It's been several weeks now since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promised to share his "plan for victory" over Russia with Joe Biden and our NATO allies but we still haven't seen any of the details. We might take a bit of a hint from a surprising development in the war that took place last night, however. Zelensky doesn't appear to be angling for a better negotiating position. He seems ready to take the fight right to the enemy's doorstep and hit them where it hurts. Last night, Ukrainian drones launched yet another attack on Russian soil in force, but this one was more provocative than his recent incursions. The drones reportedly took out a military depot located in Toropets. For those of you checking your maps, that depot is located more than 200 miles northwest of Moscow, deep inside of Russia's borders and more than 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. The damage was reported as being extensive. (Associated Press)

Ukrainian drones struck a large military depot in a town deep inside Russia overnight, causing a huge blaze and prompting the evacuation of some local residents, a Ukrainian official and Russian news reports said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a senior U.S. diplomat said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recently announced — but still confidential — plan for winning the war “can work” and help end the conflict that is now in its third year.

Ukraine claimed the strike destroyed Russian military warehouses in Toropets, a town in Russia’s Tver region about 380 kilometers (240 miles) northwest of Moscow and about 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

The depot that was struck contained Russian Iskander and Tochka-U missiles, as well as glide bombs and artillery shells.Those long-range missiles, particularly the glide bombs have given the Russians a tremendous advantage over Ukraine, which lacks the strategic air defense capabilities to knock them down. Zelensky now seems to be seeking a way to counter that advantage by destroying the missiles before they can get off the ground. The damage wasn't limited to the military depot, however. Local Russian media reported that an area four miles across was burning when the sun rose. 

Sources speaking off the record are now claiming that Zelensky has shared some of his secret victory plans with at least one senior US diplomat. That source claimed that Zelensky's plan "can work." What that means remains to be seen and if it doesn't receive the White House seal of approval, we may never find out. But what already seems clear is that Vladimir Putin's overt warnings about striking targets deep inside of Russia are now be ignored by the Ukrainians, no matter how many "red lines" they may have to cross.

The only slightly more subtle message coming from Kyiv here is that Ukraine will not allow the Russian public to essentially ignore Putin's war against them without facing any consequences back home. Putin's policies regarding conscriptions and the use of foreign mercenary fighters have not been popular on the home front, but as long as the war was playing out on people's television sets and not in their own backyard, they seemed to be giving Putin a pass. But Toropets is a suburban area comprised of mostly civilians. This likely isn't sitting well with them at all.

So is this the essence of Zelensky's strategy? It sounds like something straight out of a Rocky movie where the smaller fighter just keeps on getting back up off the canvas and swinging for all he's worth, no matter how many times he's knocked down. That makes for a great Hollywood saga, but things rarely work out like that in real life. You can probably expect Putin to further redirect his aerial bombardments against civilian population centers in Ukraine as well as the country's remaining infrastructure. And if Putin feels that he's being pushed too far, he will no doubt begin rattling his nuclear sabers once again. Unfortunately, that will likely push the situation even further away from the possibility of any sort of negotiated peace deal.