during the time of Viktor Yushchenko) when a consumer society developed in Ukraine.
At that time, no one prevented us from developing missile programs, implementing them, developing, accumulating, etc. Perhaps if the enemy knew that we had sufficient deterrents, no one would wait for planes to take off from Russia's airbases, but we would strike at those airbases. We would be safe.
As of today, one can, of course, shake one's head a lot and say that; unfortunately, the West does not quite understand our trouble; they do not quite understand how much we need. They understand everything, but the Western bureaucracy has been formed for decades, if not centuries. No one will change protocols in a second, even because of the enormous force majeure in Ukraine in the form of this terrible war, just because we need it.
We recently had a meeting in the Parliament. The volunteer community and the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada, representatives of the National Police, the National Bank, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Finance, and Diia discussed some things related to making life easier for Ukrainian volunteers. I remember Roman Hryshchuk, one of the MPs, saying, "We want to amend the legislation that will protect volunteers from some problems, but we cannot do it quickly because making this slight amendment to a specific law entails making amendments to three more codes. This, in turn, requires more people, time, resources, and changes.”
Just imagine, we are talking about our internal issue. Consider what is happening in the circles of negotiations of our Western partners regarding any position or nomenclature we request.
Remember that the Russian lobby, the influence, although invisible, remains in many countries. To put it mildly, it is only Hungary that is on fire. But this lobby is also in the United States. And some congressmen have blocked certain initiatives of President Biden and [others].
So we have to work, work and work again on all fronts.
In this sense, the Ukrainian diplomatic corps has a crucial role to play, and we all cheer them on. At the moment when there are no obvious, visible, striking successes on the battlefield, as was the case with the Kharkiv operation, we have to come from other directions.
One way or another, the issue of the same airplanes and, perhaps, long-range missiles will be moved forward. At least there is a certain philosophy of the development of events. A year ago, no one was hoping for the HIMARS, and then no one was hoping for the Patriot systems. But now we have all this, and it all works for Ukraine's victory.