Good morning. Deadly attacks on Ukrainian territory are now priced into our understanding of Vladimir Putin’s war. That familiarity lies behind Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s bleakly trenchant response this week to three air raids on Kyiv within 24 hours: “This is what an ordinary weekday looks like.”
But in Moscow, weekdays have looked genuinely ordinary since the invasion began 15 months ago – and the Kremlin’s assurances that the war will not rebound on Russia’s civilians have largely held up. And so, even if the damage was merely to property, the news that a large-scale drone attack hit Moscow for the first time yesterday is a significant development. This morning, Russian officials have blamed Ukraine for a drone attack on an oil refinery in Krasnodar region and an artillery strike in Belgorod region. The question is whether there is more to come.
