Russian security officials warned during a closed-door meeting that the country is running out of defense funds to fend off Ukrainian drone strikes, according to a Blokot report cited by the Daily Express.
Kyiv’s repeated raids on Russia’s oil export hub on the Baltic Sea catalyzed the decision, the Blokot report states. The Leningrad region alone, where St. Petersburg is located, spent close to the equivalent of $300 million on air defense systems to counter the persistent attacks.
“It is pointless to fight the endless swarm of drones — it is necessary to destroy the very chain of decision-making,” one Russian official said, according to the Blokot report.
Security officials decided they would rather decapitate the current leadership, including Volodymyr Zelensky, according to senior government sources cited by the New York Post. Officials discussed deploying heavy hypersonic weapons to target bunkers and motorcades carrying Ukrainian leaders and top army commanders.
“The destruction of other people’s heating does not stop attacks on our refineries, because the people who give orders feel completely safe under the protection of Moscow’s unspoken ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ with the West,” a Russian source told the New York Post.
The security discussions followed an ultimatum issued by Vladimir Putin demanding that the UK abandon its nuclear protection of European allies as part of a proposed peace deal. A document drawn up by Russian negotiators sets out sweeping conditions Moscow wants met before agreeing to peace, including forcing Britain and France to withdraw their nuclear cover from other European nations.
The demands are contained in a paper dated November 10 and obtained by The New York Times from a person involved in the negotiations.
