Things are getting spicy in Russia this week, with Ukraine continuing to defy previous constraints on its counterattack strategies and expand the use of the country's domestically produced drones. While most military analysts continue to focus on Ukraine's incursion into the Kursk Oblast and the recent Russian advances into the Donbas region, Ukraine turned around last night and launched what is being described as "one of the biggest Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian soil" since the start of the war. This one came with a twist, however. Ukraine attacked targets inside of and around Moscow. Many of the drones were shot down before reaching their targets, but not all of them. Residential buildings in the capital were damaged and fires broke out, with at least one person being killed and several others seriously injured. So what does Zelensky have up his sleeve now? (NY Post)

Over 140 Ukrainian drones overnight targeted multiple Russian regions, including the capital Moscow and the surrounding areas, Russian officials reported Tuesday, in one of the biggest Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian soil in the two 1/2-year war.

In the town of Ramenskoye just outside Moscow, drones hit two multistory residential buildings and started fires, Moscow region Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said.

A woman was killed and three more people sustained injuries.

The attacks forced the temporary closure of three airports outside of Moscow located in Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Zhukovsky. No damage to the airports was reported, but flight safety could no longer be assured during the attacks. Multiple flights had to be diverted to other destinations. In the end, Ukraine clearly didn't rain down the type of destruction on Moscow that Putin has unleashed on Kyiv and many other Ukrainian population centers, but perhaps they really didn't need to.

Here's some brief footage of the drone attacks landing, published by France24 News.

CNN spoke to some witnesses in the affected area. Some of them appeared to be significantly shaken up. One woman described looking out her window where she "saw a ball of fire. The window got blown out by the shockwave.” Others were telling similar stories.

Perhaps this has been part of Volodymir Zelenski's strategy from the beginning of this stage of the campaign. From the beginning of the invasion, Vladimir Putin has been able to largely maintain public support and keep the Russian people mostly at ease. He even won another full term in the recent elections while all of this has been going on. Granted, he's a dictator who maintains an iron grip on power and he makes it very clear to all Russians that bad things mysteriously happen to people who speak out against him, but he can't ignore public sentiment entirely.

But at the same time, there are always limits. It's true that there have been complaints about conscriptions and the number of Russian troops coming home in body bags. But there is a distinct difference between hearing about a war that you're watching on the evening news and a battle that is taking out the windows in your living room Even when Zelenski invaded Kursk, there were only a relatively small number of people in a rural farming region who were affected. Hitting Mosco directly and somewhat effectively is a different matter entirely. Could this be part of a larger Ukrainian strategy to force Putin to the negotiating table?

It's possible, I suppose. But the prospects for that sort of success still seem low. Putin has very little to lose and a great deal to gain. No organized Western efforts to present some sort of ceasefire agreement have made any measurable ground. This attack on Moscow was bold, to be sure, and it's somewhat promising to see the Ukrainians using their own drones and rockets to take the fight to the enemy. But none of this does much to alter the David vs Goliath nature of this battle.