Suchomimus mentions that this is long enough range to hit the large oil refinery in Omsk. Which is true, but if it can reach that far, there are a lot of logistic choke-points now in range that have the potential to put a world of hurt on Russia:
If you can hit Omsk, you can hit the Transiberian railway bridge over the Irtysh river, which Deep State marks (I’m using a launch point of Lyman in Ukraine for all these) as 2494km. As far as I can tell, that’s the only rail line in Russia that connects Moscow with Russia’s far eastern oblasts*. Russia could reroute some traffic through Kazakhstan’s rail network (which runs on the same Soviet 1,520 gauge rails), but I imagine there would be considerable pain in rerouting things that way.
You could hit the E30 highway bridge over the Ishim river near Abitskiy AKA Abatskoe (2324km). Compared to America and China, Russia has a very poor road network east of the Urals. E30 is their only decent east-west highway. You could possibly run some trucks down smaller roads, some of which may not even be paved, or, again, reroute some traffic through Kazakhstan’s highway network, depending on how the Kazakhs feel about it. At the very least, they’ll want to get paid…
There aren’t many crossing spots across the Ob river further north. Hit the rail bridge near Surgut (2582km), the one south of there across the Protoka Yuganskaya Ob (2577km), and, for good measure, the highway bridge just south of Nefteyugansk (2549km), and you’ll put northern Russian transportation in a world of hurt. (Of course, those areas are sparsely populated, and I don’t know how much material extraction done there is vital to the war effort.)
This is hardly an exhaustive list, and was only what I came up with off the top of my head and with a little Google map work. Russia east of the Urals is has extremely poor infrastructure, is crossed by rivers with few bridges (some places where you think there has to be a bridge only has a ferry), and hitting the right parts of that would require Russia to expend a lot of time, effort and logistical difficulty to repair. (Russia’s military has an number of railroad repair units, with the 48th Separate Railway Brigade in Omsk being the most relevant to this discussion, but they have to be able to get there, and get the materials to repair the damage, and bridge repair presents a whole different level of difficulty, like finding a floating crane and getting it in place.) You hit a few Transiberian choke-points and it puts a serious crimp in Russia-China trade, including most heavy military equipment China is selling.
Caveats: The map is not the territory, and bridges can be hard to take out. But 350kg of a modern explosive is not a small charge, and there are a whole slew of logistical targets to be found within 3,000km of Ukrainian territory.
*And krals. And autonomous okrugs. Russian administrative divisions are weird…
Two videos on increasing Russian logistics difficulties in the Russo-Ukrainian War. First up: A video that suggests Ukraine has switched from a territory recapture strategy to an attrition strategy.
“Russia is burning whether it’s oil terminals on the Baltic and the Black Sea, factories in far-flung Siberia, or military bases in Crimea, it seems almost every day something bursts into flames in Putin’s backyard. And Ukraine is thought to be the one behind it.” It’s an open question whether structure hits in places like Siberia are Ukrainian “werewolf” teams operating behind enemy lines, or native anti-Putin/anti-war (or even anti-Russian) partisans, but the effect seems the same: Russia now has to worry about attacks to its military, transport, energy, and manufacturing infrastructure far from the frontlines in Ukraine.
Zelensky warned Putin that if Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with indiscriminate missile attacks again, Ukraine would hit back. When it did, “Ukraine struck back a fire at the electrical substation outside Moscow, plunged three districts of the capital into darkness. Water pipes also burst, leaving people freezing in their homes. The plague of accidents soon spread to the cities of Omsk and Novosibirsk, deep in Siberia, which were left without heating as temperatures fell below -2.” Actually, Omsk and Novosibirsk aren’t “deep” in Siberia, because the place is so vast there another five time zones east of there.
“Soon after attacks began on critical infrastructure, including oil refineries upon which Putin’s economy relies. To date, three refineries have been blown up or set on fire, including two which were hit by long-range Ukrainian drones. One of those the Ust-Luga oil refinery near St. Petersburg, is almost 600 miles from Ukraine.”
“Railways and factories have also been blown up or burned down at the same time the Ukrainians have stepped up their campaign against Crimea.” Naval successes we’ve covered here already skipped.
At this point the video argues that Ukraine’s strategy was to liberate Ukrainian territory, no matter the strategic value. I don’t think that was the case.
Following the “failure” of the summer offensive (I would say “limited gains”), “Ukraine is digging in and refocusing liberation of territory is no longer the main goal hitting Russia where it hurts most.”
“Ukraine knows that victory in a long war depends on two things above all else: The will of people to keep fighting, and the ability of the country to provide weapons for them to fight with, and that’s where these drone missile and sabotage attacks come in.”
It then argues (as many others have) that Crimea is Putin’s main weakness, and that losing it will cripple his prestige and ability to stay in power and continue the war.
I think there has been a shift in Ukrainian strategy, but that shift has mainly been driven by the development and availability of longer-ranged weapons Ukraine lacked earlier in the war, combined with the effects of a long-term campaign to degrade Russia air power, naval assets and SAM systems, opening up avenues for longer range strikes. Ukraine focused on attacking Russia’s logistics systems right after the Battle of Kiev was won, but now they have the capability to hit much deeper into Russia’s logistics infrastructure.
Actually, I’m surprised there haven’t been any reported attacks on the Trans-Siberian Railway, given what a long, slender link that is. A few medium-to-long range drone teams inserted into northern Kazakhstan or Mongolia could wreck real havoc on trains, lines, bridges, etc.
Next, a video from Kanal 13 (very much a pro-Ukrainian source) suggests that the war and sanctions are cratering Russia’s military industrial complex.
“The Russian military industrial complex is being destroyed because of the war against Ukraine.”
Dimitri Fidive, CEO of the Muram Machine Building Plant, wrote in an email intercepted by the activists, that inflation and the shortcomings of Russia’s bureaucratic approach prevents plants that form the country’s military industrial complex from fulfilling government orders.”
“Plants are forced to sell their goods at prices set in 2019, but are at the same time expected to purchase details at market prices and in advance.”
“The money received from the government was not enough to cover the interest on the credit that his firm would need to take out to pay its suppliers.”
“Money is tied up until the completion of the government contracts, which normally last 3 to 5 years, meaning during this time the money is effectively frozen.”
“There is a shortage of staff at the plants due to both mass mobilization and a lack of accommodation [housing] in the area.”
Hell of a way to run a railroad. One wonders how extensive these problems are with other companies in Russia’s military industrial complex
Ukraine’s strategy has shifted more in relation to the way the war developed, and the changing availability of western weapons, than any fundamental shift in strategy. It became apparent that this was going to be a war of attrition in the first year, and the question of which would break first: The west’s willingness to send Ukraine weapons, or Russia’s economy and ability to wage it’s illegal war of territorial aggression?
Nothing about that strategy has changed, only Ukraine’s greater reach to affect the latter.