EDF: Russia attacks civilian targets to compensate for front line failures
Over the last week, Russia has increased the intensity of its attacks on civilian infrastructure to make up for little success on the front line and its inability to expel Russian resistance fighters, said Col. Ants Kiviselg, commander of the Estonian Defense Forces' (EDF) Intelligence Center.
"The Russian Federation continues to maintain a high operational tempo in Ukraine and to maintain the initiative on most of the front lines. However, Russia has failed to achieve its objectives and major changes on the front lines have not been achieved," Kiviselg said at a briefing held at the Ministry of Defense on Friday.
"Due to the spillover of fighting into Russian territory, the Russian Armed Forces are currently unable to retake areas invaded by Russian resistance groups, and as a result, the Russian Federation has intensified attacks against the civilian population and civilian structures in Ukraine," the intelligence chief added.
At the same time, he said the probability of sabotage and asymmetric military action is increasing in northeastern Ukraine, where Russia aims to sow confusion and cause inconvenience to the civilian population.
Kiviselg said Russia is likely to increase the number of airstrikes against civilian infrastructure in the near future. It hopes to break Ukrainian society's resilience and support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
"The main reason for this is that in recent weeks the Russian Federation has not achieved the expected results on the front lines and there have been no major advances. So they are trying to carry out attacks where they expect to achieve their desired effect, i.e. still attacking civilian infrastructure," the colonel said.
Speaking about the attack on the Zaporizhzhia's hydroelectric dam on Thursday night, Kiviselg said this shows Russia's indiscriminate attack tactics, where all civilian objects are viewed as potential targets.
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Editor: Mait Ots, Helen Wright