Russia launched another combined strike on Ukraine:
• 8 Zircon anti-ship missiles,
• 33 Iskander-M ballistic missiles,
• 27 Kh-101 cruise missiles,
• 5 Kalibr cruise missiles,
• More than 650 UAVs.
This does not include smart bombs, drones, artillery, mines, and other nuisances in the frontline zone.
In a day (a large portion at night):
• Dnipro: 16 dead, 42 wounded. Including children.
• Kyiv: 6 dead, 81 injured.
• Kherson and region: 1 dead, 16 injured.
• In Chernihiv region, yesterday, the Russians destroyed a lyceum in Novi Borovychi with drones and killed a woman born in 1948. In the village of Moshchenka, a 15-year-old teenager was injured by a drone.
• Kharkiv and region: 19 injured, including an 11-year-old girl. Drone attacks all day, around 16:00 hit the center of Chuhuiv.
• Sumy and region: 9 injured, including a 5-month-old child in Hlukhiv. An apartment block in Sumy was hit by artillery.
• Zaporizhzhia and region: 3 injured.
So, within a day (mostly in a couple of hours at night), only in the mentioned regions, the Russians killed 24 civilians and injured more than 150. Destroyed several apartment buildings, dozens of private houses, and dozens of civilian vehicles. Besides gas stations, they attacked farms, medical institutions, civilian equipment, including a milk truck (why?).
The previous large-scale strike was 9 days ago. The Russians amassed 72 missiles and launched them. There is no “retaliation,” no “response.” They simply accumulated and launched.
If you encounter rhetoric suggesting the “retaliatory” nature of Russian actions anywhere, know that these statements come from biased or inadequate people. Any of their claims should be perceived as such.
I also want to emphasize an important point.
A meme circulates online about the supposedly “humane” nature of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The argument: more soldiers officially die than civilians.
As evidence of the Russians’ “humanity,” comparisons are made with World War II and Israel’s actions. They claim that during WWII, entire cities were bombed out, and Israel kills more people in Gaza and Lebanon in an hour than Russia does in a month.
This is an attempt to grossly distort the context.
For Ukraine, the civilian population of Russia is not a target. Firstly, for purely pragmatic military reasons. Wasting scarce ammunition and drones on expensive Russians is an unacceptable luxury.
But more importantly – secondly. Ukrainians, in general, have not learned to perceive Russians in Russia as sworn enemies.
The infamous dehumanization did not occur, despite all the emotional outbursts and the suffering Russians have caused Ukraine.
Those who invaded our territory, regardless of their motives — it’s clear with them, but only on the battlefield. This is partly why Russian mercenaries in Ukrainian captivity live better than at home.
Propagandists and instigators — their fate is also predetermined. Several other categories await just retribution.
But those who sit in Russia and have not yet become mercenaries — there is more contempt and disgust for them than any burning hatred.
It’s easy to check: statistically, the main enemy of the Russian population is the Russian air defense. Which, in some cases, takes on very sad forms.
For example, in Sevastopol, a young girl is quietly buried, who officially died in an accident. In reality, she was hit by a stray bullet because Russian soldiers were firing in all directions trying to shoot down harmless drones. Not to mention the “panzirs” that bombard residential buildings with faulty missiles. Or the Russian tactic of directing drones into residential buildings with electronic warfare, as in the Russian understanding, this minimizes damage.
As for the Russian approach to the Ukrainian civilian population, here the attitude is the direct opposite of that of Ukrainians. A billion facts; I’ll just mention a couple.
The first fact — Kharkiv. The Russians could not enter the city on February 24, 2022, they were not welcomed with flowers. On February 25, the city was attacked by aircraft and rocket salvo systems.
The most terrible: the Russians used rocket salvo systems with cluster munitions on a densely populated residential area. This is the most indiscriminate weapon, used solely with one goal — to kill and maim as many civilians as possible, so the city would not think to resist.
There were several such attacks, with dozens killed and wounded. During these days, Kharkiv residents called their relatives and acquaintances in Belgorod with cries of “what are you doing?!” In response, they heard: 1) this is a Banderite provocation, you are shelling yourselves; 2) this is Banderite propaganda, you will soon be liberated…
In the end, Russian planes began to be shot down, and the rocket salvo systems were repelled.
The second fact — Mariupol. You can easily find on the network Russian (!) video where a division of “Grad” rocket salvo systems is beautifully lined up in a field and strikes Mariupol, covering a large area with dozens of rockets.
I’m not talking about the bomb dropped on the theater or maternity hospital, or other high-profile incidents. Here, the everyday routine approach is more important: load a package of rocket salvo systems and cover a residential area. For Russians, this is the norm. Just like grinding cities with barrel artillery.
The third fact — Dnipro, yesterday. Russians struck civilians in Dnipro with cluster munitions. Four years have passed, and the approach has not changed. Clusters are a means against manpower. Russians make no distinction between combatants and civilians. This is similar to their actions during WWII.
What is the difference?
The difference is that they CAN’T cover our cities with cheap bombs; aviation can only attack with missiles and guided bombs.
THEY WANT TO, BUT CAN’T.
Wherever the Russians reach (Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Popasna, Marinka, Volchansk, Kupyansk, Izyum, etc.), they indiscriminately destroy everything. Ukrainian cities remain more or less intact not because of Russian “humanism,” but because the Russians lack the ability to engage in their favorite activity — wreck everything in sight.
If Ukraine didn’t have air defense systems, Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and others would long ago have been in a state like Gaza. On such a scale, you can’t do much with missiles and drones, despite the Russian tendency to hit the same hospitals.
And another fact that the adherents of Russian “humanism” somehow “don’t notice”. In the winter, the Russian army literally tried to freeze 3 million people to death in Kyiv. For 1.5 million, the situation was quite severe. I’m not even mentioning that in other cities it was worse than in Kyiv.
Surviving the cold wasn’t due to Russian humanism. It’s the heroism of the Ukrainian population. And how to compare: killing 25 people with a missile and trying to kill, though unsuccessfully, 3 million—what better reveals the “humanity” of the Russian army’s actions?
The same goes for the torture of sleep deprivation. Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and other cities are sleepless. These are millions of people. It’s torture by all standards. So where is the selectivity and “humanism”?..
This is about the fact that I’ve heard several times from European and American representatives the thesis that Russians act within some civilized frameworks. People need to be explained that someone infected them with nonsense.
Can Russians act even more horribly? Of course, they can. It’s just not always beneficial for them, and war is about pragmatism. But they already act horribly. It’s not a range from good to bad, between humanists and war criminals. It’s a range between cannibals and cannibals.
Stopping the cannibals will be helped not by a high assessment of their mental qualities, but by reducing their ability to attack (sanctions, defeat on the ground, air defense) and inflicting unacceptable damage on them. Then they will sharply remember high culture and begin to exude grace.
Photo: Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration
