Russia ‘takes gloves off’ as Kiev tries to intimidate Russians with drone attacks — Ritter

MOSCOW, October 10. /TASS/. Kiev’s attempts to intimidate Russians with aerial attacks have prompted Moscow to "take the gloves off" and begin striking infrastructure facilities, former US Marine Corps intelligence analyst Scott Ritter told TASS.

"A strategy [of drone strikes against Russia - TASS] premised on the notion of trying to collapse the confidence of the Russian people in the Russian government in the lead-up to September 20 parliamentary elections. They were not even disguising this, they were simply trying to terrorize the Russian people into demanding of their government that the war must end. And when they began this, I think that basically created the impetus for Russia to change its strategic approach. So what we see today is that Russia has taken the gloves off and they are striking bridges, they are striking rail targets, they are striking logistics targets, energy targets," Ritter said.

According to him, Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure facilities were provoked by Ukraine itself, whose leadership was the first to decide to launch strikes against Russia in an attempt to intimidate the civilian population.

On October 4, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian strikes on military facilities and the defense industry in Kiev and other regions of Ukraine would be intensified following Zelensky’s recent statement that the Kiev regime would increase strikes on Russian oil refineries in response to Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defense industry facilities. The ministry also said that Ukrainian residents should blame the head of the Kiev regime for this, as Zelensky bears personal responsibility for everything.