Putin’s forces continue to bring horror to Ukrainian civilians as Kyiv destroys key sections of Russian infrastructure.
Russian ballistic missile attacks have begun to cause record civilian deaths in Ukrainian cities without any Patriot interceptors to stop them, but Ukraine’s long-range strikes have destroyed Russian fuel supplies.
With the Russian economy struggling, a top expert warned that social unrest could unfold in a matter of time – and consequently lost his job.
On Tuesday, Russian missiles killed at least 10 people in Pechenihy, a town 40km (25 miles) east of Ukraine’s northern city of Kharkiv. On Thursday, they killed 15 people in Kyiv, three in the western city of Zhytomyr and injured 40 at a border crossing between Odesa and Moldova.
Russia said it was targeting weapons manufacturing sites in Kyiv, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces struck 30 residential buildings, a school and a children’s hospital.
The United Nations said Russia killed a record 437 people in July and injured 2,610, surpassing its previous record in June by 30 percent.
Civilian casualties have continued in August, because Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptors and has been unable to stop incoming ballistic missile attacks since the beginning of the month.
As Zelenskyy pointed out, Ukraine’s interception rate of cruise missiles and drones is still in the 90-percent range. But Russia is doubling down on the use of ballistic missiles and has brought in an additional 50 North Korean weapons, according to Ukrainian military intelligence.
Since June 25, Ukraine has launched a campaign of mid-range strikes to disrupt Russian logistics and has harassed fuel and ammunition supplies so effectively that it has made 233sq km (90 square miles) of territorial gains this year.
By August 16, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces announced it had put 228 supply ships out of action in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, as well as destroying 243 power stations, electricity substations and gas distribution nodes in Crimea.
They have also been striking relay antennas used to guide Russian drones and radar stations that detect Ukrainian counterstrikes. On August 20, Ukraine struck drone launch sites in Donetsk City and Primorsko-Akhtarsk on the Sea of Azov, as well as a fuel terminal in the Kerch Strait used to supply Crimea.
Ukraine’s long-range strikes have served a different purpose – to undermine the Russian economy’s ability to fund its war.
On August 15, Ukraine managed to fly two of its Flamingo cruise missiles into the Progress Rocket and Space Centre, 800km (500 miles) east of Moscow, despite Russia’s use of four A-50 early warning aircraft and its reported downing of 822 Ukrainian drones that day.
Ukraine said it hit an engine assembly workshop for Soyuz rockets, causing a fire covering half a hectare.
Russia is using Soyuz to launch satellites for its Rassvet constellation to replace dependence on the US Starlink system, after Ukraine managed to cut Russian access to Starlink on February 1 . Russia needs satellites to increase the speed and precision of its counter-battery fire on Ukrainian positions. Its loss of that capacity has been partly responsible for Ukrainian gains this year.