Umm, not sure they’ll go for that approach. Zelensky will want to retain, and be seen to retain, the moral high ground. Laying waste to the homes of normal Russian citizens may not play to his international audience. Proving they CAN get 30-50 km inside Russia, take out some convenient military targets, then withdraw with as little collateral destruction as is feasible will strengthen Ukraine’s reputation as ‘the good guys’, whilst throwing the organisation behind Russia’s assault in the east into disarray.
Obviously guess work but I don’t think the plan is to withdraw. It doesn’t look like there’s currently any meaningful defence in the area they’ve seized and while clearly there’s little point in pushing too far and over stretching, I reckon they’ll try to fortify their new positions once the line settles in the coming days. Geographically it’s no different holding a new line 10mi inside Russia than the line they were defending in Ukraine last week. A lot can be achieved with drones and artillery and they’ll know Putin won’t be able to just leave them be either. The plan I bet is to attrit the Russians and take that area off the board as somewhere they can accumulate their forces to launch attacks on Ukraine.
Plus it's a huge black eye for Putin, which only helps in the PR war. Ultimately, Putin is a strongman and having an enemy force waltz around inside Russian borders with impunity makes him look foolish. Be interesting to see if the Ukrainians start to conduct a Vietcong-esque guerrilla war on Russian soil.
