Russia takes revenge for bridge, launches biggest missile attack in months in Ukraine

Two days after the audacious attack on the Crimean bridge, which connects the peninsula annexed in 2014 to Russian territory, Vladimir Putin’s forces launched the largest attack on Ukrainian cities in more than three months.

At least 75 missiles, according to the Ukrainian army, hit targets in urban centers such as Kiev, Lviv, Ternopil, and Zitomir, in the west of the country, Dnipro and Krementchuk, in the central region, and Mikolaiv and Zaporijia, in the south. The capital recorded at least four explosions, in the first attack since June 26 – at least five people were killed.

The action is Kremlin retaliation for the explosion on Saturday (8), attributed to a truck bomb but still poorly explained, which took place on Saturday at the gigantic construction site that Putin inaugurated in 2018 as one of the main works of his government of more than two decades.

The Russian president called the episode, which destroyed one of the bridge’s runways, a “terrorist attack on critical civilian infrastructure”. These were words similar to those used this Monday (10) by his counterpart in Kiev, Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Putin is a terrorist who speaks through missiles,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said on Twitter. One of the explosions in the capital was captured during a live broadcast on the British network BBC, with the reporter at the scene seeking shelter shortly afterwards. The city’s subway became the preferred shelter during the morning rush hour (dawn in Brazil).

“Life was pretty much normal, but now it feels like we’ve gone back in time,” said Oleh Makienko, an independent journalist working in the capital, who was caught off guard by street attacks, running for cover in an underground station.

Part of the missiles were launched from strategic bombers flying in the Caspian Sea. The retaliation is seen as Putin’s first reaction not only to the humiliation on the bridge near Kerch in Crimea, but also to the string of defeats on the field in recent weeks: he lost occupied territories in Kharkiv and saw Ukrainian troops breach his defenses in Kherson ( south) and Donetsk (east).

These two regions, as well as Lugansk (east) and Zaporijia (south), were annexed last week by Putin’s decree, despite his forces not fully controlling them. Unlike what happened in Crimea in 2014, when there was a fait accompli in the West of absorption without conflict, now it looks like an escalation in the war.

Putin came under pressure from the hardliners of his surroundings. In addition to enacting annexation and an unpopular mobilization of 300,000 reservists, the Russian has now increased the intensity of his attacks with psychological effect. On the same Saturday that the bridge was attacked, the Kremlin changed the general commander of operations in the neighboring country.

This Monday, the Russian will meet with the country’s Security Council, made up of members such as former president Dmitri Medvedev, one of the main spokesmen for the hard line, who has even suggested the use of tactical nuclear weapons, in limited power, against the Ukrainians.