 Ukraine is carrying out operations that confuse Russia on the eve of a counterattack. The United Kingdom's Financial Times writes that Ukraine has been conducting shaping operations to mislead or distract Russian commanders and create a favorable backdrop for a counteroffensive. First, there was a mysterious drone strike on the Kremlin. Next came an invasion whose embarrassing implications for Moscow could prompt it to divert frontline troops to border regions. Then late last week, Ukraine launched a marine drone attack on a Russian spy ship in the Black Sea on the morning of May 30th, as many as two dozen aerial drones attacked Moscow. Ahead of Kiev's long-expected counteroffensive, when it aims to retake occupied territory, such attacks are just four of the increasingly daring shaping operations that Ukraine has launched this month. Ranging from symbolic strikes to more strategically significant attacks, these shaping operations form part of standard military practice. Their aim, defense officials and analysts say, is to deceive the enemy, meddle with its mindset and otherwise shape the battlefield before a large offensive, the media outlet wrote. The new agency mentions the explosion of two drones over the Kremlin dome on the 3rd of May and the morning UAV attack on Moscow on the 30th of May, which revealed the vulnerability of the Russian capital. Furthermore, the breaking by two groups of far right Russian partisans on the Russian border in Belgorod oblast on the 22nd of May indicated that Russia's borders are not impenetrable. The newspaper points out that Ukraine effectively used a similar tactic last summer as it had discussed the idea of a counteroffensive in the south for several weeks. And when Russian troops moved there, Kiev launched a blitzkrieg in the country's North Kharkiv oblast.