Special delivery

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 20th of August. You’re listening to WORLD Radio, and we’re so glad you've joined us today.

Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up on The World and Everything in It: A changing war.

Ukraine this week launched one of its largest long-range assaults on Moscow since the war began, using more than 600 drones. The strike comes as drones and ground robots increasingly restrict troop movement along the front lines.

BROWN: While Russia continues to pound Ukraine's power grid, Ukraine is targeting Russia’s economy, including warehouses belonging to the country's largest online retailer.

REICHARD: In a moment we’ll speak to one of our WORLD correspondents who is in Ukraine. But first, joining us is Kateryna Stepanenko. She's Russia team lead for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington and a native of Kyiv.

REICHARD: Kateryna, good morning.

KATERYNA STEPANENKO: Good morning.

REICHARD: Well, if would you bring us up to speed, how well is Ukraine defending itself against Russia's missile and drone attacks right now, and what are the challenges that they are experiencing?

STEPANENKO: Unfortunately, the Ukrainian stockpiles of patriot interceptors have been dwindling for quite a bit of months, and Ukraine is increasingly facing challenges repelling Russian ballistic strikes, which has become a priority effort for Russian forces. Russia is using quite a bit of missiles that have a ballistic trajectory with the intent of exploiting the vulnerabilities and the shortages of the Ukrainian air defense capabilities.

On top of that, Russia is also using jet powered Shahed drones, which is a new adaptation of the Iranian-provided and Iranian-made drones that allow essentially Russian forces to fly drones at a faster speed at greater altitudes, making it harder for Ukrainian forces to intercept. 

Over the past months, Ukraine was pretty good at intercepting Russia in long range drones, but this adaptation is making it increasingly challenging for Ukrainians to counter additional strikes.

REICHARD: Well, Ukraine greatly expanded its drone campaign inside of Russia, hitting its bomber fleet, ports, energy infrastructure. What is Ukraine trying to accomplish with these strikes and how does that strategy differ from Russia's?

STEPANENKO: I think there's several objectives here. 

Number one, I think it's bringing the war closer to Russia and making Russian people actually realize that Putin's decision to launch a long-term war against Ukraine will have sacrifices, increasing sacrifices for their lives. 

On the other hand, it's also putting pressure on the on the Putin regime. We are seeing quite a bit of people complaining about gas shortages, about the lack of various goods and products both in occupied Ukraine and Russia. 

Lastly, you know, the ongoing campaign against the Wildberries, which is a Russian analog of Amazon, it is something that Russia has been using for military or dual purpose goods, for procurement and storage of dual purpose goods that Russia uses in its war effort in Ukraine. So all of these aspects are important. 

The other types of strikes that Ukraine has been conducting is Ukraine is using its missile, domestically produced missiles, to go after Russian defense industrial base facilities, specifically the facilities that produce microchips and other very technically sophisticated equipment for Russian precision missiles and precision drones to eliminate the Russian drone strikes and missile strikes against Ukraine. They've also launched some strikes against the Russian infrastructure necessary for space capabilities to counter Russian efforts to create a Starlink of their own.

REICHARD: Kateryna, I want to go back to this Wildberries, as you said, Russia's equivalent to our Amazon. Why go after a commercial logistics network?

STEPANENKO: Well Russia has been using it for dual purpose goods, for example, procurement of drones or other various other components that later on do feed into the Russian war effort in Ukraine. So it is it's a large sort of logistical hub for various different Russian components that supply and support the war effort.

REICHARD: What are you watching on the fronts of war beyond the battlefield? I'm thinking about certain sociocultural aspects outside of what we normally associate with war.

STEPANENKO: Yes, absolutely. 

I think it's quite interesting to see that Putin felt it so necessary to eliminate the only anti-war party that likely didn't have any chance of succeeding in the elections. This party is called the Yabloka Party. Which tells me a little bit about how unconfident Putin is about this referendum that he's trying to make, which is posing these elections, these State Duma elections as a referendo on the ongoing Russian public support for the war. 

He's trying to present this election as all of these Russian people are continuing to support the war and his vision for the long term conflict in Ukraine and possibly against the West. And he was so unconfident in himself that he had to eliminate a party that didn't really have much traction in the Russian information space until he made them into a martyr.

REICHARD: Kateryna Stepanenko is Russia team lead for the Institute for the Study of War. 

Kateryna, thank you so much.

Stepanenko: Of course, thank you so much for having me.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.