A Kremlin propagandist expressed concern about the spate of Kiev's strikes in Crimea and said that Moscow must respond by stepping up attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.
The comments on the state-run Russia-1 channel by Yevgeny Buzynski, a former military officer, follow what British defence officials have described as the most "damaging and coordinated" attacks on Moscow's Black Sea fleet since the start of the war.
Ukraine's special forces said they killed Moscow's top admiral in Crimea, Viktor Sokolov, along with 33 other officers in last week's missile attack on the fleet's headquarters in Sevastopol, although those losses have been denied by Russia's defence ministry.
With missiles and drones, Ukraine has stepped up attacks in the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula, which Kiev has vowed to retake. Russia's Defense Ministry said that earlier this month, Ukraine attacked a shipyard with 10 cruise missiles.
Buzynski told 60 Minutes in an excerpt posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Russian observer Julia Davis that the strikes in Crimea are becoming "more and more brazen" and noted how the head of Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate, Krilo Budanov, had said that strikes against the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia's Krasnodar region, would "continue until it is destroyed."
He said Ukrainian forces are waiting for the delivery of long-range missile systems, such as the ATACMS from the US or Taurus from Germany, which "will all be directed to our fleet in the Black Sea and Crimea" rather than to areas of western Russia, where air defences are being reinforced in border areas such as Kursk and Belgorod.
Buzinski also said that since the end of the summer, Moscow's forces "repeated the strikes on energy infrastructure" last week, which left hundreds of Ukrainian cities without electricity.
"I think that as we approach winter, these strikes should be intensified so that they cannot enjoy their lives," he said, "let them collect firewood, dried animal dung and other types of fuel."
In X, Davis described the sentiment as "Russia's military approach in a nutshell... making Ukrainians suffer."
The British Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that Ukraine's attacks in Crimea were "more damaging and more coordinated than so far in the war" and while damage to the Black Sea Fleet "is almost certainly severe but limited".
The briefing added that the fleet is "almost certainly" capable of continuing to conduct cruise missile strikes and local security patrols, although its ability to enforce a de facto blockade of Ukrainian ports "will be reduced".
