Ukraine hits distant Crimea

As swarms of Russian soldiers stormed Ukrainian lines in furious assaults around two cities in the east on Tuesday, Ukraine set the stage for its own advance by making strikes deep behind Russian lines, including what appeared to be a drone attack on a vital logistical hub in the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

Russian forces have gained ground in recent days around the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka in the eastern Donbas region, but the Ukrainians say Moscow is paying a heavy price in blood for every inch of ground it claims in its bid to encircle the longbattered city.

Avdiivka, Ukrainian officials say, is rapidly turning into another Bakhmut, the eastern city that Russian forces have sought to capture by sending waves of lightly trained recruits on near- suicidal attacks.

Despite suffering heavy losses of its own, the Ukrainian military has so far managed to mount a staunch defense in Bakhmut and Avdiivka, even as it holds troops and material in reserve for a looming counteroffensive. Western military analysts say such an operation may be Ukraine’s best chance to break the current deadlock.

Ukraine is seeking to replicate a pattern that worked for it in the fall, when it reclaimed thousands of square miles by using newly acquired Western weapons and its own growing fleet of longrange drones to strike deep behind the Russian lines at command centers, ammunition depots and supply lines.

In Russian- occupied areas of eastern and southern Ukraine on Tuesday, the Ukrainian air force said, fighter jets had launched 12 strikes on enemy personnel and military equipment clusters behind the front lines. Missile and artillery units hit three more clusters of enemy soldiers, the military said.

But Ukrainian officials and military analysts have said that to succeed in retaking the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in Ukraine, Kyiv will have to disrupt the flow of weapons and supplies in and out of the Crimean Peninsula, which dangles off the southern coast of Ukraine like a pendant connected by the thinnest of chains. Russia annexed it illegally in 2014.

In what appeared to be a drone attack in Crimea on Monday night, Ukrainian officials said an explosion in the city of Dzhankoy took out a train shipment of Russian Kalibr cruise missiles. The Russians disputed that account, saying their air defenses had shot down a drone, fragments of which landed in civilian areas. Dzhankoy is a key hub for Russians using roads and railways about 50 miles south of the Ukrainian mainland.

It was not possible to verify either claim independently, but the blast refocused attention on the strategic importance of Crimea as both a hub for the Russian military and a likely target for future Ukrainian strikes.

A city of about 40,000 people, Dzhankoy was a staging ground for Russia’s invasion force a year ago. In September, when the Russians were forced to retreat from the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, it became the central node for much of Russia’s logistical operations in the south.

Dzhankoy is home to the main rail lines running from southern Russia across the Kerch Strait into Crimea and on to Kherson, where Russian forces are arrayed on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River. A canal carrying fresh water from the Dnipro into Crimea runs through the town, where two major highways intersect.

Satellite photos taken by the company Planet Labs in October appeared to show dozens of Russian attack helicopters at the airfield in Dzhankoy.