\n<\/p>\n
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine threatened to escalate attacks on Russia if Moscow repeated last winter\u2019s strategy of bombarding Ukrainian power plants that left millions of Ukrainians fighting freezing temperatures without power, heat and water.<\/p>\n
The warning, issued by Mr. Zelensky in an interview with the CBS News show \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d comes as the war heads into another winter and as Ukraine has demonstrated it can reach targets deep inside Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you cut off our power, deprive us of electricity, deprive us of water, deprive us of gasoline, you need to know we have the right to do it\u201d too, Mr. Zelensky said, according to a transcript released<\/a> by \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d The Russian leader, Vladimir V. Putin, had ordered attacks on civilian targets, Mr. Zelensky added, in a bid to \u201cbreak\u201d the Ukrainians\u2019 spirit.<\/p>\n Last winter, Russia sought to weaponize the weather, a campaign that ultimately failed but at times left millions of Ukrainians without heat and reliant on old wells for water. This year, Ukraine is boldly threatening to do the same to Russians, relying mainly on attack drones.<\/p>\n In recent months, the frequency of drones fired at Russian targets has increased drastically. They have hit a key bridge<\/a> linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, recently damaged Russian naval ships in the region<\/a> and menaced the border region of Belgorod<\/a>. They have also penetrated deep inside Russian borders \u2014 as far as the greater Moscow region \u2014 but have not caused significant damage there.<\/p>\n Ukraine does not officially acknowledge attacks inside Russian territory even though Mr. Zelensky and other top officials have said that they intend to bring the war to ordinary Russians. In the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview, Mr. Zelensky again tried to be ambiguous about the strikes even though he said, \u201cUkrainian drones have vaulted into Russia itself, hitting the Kremlin, warplanes and Moscow high rises.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on to insist that he was not ordering the drone attacks and that Ukraine uses weapons provided by its allies only on Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n \u201cBut Russia needs to know that wherever it is, whichever place they use for launching missiles to strike Ukraine, Ukraine has every moral right to send a response to those places,\u201d Mr. Zelensky said. \u201cWe are responding to them saying: \u2018Your sky is not as well protected as you think.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n