Putin’s blitz marks the next phase in Ukraine’s war

Since the attack on the Kerch bridge in Crimea, the world has been awaiting Putin’s answer. It came this morning in the form of Russian missiles fired over Ukrainian cities. To add to this, Belarusian media is also reporting the deployment of Belarusian troops to the conflict for the first time. Of the 83 Russian missiles fired into the country, 43 have been intercepted by Ukraine’s air defence system (which has also intercepted dozens of Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones) but Kyiv has been hit. Lviv, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Odesa have also been targeted – large and small cities are under attack. The number of dead and wounded is unknown. All schools in Ukraine have been instructed to switch to remote learning.

Headlines have understandably focused on the bombing in Kyiv but the main targets seem to be energy facilities throughout the country. ‘They want panic and chaos, they want to destroy our energy system’, said Volodymyr Zelensky in his urgent address. This was expected: Ukraine has been operating on the assumption that as Russia loses the ground war, it would take out Ukraine’s power stations, weaponising the winter cold and leaving the country unable to heat itself. Kharkiv and Ternopil are already out of power following strikes on critical infrastructure facilities. At least 11 important infrastructure facilities across Kyiv and ;eight other regions were hit. ‘Some of the regions are now without electricity. It is necessary to be prepared for temporary interruptions with light, water supply, and communication’, wrote Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal.

More may be yet to come: this morning the press service of the self-proclaimed president of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko announced his meeting with military and security chiefs. Putin is also gathering his Security Council today. Earlier, Ukrainian military intelligence reported on renewed rumours that Putin trying to persuade Lukashenko to openly participate in the war. Now, Lukashenko and Putin have jointly agreed to deploy a joint regional grouping of Belarusian and Russian troops. ‘The base of this grouping is the army, armed forces of the Republic of Belarus’, said Lukashenko. Until now Belarus had not officially joined the invasion, but had allowed itself to be used as a bridgehead for the Russian army.

Today’s missile strikes may mark the start of a new phase in the war: at any point until now, Putin could have switched to a blitz strategy of destroying cities. But at the beginning of the conflict, he had envisaged an easy conquest and a narrative of somehow ‘uniting’ the Rusky Mir (Russian world). Ukrainian courage and Western arms have seen his army defeated on the ground. He always had the option of switching back to firing missiles at Ukrainian targets to demoralise the population.

Mindful of this, Ukrainians have made efforts to show confidence this morning – there are videos of people singing Ukrainian national songs in Kyiv’s metro. For some time, talk in Kyiv had turned to what to do should the war graduate to missile attacks, even nuclear deployment. With Putin so visibly losing to a far-smaller neighbour, he is a wounded beast. We will see what that beast is capable of.