“Curtains flapped from inside the shattered windows of a high rise residential building,” Megan Specia wrote, for The New York Times. “At the site of one of the blasts, five charred vehicles sat outside a university and the windows of a building were blown out,” Michael Schwirtz recounted. “The smell of gas and fire wafted through the air, and torrents of water bubbled out of a large crater in the center of the street.”
Specia and Schwirtz were describing the scene in Kyiv, where Russian missiles killed at least five on Monday. Vladimir Putin made no mention of the US, NATO or any Western nations during a short address explaining the strikes, which injured dozens across multiple cities and left Lviv, Poltava, Sumy and Kharkiv without power.
The attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge “practically put [Ukraine] on the same level as international terrorist organizations,” Putin said. “If attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory continue, the measures taken by Russia will be tough and will correspond to the level of threats posed to the Russian Federation,” he added.
Over the weekend, an explosion on the sole link between Russia and Crimea partially collapsed two lanes, dealing extensive damage to the roadway, a symbol of Russian power and a physical manifestation of Putin’s imperial ambitions. Ukraine’s defense force and security services mocked Putin in the hours after the blast, and Ukraine’s post office released commemorative stamps while images of the incident were still front page news.
The Kremlin claimed Monday’s strikes were aimed at “military command, communications and energy facilities,” but the damage wasn’t confined to strategic military targets. Civilian areas were impacted, including museums, educational institutions and, according to Ukraine’s prime minister, a playground. “Missiles or rockets struck the central intersection of Volodymyrska Street and Shevchenko Boulevard, at the north-west entrance of Shevchenko park, one of the busiest junctions in Kyiv during morning rush hour,” the FT reported.
Nearly a dozen infrastructure facilities in eight regions sustained damage, imperiling access to electricity and water. I’d remind readers that during the campaign to restore the Assad regime in Syria, the Russian air force was instrumental in cutting civilians off from basic services. Putin last week installed the architect of the Aleppo assault as commander of the Ukraine operation. Russia launched at least 80 missiles at Ukraine Monday. Around half were intercepted, according to various reports.
Volodymyr Zelensky said he convened an “urgent” call with Emmanuel Macron. The two apparently discussed how to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses. Germany said it’d deliver four modern air defense systems to Zelensky “within days.”
Meanwhile, Aleksandr Lukashenko’s pitiable client state is “deploying a joint regional grouping of troops” with Russia. Lukashenko claimed (ludicrously) that NATO is considering “aggression against our country” and is engaged in an effort to “draw Belarus into a war.” So far, there’s little in the way of evidence that Lukashenko has sent troops to Ukraine, or at least not on any sort of scale. Monday’s operation included Iranian-made unmanned drones launched from Belarus.
Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s warlord-leader, delivered a characteristically delirious threat. “We warned you Zelensky. Stop complaining like some hokeypokey,” he wrote, on Telegram, advising Zelensky to “run before a missile hits you.”
Last week, Kadyrov claimed he was sending his three sons, 14, 15 and 16, to the frontlines. That might be a war crime. It’ll presumably be complex to prosecute, though, given that most people don’t commit war crimes against their own children. “Minor age should not interfere with the training of the defenders of our Motherland,” he explained.
Just days previous, Kadyrov insisted Putin deploy low-yield nuclear weapons. Dmitry Peskov not-so-subtly advised him to keep such opinions out of the Western media. “The heads of regions have the right to express their point of view, but even in difficult moments, emotions should be kept out of any kind of assessment,” Peskov told reporters.
Ukrainian officials are increasingly adamant about the delivery of better air defense systems. Monday’s “mass strikes” (as Putin called them) only underscored the sense of urgency. “The best response… is the supply of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems to Ukraine,” Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said. On Sunday, Dmytro Kuleba said such systems are necessary to “save innocent lives.”
The death toll from Monday’s strikes was still climbing as of this writing.
According to Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s culture minister, Russian rockets damaged The Taras Shevchenko Museum in Kyiv. It’s dedicated to Ukraine’s national poet, who the country’s security service paraphrased on Saturday as Putin’s Crimea bridge burned.
“They want panic and chaos, they want to destroy our energy system,” Zelensky said, standing outside his office in downtown Kyiv. “They are hopeless.”
I’ve lived 2 years in Kyiv and been there regularly for 20 years (being married to an originally Ukrainian woman). I know some of these places. The Taras Shevchenko park was a favorite with my kids when they were young – they had poney rides… My daughter also had a few ballet lessons in a building nearby.
War is hell. I am sure people that used to live in Syria or anywhere else then ravaged by war have similar stories.
Still. This is Europe. I hope we get to see Putin burn. And I am not being metaphorical.
This is Europe, meaning “in our house hence ours to deal with”, not “we’re the apex of human civilisation, we cannot be made to suffer like other people”.
The Aleppo assault was one of the most god-awful things I’ve ever observed (from afar, thankfully).
And Putin didn’t even have the courage to send his ground troops on that particular mission. He let Qassem Soleimani’s militias and Hezbollah do the hard work.
