Ukraine to target warehouses, bases in Russia to deter future attacks — President's Office

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the President's Office, said on Twitter that Ukraine would defend itself by any means available, including by striking warehouses and bases in Russia.

In his tweet, Podolyak refers to a statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a speech in the Senate on April 27. He noted that the official confirmed Ukraine's right to decide for itself whether to target Russian military facilities.

"It’s another matter as to whether the Ukrainians should take actions that go beyond their borders. My own view is that it’s vital that they do whatever is necessary to defend against Russian aggression and the tactics of this are their decisions," Blinken said.

Earlier, the adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy's chief-of-staff suggested that in the near future the "demilitarization" of the regions of Russia bordering on Ukraine will continue, and its pace will increase.

According to Podolyak, "these warehouses and bases of fuels and lubricants that will explode will become debt payments that Russia is beginning to pay for the war."

Incidents on the territory of the Russian Federation

On the morning of April 1, the head of the Belgorod Oblast, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that a fire had broken out at an oil depot in Belgorod, injuring two people. He says that the fire was caused by an air strike from two helicopters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which "entered the territory of Russia at low altitude."

At the same time, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksii Danilov stated that Ukraine is not involved in the explosions at the oil depot. According to him, this is the work of local residents, because dissent is accumulating and society in Russia is beginning to "understand things."

Then on April 25, a fire broke out in the Russian city of Bryansk at the local oil depot — oil storage tanks caught fire, as well as another nearby facility.

In any case, such incidents disrupt Russia's plans to carry out attacks on Ukraine. For example, the British Ministry of Defense suggested that the explosions at an ammunition depot near Belgorod in late March and the destruction of an oil depot in the city could have made it harder for the Kremlin to attack Kharkiv.