RUSSIA – The past few weeks in the Ukraine war have felt like, to borrow an adage often attributed to Lenin, that decades have happened in them. It is perhaps the fastest moment of change in the conflict since it began, and heralds Kyiv throwing everything it has down on the table to try and bring palpable results before the US election alters its fate, maybe irrevocably.

Since the surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region in early August, Ukraine’s risk tolerance has rocketed. Its top brass unveiled Tuesday it had taken 100 Russian settlements, as reports emerged of its forces trying to break into Belgorod region too.

The shock incursion is now turning into a longer-term project, although Kyiv insists it is a buffer zone it seeks, and not a revenge occupation. It is remarkable how powerless the Kremlin appears to be to halt Ukraine’s progress, now three weeks in, despite having diverted 30,000 troops in that direction, according to a Ukrainian assessment given during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s annual news conference Tuesday. But this bold move has company.

The past months have seen Ukraine targeting Russia’s deepest infrastructure at will. Airfields. Oil refineries. Ammunition hubs. All daily. A Ukrainian drone attack last Wednesday seemed to get close to Murmansk, the northern naval hub on the Arctic circle, where much of Moscow’s nuclear submarine force is based, according to a local Russian official.

This Wednesday, flights were reportedly interrupted in Kazan, a city east of Moscow halfway to the Urals, after another apparent drone threat. The reach of Kyiv’s drones is a complication unimaginable to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 when he was told his war of choice would see his forces in Kyiv in a matter of days. Billowing smoke is not uncommon in Russia’s western and southern regions now. At some point, Moscow’s increased vulnerability, and the vast damage itself, will pierce the sanitary cordon of what state media allows to be said. (CNN)…[+]