Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes on Ukraine
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) Moscows barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield.
Russian nationalist commentators and state media war correspondents lauded Mondays attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and a weekend attack on the bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.
Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Mondays strikes to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was becoming a hostage of his allies views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold.
Putins initiative is weakening, and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the victory (in Ukraine) for him, Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday. ADVERTISEMENT
The fear of defeat is so strong, especially for those who are now fully immersed in this military venture, that Putins indecisiveness, with his logic of We have not started anything yet and Restrained tactics have paid off has become a problem, the analyst said.Russia-Ukraine warLive Updates: Russia-Ukraine WarMore missiles, drones strike Ukraine, alarms keep up fearAnalysts: Russian missiles seek to levy pain, could backfirePoll: Majority in US see relations with adversaries souring
For weeks, Putins supporters have called for drastic battlefield steps in Ukraine. The exhortations intensified over the weekend after an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia; the bridge, Europes longest, is a prominent symbol of Russian military might. Putin himself opened the span in 2018.
And? Margarita Simonyan, head of Russias state-funded RT television, wondered on social media about Moscows response to the Saturday bridge attack.
This is one of those cases when the country needs to show we can hit back, wrote Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the popular pro-Kremlin tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Senior Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov, who leads the state-backed A Just Russia party, tweeted Saturday that Moscow should disregard Western opinion in formulating its answer to the conspicuous attack.ADVERTISEMENT
It is time for fighting! Fiercely, even cruelly. Without looking back at whatever censures from the West, Mironov tweeted Saturday. There wont be any bigger sanctions. They wont say any worse words. We need to do our thing. We started it we should go till the end. There is no way back. Time to respond!
The response came Monday morning, when Russia simultaneously launched dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding scores and inflicting unprecedented damage on Ukraines critical infrastructure. The strikes, which hit 15 Ukrainian cities, most of them regional capitals, knocked out power lines, damaged railway stations and roads, and left cities without water supplies.
For the first time in months, Russian missiles exploded in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraines capital, in dangerous proximity to government buildings. ADVERTISEMENT
Putin said Monday the strikes were in retaliation for what he called Kyivs terrorist actions targeting the Kerch Bridge, and vowed a tough and proportionate response should Ukraine carry out further attacks that threaten Russias security.
No one should have any doubts about it, he said.
Here comes the response, RTs Simonyan tweeted on Monday after the attacks. The Crimean bridge was that very red line from the very beginning.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, a Russian region in the North Caucasus, said he was now 100% happy with the course of the Kremlins special military operation in Ukraine. Kadyrov was among the most ardent proponents of more drastic measures, including the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.
The Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, described Mondays strikes as good news.
The cheering by Kremlin supporters came with demands for Putin and the Russian military to keep up the pace and intensity of the attacks and the damage inflicted on Ukraines infrastructure. ADVERTISEMENT
Aksyonov said that had such actions to destroy the enemys infrastructure been taken every day, then we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated.
I hope that now the pace of the operation will not slow down, Aksyonov wrote.
RTs top host, Anton Krasovsky, posted a video of himself Monday dancing on a balcony in a cap bearing a Z, the symbol that Russian forces painted on military vehicles while invading Ukraine. In another Telegram post, he said the damage to Ukraines power lines was not enough! Not enough!
Another state TV journalist, Andrei Medvedev, called Mondays attacks a logical step, which not just the society has long demanded the military situation demanded a different approach to the hostilities.
And so it happened. But does it change much? Medvedev, who works for Russias state TV group VGTRK and holds a seat on the Moscow City Council, wrote on Telegram. ADVERTISEMENT
If the strikes on the critical infrastructure become regular, if the strikes on railways, bridges and power plants become part of our tactics, then yes, it does change (the situation), Medvedev wrote. But for now, according to (official) statements, a decision to plunge Ukraine into medieval times has not been made,
Political analyst Stanovaya said in a Telegram post that Putin had faced powerful pressures before Mondays bombardment to move onto aggressive actions, massive bombings, and that prompted the Russian leader to act.
As of today, one can say that Putin was persuaded to resort to a more aggressive line. And it corresponds with his understanding on the situation. But it is a slippery slope there is no way back, Stanovaya wrote.
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