I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have, despite having at least one Syrian buddy. I mean, war is always ugly etc. but deliberately targeting civilians b/c you refuse to admit defeat? Pathetic. And now I really want Putin to pay. Personally.
Putin = war criminal. Full stop.
I would love to see Putin placed on trial in the international court for his war crimes.
Okay things are really getting serious now,
“You’re a hokey pokey.” “No you’re a hokey pokey.”
I fear we’re one step away from “your mama “…and Armageddon.
In Geopolitics when adding more than a couple of tablespoons of Ideology to the mix you come painfully close to Propaganda and very far from Objectivity.. History prevails and that is a requirement for Diplomacy to Function.
Nato/EU community needs to address this asap. I would suggest a blockade of Kalingrad should be on the agenda. This is probably going to end with Nato troops going into Ukraine and then making a beeline for Moscow- reportedly the tank battalion assigned to protect Moscow was sent to Ukraine. Once there, Putin and his Henchmen need to be put on trial as war criminals ala Nurenberg.
I’ve been listening to Dan Carlin’s ‘Supernova in the East’ podcast on iHeart and the parallels between 2020s Russia and 1930s Japan are numerous. A dominate or be dominated mentality and a need for international respect justifies wars of aggression in both cases. Apparently, the only thing that has changed in the last hundred years is the efficiency of mankind’s weaponry which means Russia does not need the overzealous Japanese troops. A few conscience free crazies will do. We fret about margins and spreads as millions in Ukraine must decide to flee or fight the autocrat we helped bring to power by bringing down the USSR just as investors in the 1930s ignored the rape of China by the Japanese we had enabled due to their anti-communist and pro-business attitudes. Fiona Hill was the first to warn us when she said “Sadly, we are treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again,”. Now Biden has said that “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,”. This needs to end now, before Putin loans the Iranians a few nukes to be distributed among the original colonizer nations that stand in his way.
So far, The Ukrainians have NOT attacked Russian civilians in Russia. For a reason. The Russian people do not see Ukraine as an invader bent on the takeover of Russian territory. They do not fear nightly missile attacks or incoming artillery shells. They are not buying into the notion that Mother Russia is in mortal danger. This is not WW2 with the Nazi armies heading for Moscow. It is obvious to the Russian people that Putin is the aggressor no matter what he says. The only way to end this is with Putin ending up like Mussolini and a disengagement and removal of Russian forces. Then the resupply of Russian gas and oil with the money going to rebuild Ukraine.
Clarity is very important. WW1 is always interesting to look at. A group of empires stupidly agreed to start a war. At the end, the only surviving important monarchy was England…In the wings were the ascending Japanese and the Soviet Union….1922 Ukraine, under Russia’s thumb, has an ugly famine…Is Russia following the Japanese model? For that matter, is China?
Think back to the Allied bombing campaign of Germany in WW2, which (in addition to targeting military and industrial faciliteis) sought to destroy whole cities, in hopes of breaking the Germans’ will to fight. That did not work. Nor did the similar bombing campaign of Japan, until nukes were unleashed. History indicates that striking cities with conventional weapons does not break a population’s resolve and instead makes the people more determined. The Ukranians of 2022 are every bit as tough as the Germans and Japanese of 1944/45. It will also increase the West’s support for Ukraine, and make China, Turkey, India, etc pull away from Russia.
Russia’s missiles are causing comparatively tiny amounts of damage to Kyiv and other Ukranian cities, certainly compared to the firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden, Berlin, etc (as insensitive as that statement sounds, and is). Russia, I am fairly sure, does not have enough missiles to do a whole lot “better”. Ukraine is intercepting about 50% of incoming missiles, and new anti-missile systems may raise that a little. Russia may have 2,000 sort-of-suitable missiles left, including short-range and near-obsolete ones. https://sundries.com.ua/en/forbes-calculated-how-many-missiles-remained-in-russia-and-how-long-the-bombing-could-last/ Which is a lot, but also less than it has fired at Ukraine so far (3,000).
So the duration of this missile campaign is going to be limited and it will not change the direction of the war (unless a random lucky shot takes out Zelensky).
H-Man, not to dive into conspiracy theories but I found it interesting when the bridge blew, the parallel train system carrying fuel was detonated at the same time and place from the road bridge explosion. Coincidence. Also a mysterious wave appears just before the explosion. Coincidence, This was considered to be the most highly guarded and secure bridge in the world. Two weeks or maybe one, a rather formidable gas pipeline blows at a depth of 250 feet. Coincidence.
A war going badly for Russia suddenly has two “terrorist” events in a short space of time. Prompting the Russian response to retaliate for these “terrorist” activities. Rallying both the Russian populace and the military. Coincidence.
So it appears Putin now has the justification to obliterate Ukraine by using long range missiles. Coincidence.
H-Man, in my six years of reading your posts, I generally never post twice assuming if you can’t spit it out in the first comment give it a rest. But watching the bombing of civilian targets in Ukraine is not only incomprehensible, it is intolerable.
I never thought I would advocate hunt, quarter and kill but I have arrived, Putin cannot turn Ukraine into Aleppo so to the Ukrainian people, hunt, quarter and kill is the only response.
A sad state of affairs for humanity.