What are the “legitimate” targets that kyiv wants to target with long-range missiles in Russia?

Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking his allies for permission to strike strategic targets on Russian soil for months, so far without success. There could be up to 250 potential targets, according to experts.

It is a subject that divides even Ukraine’s allies: the authorization to use long-range weapons to target Russian strategic objectives, and thus limit Vladimir Putin’s capacity for action in Ukraine. London is in favor, the United States refuses for the moment.

The subject is thus on the menu of the “in-depth strategic discussion“, scheduled for Friday, September 13, between British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Joe Biden, in Washington. kyiv is demanding that its allies lift restrictions to allow it to strike deep into Russian soil military targets deemed “legitimate“.

But Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with longer-range missiles would mean that “NATO countries are at war with Russia“However, according to British media, Joe Biden, who fears a nuclear conflict, is ready to allow Ukraine to deploy British and French missiles using American technology, but not the American missiles themselves.

But what exactly is kyiv talking about? The Institute for the Study of War, an American think tank, published a map at the end of August 2024 showing the extent of the military targets that the Ukrainians could hit with their American ATACMS ground-to-ground missiles or the Franco-British Storm Shadow air-to-ground missiles, at a distance of up to 300km, the maximum range of these weapons.

Result: 245 potential targets, including around fifteen military air bases, munitions depots, support centres and a host of barracks housing everything from infantry regiments to special forces groups, including electronic warfare installations.

This map was established based on open source information, there is no doubt that the Ukrainian intelligence services have established much more detailed and updated targeting plans. The Ukrainian Minister of Defense was in Washington two weeks ago, precisely, to present his targeting plan in Russia.

Logically, the priority targets for the Ukrainians will probably be the anti-aircraft defenses, then the runways and bases from which the fighter-bombers can take off, which fire guided bombs and cruise missiles on Ukraine. But also all the railway junctions allowing the Russians to transport men and equipment to the front. Moscow’s army moves, in fact, mainly by train.