Russia rocked by Ukraine's long-range blitz - as targets revealed for missiles it wants from West

Ukraine has hit Russia with its biggest ever drone attack amid claims that Iran and China are ramping up their military support for Moscow but still the West is dragging its heels over giving Ukraine permission to use long range weapons against Targets on Sovereign Russian soil my name is jome s I'm the defense editor of the Sun newspaper and this is Frontline your weekly Roundup of the most important news from the war in Ukraine we're starting with those strikes in and across Russia at least 20 drones hitting the capital region Moscow part of a bombardment of more than 144 drones believed to be from Ukraine or launched at Ukraine's orders at Targets across Russia including about 70 in the briansk region as well at least one person killed killed in Moscow reports of others injured and images we've seen of what appears to be an apartment building hit in one of those strikes reminder of often uh the indiscriminate nature of the attacks by both sides in this conflict Ukraine is hitting back continuing to try and hit Targets in and across Russia uh both to bring the war home to ordinary Russian people and that was one of the reasons it launched that attack into KK and also part of its wide uh longer range strategic objective trying to degrade Russia's War Machine we've also had reports in today of uh a tank Factory in Omsk on fire that's about 1,400 miles east of the closest Ukrainian position and suggestions that at least three possibly more drones have been intercepted in mman inside the Arctic Circle so that is the headquarters of Russia's Northern Fleet about a thousand mil to the north of the nearest Ukrainian held territory so deep range strikes happening inside Russia uh despite the refusal by Western allies to lift those existing banss on Ukraine using Western weapons to carry out more attacks like that so Ukraine on the one hand proving that it can do it on its own with its Sovereign capabilities with these drones that it has developed itself but nonetheless when US Secretary of State Anthony blinkin and Britain's foreign secretary David Lamy visited keev this week the message from zilinski was clear he wanted strong decisions made soon he wants permission to use those weapons Storm Shadow cruise missiles eight acams uh ground launch missiles from the Americans against targets inside Russia interestingly one of the lines that came out of uh David Lam's press conference in ke was he talked about wanting to discuss and see Ukraine's strategy he said he was there to listen but that word strategy is important because separately I have picked up perhaps a sense that the West if it is going to lift this ban uh on Ukraine using these weapons wants to know exactly how they're going to be used and wants to be reassured that they're going to be used uh as part of a thought through coherent strategy to degrade Russia's fighting ability and one of the target sets we've heard uh mentioned and indeed one of the target sets we've seen targeted are those air bases in Russia the 10 or so air bases that Russia uses most often to launch the aircraft that launch the Glide bombs the Glide bombs have been so devastating uh against Ukrainian targets if Ukraine can put those airfields at risk it forces the aircraft to fly from further away that means they have to carry more fuel it means they can carry fewer bombs and that may be part of the strategy that is under discussion we've heard uh from us and UK officials this week that Iran has shipped some 200 short range ballistic missiles fatter 360 missiles to Russia and Secretary of State blinkin said he expects those to be used against Ukraine within the coming weeks and America and the UK have framed this as a significant escalation indeed they have announced sanctions against Iran for increasing its cooperation and at the same time we've also heard us officials talking about significant uh support that China is providing for the Russian war machine now interesting on that front because we've had some mixed messages over the past weeks and months over the nature of Chinese support China has certainly provided Russia with political support uh we've heard about China supplying Moscow with dual use technology that's equipment that can be used for both legitimate civilian purposes and Military purposes uh when the CIA director Bill Burns was in London last weekend I went to go and see him speaking at the Ft festival and he said that neither he nor his counterpart at Britain's MI6 Richard Moore had seen direct evidence of China supplying weapons or Munitions but then then just a couple of days yet later we heard from uh the US deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell speaking in Brussels who said that actually uh China was providing direct support for Russia's War Machine uh not dual use Technologies uh but he was referring to technology we understand certain types of computer controlled uh cutting machines effectively Factory parts that make other uh Parts which China has supplied which is allowing Russia to produce ruce armaments and rearm its forces to replace those losses that it has suffered on the battlefield in many ways that was the same fulfilling the same role perhaps as these Iranian missiles might also provide because whilst Russia already has short range ballistic missiles uh the message from us officials and blinken was that these 200 fata 360 missiles which have a range of about 75 miles uh once they come onto the battlefield they will allow Russia to use its existing stock piles to hit targets possibly to use its longer range weapons to hit targets deeper inside Russia now both of these developments the increased support from China The increased support from Iran would all lend support to keev and president zelinsky's urgent arguments urgent demands requests for permission to use those Western weapons against Targets in Russia and indeed that's one of the questions uh one of you asked in the comments from last week's show is what is the difference certainly in the minds of the ukrainians there is no difference if Russia can use weapons from North Korea from China from Iran to attack Ukraine why can Ukraine not use weapons from the United States from France from Britain and from Germany and others to attack Russia but whether or not that changes remains to be seen finally probably the last thing to say on this argument or this ongoing discussion about when or if the West will change its position uh Bloomberg reporting today they expect no decision to come out of the American Americans to come from The Americans on this before the United Nations uh General Assembly next meets on the 24th of September uh we've seen reported in the United Kingdom uh in our sister newspaper the times that the United States and BR could be just days away from lifting this ban uh Bloomberg suggesting it might be uh about 10 days two weeks away before we see a decision but it Remains The Hot Topic and understandably uh because Ukraine continues to be getting hammered by these attacks it's proving at least it would argue it's proving the value of these longrange strikes again this is something we've continued to watch we will continue to watch it in terms of the developments across the battlefield in Ukraine uh there haven't been any really significant movements since our last update Russia is maintaining its pressure in the East