‘Long-range sanctions’: Ukraine hopes strikes cause Russia fear and losses
Al Jazeera is given rare access to one of Ukraine's long-range drone units tasked with targeting Russia.
The term 'long-range sanctions' is a piece of strategic framing worth pausing over. It wraps an air campaign in the language of economic policy, which tells you exactly how Ukraine wants its strikes to be read: as a way of taxing Russia's ability to sustain the war.
Precision of language aside, the drone missions are a blunt instrument of attrition. Placing warheads on oil refineries and ammunition stores does not end a war overnight. It raises the price of everything, complicates logistics, and forces the Russian state to allocate more resources to defense when it would rather spend on consumption and loyalty.
Rare access for a news crew is part of the same operation. Ukraine is fighting for attention as much as territory. Each successful long-range flight is a message to domestic audiences that the war is being taken back to its source, and to Western partners that their aid is producing visible effect.
The irony embedded in the phrase is that sanctions usually take months to bite and years to change behavior. A drone strike is faster, but it also invites escalation. The strategy works only so long as Ukraine can keep mounting these raids without exhausting the weapons and the will that make them possible.