The latest display of brutality and revenge by Vladimir Putin it could be a fit of rage from the explosion of your Crimean bridge. But his indiscriminate attack on Ukrainian civilians also raises the prospect of a terrible twist in a cruel war.
Russian missiles damaged a glass-bottomed walkway in Kiev, which is a popular tourist spot, stormed intersections at rush hour and landed near a children’s playground on Monday. Power outages occurred across the country, in places that cut off water supplies and transport, in attacks reminiscent of the terror inflicted on civilians in the early days of the invasion, but which have largely subsided in recent months.
The attacks stripped away the semblance of normalcy that city residents, who had spent months earlier in the war in subways turned air-raid shelters, managed to restore to their lives and raised fears of further attacks.
The message was obvious for the world to see. Putin does not intend to be humiliated. He will not admit defeat. And he’s well-prepared to inflict civil carnage and indiscriminate terror in response to his series of battlefield twists.
But the targets on Monday also had little military value and, if anything, served to reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to inflict defeats on Ukraine on the battlefield.
The bombing of energy facilities, in particular, on Monday appeared to be a far from subtle hint of the misery the Russian president could inflict as winter approaches, even as his forces retreat in the face of Ukrainian troops using Western weapons.
That possibility that Putin was heralding a bloody new twist in a war that has gone through several strategic phases since the invasion in February was weighing on the minds of political and military leaders in Washington on Monday. Their reaction was marked by revulsion that Putin was once again unleashing a callous war against civilians reminiscent of the horrors of 20th century Europe.
How the US should respond
The attacks on civilians, which killed at least 14 people, also highlighted the next steps the United States and its allies must take to respond, after already sending billions of dollars worth of weapons and kits to Ukraine in a war for effective power of attorney with Moscow.
US President Joe Biden spoke on Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and offered advanced air systems that would help defend against Russian air strikes, but the White House did not specify exactly what could be sent.
John Kirby, coordinator of strategic communications for the National Security Council, suggested that Washington is looking favorably on requests from Ukraine and is in contact with the government in Kiev almost every day. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to address these needs,” he told Kate Bolduan of CNN .
Kirby was also unable to say whether Putin was definitively shifting his strategy from a losing war on the battlefield to a campaign to dampen civilian morale and inflict devastating damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, although he suggested it was a developing trend in the US. last few days and had already been put on the plan.
“It was probably something they had been planning for some time. This is not to say that the explosion on the Crimea Bridge may have accelerated some of their planning,” Kirby said.
An attack on civilians would be consistent with the resume of the new Russian general in charge of the war, Sergey Surovikin, who has served in Syria and Chechnya. In both places, Russia indiscriminately bombed civilian areas and destroyed neighborhoods and infrastructure and is accused of committing serious human rights violations.
The hail of gunfire on Ukrainian civilians on Monday was also frightening, as it came after Putin’s latest nuclear threats and days of debate over whether he could use a tactical nuclear weapon. If he doesn’t, it seems unlikely – given his ignorance of civil pain – that such a decision would be motivated by a desire to spare innocents from such a horrible weapon. Still, Kirby said there was no indication that Russia was activating nuclear weapons or that the US needed to change its own nuclear posture.
But French President Emmanuel Macron highlighted Western concerns that Monday’s rush-hour attacks in Ukraine could be the prelude to another pivot in the conflict.
“It’s a profound change in the nature of this war,” he told the press.
Former US official: Putin is telegraphing a gloomy winter
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, former director of European Affairs at the National Security Council, said that by attacking targets intended to damage Ukrainian morale and energy infrastructure, Putin was sending a message about how the war will continue in the coming months. .
“He was telegraphing where he was going when we got to winter. He will try to force the Ukrainian population to compromise, to give up territory, going after this infrastructure,” Vindman told CNN .
Vindman called on the US to provide air defense equipment and weapons that can go after the Iranian-made drones used in Monday’s attacks.
Igor Zhovkva, Zelensky’s top diplomatic adviser, told Wolf Blitzer of the CNN that Ukraine shot down 56 of the 84 missiles and drones that were fired by Russia, in apparent revenge for an explosion on a strategic bridge leading to the annexed Crimea, which is critical to Moscow’s war effort and is a symbol of Putin’s rule. .
“So imagine if we had modern equipment, we could probably increase the number of these drones and missiles shot down and not kill innocent civilians or injure Ukrainians,” Zhovkva said.
Any protracted campaign by Putin against civilians would be aimed at breaking Ukrainian morale and possibly triggering a new flood of refugees in Western Europe that could open divisions among Ukraine’s backing North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies.
Early signs, however, suggest that Putin has once again misread how the world would respond to his brutality. Macron, for example, said the attacks would prompt France to increase military assistance to Kiev. Traumatic footage of Ukrainian civilians live-streaming Russian missiles roaring over their heads and explosions could serve to harden the minds of the Western public who face their own pressure this winter over Putin’s energy war. And if anything, shooting civilians suggests Russian – not Ukrainian – weakness, as it suggests that Putin is incapable of responding on the field to humiliating defeats for his forces.
The lesson of this horrible war is that everything Putin has done to fracture a nation he doesn’t believe has a right to exist has only strengthened and unified it.
Olena Gnes, a mother of three who is documenting the war on YouTube, told Anderson Cooper of CNN live from his basement in Ukraine on Monday, who was furious at the return of fear and violence to the lives of Ukrainians from a new round of Russian “terror” attacks.
But she promised as she rocked her baby that Putin’s tactics wouldn’t work.
“This is just one more terror to perhaps cause panic, to scare you in other countries or to show his own people that he is still a bloody tyrant, he is still mighty and see what fireworks we can set off,” she said.
“We don’t feel hopeless… we are more sure than before that Ukraine will win and we need it as soon as possible because… only after we win this war and only after Russia is defeated will we have our peace back here.”
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