particularly in the donbass particularly around prros Ukrainian efforts to evacuate that key town uh continue perhaps what has changed though is what's happening in KK oblast where Ukraine has taken this pocket of land with its crossb offensive which is now more than a month old uh Russian paratroopers from the vdv units and Marines from its Naval infantry brigades uh have launched a Counterattack on the western edge of the territory that Ukraine holds now too early to tell whether or not this is Russia's main offensive to try and push those Ukrainian forces forces out or whether this might be better seen as part of shaping operations uh in the words of the institute for the study of War suggesting they might be trying to uh gain favorable positions or perhaps even bict uh the Ukrainian uh troops who are in Sovereign Russian territory to uh get better positions for a bigger offensive down the line but clearly Ukraine also fighting back trying to hold that territory uh which President zalinsky has called a buffer zone uh his top Commander Alexander syi said was aimed at thwarting an attempted Russian assault into Ukraine from that territory as ever if you have any questions please do ask them in the comments below and I'll try and answer as many of them as I can next week and if I can't do that I will also get into the comments myself and try and answer some of them there as well thank you to everybody who asked questions last time round uh question number one based on those Dragon drones we were talking about last week that spew thermite incredibly High uh hot um incendiary weapons over Russian positions and tree lines and trenches and bunkers that will we see more flamethrowers those sorts of weapons in use in the conflict it's hard to predict how that's going to evolve what I would say is we've suddenly seen this sort of spike in these thermite Dragon drones I would also point out we have seen So-Cal thermobaric weapons used early on in the conflict these were sometimes called vacuum bombs uh weapons that create such a sort of hot explosion that they burn up the Flames burn up all the oxygen and create a vacuum uh a bit like a fire storm but on a smaller scale um incend weapons are used uh all the time in Conflict uh flamethrowers quite a specific purpose uh used to clear trenches or bunkers in Fairly Close Quarters uh combat incidentally that factory we talked about in Omsk that appears to be on fire today that makes tanks also makes flamethrowers whether there's any connection impossible to tell at the moment and obviously we'll keep an eye on whether or not more of these weapons are going to be used question number two is it a numbers game is one side going to break the question really was when is the West going to say enough is enough and intervene directly I don't think we will see a direct Western intervention and by that what I mean is Western conventional Western forces fighting directly against Russian forces on Ukraine because ultimately uh that then becomes a NATO Article 5 conflict it is a direct fight between the west and between Russia and it is to all intents and purposes uh a third world war and there is a subtle but significant difference between what is happening now and that nightmare doomsday scenario uh the West is trying to tread a very delicate line between supporting Ukraine allowing Ukraine and provide arming Ukraine with what it needs to um survive and succeed without Crossing that threshold now if you listen to the rhetoric coming out of Russia Russia says it is already at war with uh the West it is already at war with uh NATO but actually the conflict at the moment is confined largely to Ukraine and uh there is some some fighting happening when Ukraine hits back on Russian soul but it has not spread to other countries and were Western forces to get involved directly then I think we would expect to see it spread to other countries as well and that is what the West is trying to avoid question number three can Ukraine just go ahead and use the weapons it's got against Russian soil particularly this was asked in in connection with the Storm Shadow cruise missiles these are bunker busting cruise missiles that Britain has supplied France has supplied its equivalent which is called scalp they're basically the same weapon uh Ukraine we know Ukraine has some of these we don't know how many in its stock bars can't it just fire them at those targets now I put this question to Justin Bron who's the air power expert at the Rousy think tank in London I mean he pointed out a couple of things he said simply on a political level it would not be in Ukraine's interest to violate the terms of any agreements with its allies who've donated these weapons so even if it was mechanically physically possible for Ukraine to use those weapons that are now in its control as has been suggested against Targets in Russia clearly if that was in breach of an agreement with the donor then and that would jeopardize that relationship and the long-term relationship is more important than any particular immediate military Target it's also not clear and there may be a case that there may be a requirement for those allies to be involved in the programming of these missiles for uh to hit certain Target sets or for approvals now that that's not clear and allies are deliberately opaque about how that process uh works but for the time being just on the simple political level wouldn't be in Ukraine's best interest to do that and that's probably the reason we see Ukraine not doing that it may not even be physically or mechanically possible to do it without the blessing of the donor countries what would happen if Vladimir Putin used nuclear weapons we think about this a lot it's a terrifying Prospect and indeed we heard from uh the CIA director Bill Burns when he was in London talking about a moment in the Autumn of 2022 the first Autumn of the War uh when there was a genuine concern a genuine risk were the words he used that Vladimir Putin was about to use a nuclear weapon he said that President Biden dispatched him to meet his uh Russian counterparts the head of Russia's foreign intelligence service to explain in no uncertain terms what the consequences would be uh we understand separately from other accounts of these uh these events that America roped in China spoke to Beijing explained to China what they believed was about to happen or what they believed could happen and Beijing then exerted its pressure on Russia not to fire these weapons so there is also separate to that a suggestion of a a massive conventional response possibly from the West so a number of things you know in summary if Russia used a nuclear weapon there would be the immediate and awful Fallout of a nuclear weapon wherever it was used Russia would be immediately isolated from the few allies it has dropped immediately by China uh it would lose the support of India and the handful of countries who still back Moscow it may also then face another significant but unspecified response from the west and from Ukraine's allies now they've been deliberately opaque about that but the suggestion from Bill Burns uh last weekend in London was that that message when delivered to Moscow encouraged or persuaded convinced the Kremlin to step back from the brink thank you for listening thank you for watching if you've got any questions please do ask them in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer as many as I can next week