Scene of the assassination in Moscow
Scene of the assassination in MoscowREUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Where conventional military engagements have not managed to turn the tide, Ukraine is learning from Israel's lengthy history of assassinations to try and undermine the Russian military.

The Times reports that the operations are carried out by a variety of means. One method includes recruiting Russians over Telegram and paying in cryptocurrency for actions against Russia - anything from spraying graffiti to spotting for missile strikes. This has proven a successful enough methodology that Russia has begun employing it too. Iran has used it repeatedly against Israel, with many Israelis arrested for carrying out missions from Tehran. As agents prove themselves trustworthy, they are assigned steadily more daring tasks, including sabotage, arson, and vandalism.

Ukraine has not stopped at psychological warfare, though - taking another leaf out of Israeli operations, Ukrainian intelligence claims to have coordinated the assassination of numerous Kremlin supporters, as well as car bombings in Russian cities. In some of the car bombing attacks, it is believed that the driver was not informed of the nature of his cargo to prevent him from acting suspiciously, leading to the driver being severely injured in the attack.

The most recent of these was the assassination of Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the chief of Russia’s Radiation, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces in Moscow. It was carried out with a scooter bomb almost identical to the method used by the ISA against terrorists in Judea and Samaria over the years.

In some cases, Ukraine brings in a tactic not from the Mossad, but from Israeli special forces. Flying in at low altitudes or infiltrating the target country undercover, Ukrainian special forces teams have ambushed and killed several Russian officers and members of the Russian military contractor Wagner Group. Israel has numerous such operations to its credit over the past several decades; during the current war, Israeli forces landed by helicopter at an Assad regime missile storage facility to both kill and capture Iranian affiliates, slipped across the border overnight to capture an IRGC agent in Syria, and arrived in Lebanon by speedboat to capture a Hezbollah naval officer.

The guiding principle for the Ukrainians has become 'No Russian is safe', borrowing from the statements of numerous Israeli officials against terrorism over the years. “We are the new Mossad,” said a Ukrainian special forces officer involved in the targeting of Russian officers behind enemy lines. “No matter where you hide, or how long it takes, we will bring justice to you.”