Back Story Newsletter
Good morning,
Kyiv Attack Today
This morning a series of kamikaze drone attacks struck Kyiv during morning rush hour. The attack comes a week after Russia hit Kyiv with a series of missile attacks killing 19 people.
Sergey Surovikin who has reputation as a brutal Russia commander, with no regard for civilian targets or people who are caught in the ugly crossfire of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has his finger prints all over this new strategy to attack civilian areas.
Indeed you can argue civilians are not being caught in crossfire, but have been directly targeted day in day out since President Putin launched this war in February.
Surovkin was put in charge of the war operations in Ukraine earlier this month, and since then Russia has used more missile strikes across Ukraine to create chaos and destroy civilian infrastructure. Surovikin’s strategy that has led Western countries to rush air defence to Ukraine to intercept the onslaught of Russian air attacks.
In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named Surovikin as “someone who may bear command responsibility” for the dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure in violation of the laws of war” during the 2019-2020 Idlib offensive in Syria. The attacks killed at least 1,600 civilians and forced the displacement of an estimated 1.4 million people, according to HRW, which cites UN figures.
Russia has ordered more drones from Iran, and notably Ukrainian and U.S. officials have seen intelligence reports that shows Iran is preparing the first batch of Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar missiles, two short-range Iranian ballistic missiles. They are capable of striking targets at distances of 300 kilometers and 700 kilometers respectively say reports.
The missile shipments come at a time Russia is supposedly running out of its own missile stocks, said to be down to 25-27% of what they had before the war began.
The questions of escalation by Putins army, which is losing ground on the battle field and is now increasingly resorting to destroying Ukraine from air, are difficult to resolve.
How can you defend Ukraine without striking back at launch platforms that are located inside Russia and in its ally Belarus?
The obvious debate turns to America’s reluctance to supply Ukraine with longer range missiles known as ATACMS, the army tactical missile system with a range of 190 miles or 300 km.
The U.S. fears this would escalate the conflict, if Ukraine were to directly attack areas inside Russia, but the conflict is escalating and the ATACM debate is quickly advancing.
Ukraine would be restricted against using the missile on targets inside Russia, but the Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014 would be in the crosshairs and Ukraine could destroy Russian bases and supply depots in eastern Ukraine which for now are outside the range of its weapons arsenal.
We are coming to this moment of a new escalation because as Russia launches these drone and missile attacks on the Kyiv today, and will soon gain new missiles from Iran, the west will no doubt move to give Ukraine more muscle to defend itself which could even include A-10 ground attack aircraft.
How do we stop the escalation in Ukraine? We don’t because no one is willing to force Ukraine back to the negotiating table while it’s under constant attack and Russia is announcing its annexed the Donbas.
The ground war will continue with Ukraine holding the upper hand on the battle field, even if that means in the meantime Putin’s use of missiles and drones to terrorize is on the increase.
Other News…
-Vaccines to fight cancer could be widely available before 2030, the husband and wife team behind one of the most successful Covid-19 jabs has said. Lessons learnt in the pandemic will accelerate cancer treatments based on mRNA technology, Professor Ugur Sahin and Professor Ozlem Tureci said.
-Britains new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will bring forward budget plans by two weeks today, to stop the bleed in the markets and the plunging British pound. The UK’s P.M. Liz Truss kicked off market mayhem by rocketing debt with tax cut announcements and was forced to fire her previous Chancellor. And Truss herself may be forced out of office because of it.
-A fire at Iran’s Evin prison late on Saturday killed four detainees and injured 61, state media reported, as anti-government protests sparked by a woman’s death in police custody continued on Sunday.
-No gas in many French petrol stations! French refinery and fuel depot workers at five sites owned by oil giant TotalEnergies have extended their strike, union leaders said Saturday, compounding concern over petrol supply ahead of wider protests early next week.
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Dana Lewis