The Russians’ ongoing attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine aim to wear people down – but above all they are supposed to keep the Ukrainian air defenses busy. The fact that Kiev is now well protected is definitely in line with the Russian attack strategy.
Apart from the direct front line, the Ukrainian districts close to the front, Kharkiv, Cherson and Zaporizhia, are hardest hit by the Russian war of aggression on a day-to-day basis. They are mercilessly fired upon almost every day by inaccurate artillery or S-300s – surface-to-surface missiles that are actually intended for anti-aircraft purposes. If the projectile or rocket is already there in 30 seconds or a minute, no air alarm will help the residents to seek shelter in time. The sirens often only wail when the missiles have already landed.
It is part of the sad everyday life in these areas that civilians die there almost every day. Usually there are “only” one or two victims a day, but there are always major tragedies, such as on May 3 in Cherson, when 23 civilians were killed and 46 others injured. Targets such as a supermarket and a gas station nearby were hit. But the intensity of Russian airstrikes has also increased significantly in the last four weeks in the rest of the country: The short break that Russia took in mid-March because the attacks on the energy infrastructure that had been going on since autumn no longer made any sense in the spring has been since over at the end of April.
Since February 24, 2022, the capital Kiev has experienced more than 750 air raid alarms, which have lasted a total of almost 900 hours. A not insignificant part of this is attributable to the last four weeks. During this time, there were fourteen attacks on Kiev, all of them with dozens of rockets or drones – and always late at night, mostly between two and four o’clock. With combat drones, night-time fire has a certain advantage: Low-flying drones are difficult to detect by radars, and in the dark, although they are very loud, they are difficult to see even for the human eye. However, with fourteen consecutive attacks, it is clear that the night aspect is part of Russia’s psychological warfare. The goal is to exhaust people.
Protection comes at a price
At the same time, Russia wants to disrupt the Ukrainian war logistics before the upcoming counter-offensive. Part of the nature of this war is the fact that Ukraine is not without serious hits, especially since such a huge country – the entire territory of Ukraine is about twice the size of Germany – can hardly be evenly covered by anti-aircraft defenses. Kiev is now the best-protected city in the world against air raids. But the protection comes at a price and is what the Russians want: Russia wants to tie up as many air defense systems as possible there so that they are not brought closer to the front.
This strategy is reminiscent of what the Russians did in the winter, when power plants were their main target. Letting the Ukrainians freeze to death was an important point for Russia, but ultimately only a side issue: Above all, Moscow was concerned with reducing the stocks of Ukraine’s anti-aircraft systems dating back to Soviet times. In fact, Russia has achieved the opposite of what it wanted in almost every area: the Ukrainian energy collapse never happened, Russia has used up many of its own missiles, and the West has started supplying Ukraine with its best anti-aircraft systems – including the German IRIS-T system , which proves to be very effective.
Debris also causes damage
Now the main concern is to exhaust the expensive Western systems – with the ulterior motive that their production in Europe has slowed down somewhat in recent years and in the hope that the West will fail to deliver ammunition and supplies as quickly as necessary . The cheap Iranian combat drones also play a role here that should not be underestimated: they rarely get through, but although the Ukrainian air defense tries not to intercept them with their best systems, they sometimes have to do so anyway. However, it seems that Moscow underestimated the West’s willingness to provide sustained support to Ukraine. Germany has just promised Ukraine four IRIS-T systems, which are now being produced.
Nevertheless, the Russian strategy can lead to local successes. It is not foreseeable that Moscow will at some point achieve air supremacy in Ukraine, especially since the question of combat aircraft, which are important for air defense, seems to have been decided. Also, almost nothing has been hit in the 14 attacks on Kiev since late April – and even the damage sustained by a Patriot system from a Kinzhal missile fire is likely to have been caused by debris rather than a direct impact .
But debris from drones and missiles is a problem, especially for civilians, and one that Moscow’s military leaders are well aware of when they launch these drones and missiles into big cities. Burning cars and damaged residential buildings accompany almost every attack because the debris from the intercepted objects falls somewhere. The Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense obviously don’t give a damn about the dead and wounded if they aren’t already part of the strategy of exhaustion. This was shown once again by the shelling of the city of Dnipro on Monday night.
Russia can still produce hundreds of missiles this year
Back in January, 46 civilians were killed when a residential building was hit by an inaccurate Ch-22 missile in Dnipro, a city of just under a million people in eastern Ukraine. The city of Kremenchuk experienced a similar tragedy last year when a Ch-22 hit a shopping center. Nevertheless, among the 16 missiles fired on Dnipro were five Ch-22s and five S-300s. This time, the use of these imprecise weapons against a major city resulted in the destruction of three local disaster control buildings – a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.
There are no signs that Moscow will stop such attacks any time soon. “At the rate at which Russia is currently producing, they can produce at least 450 missiles by the end of the year. If they increase production capacity at the same rate as last half year, it could be more than 600,” says Ukrainian military analyst Stanislav Bezushko. “Air defense systems and ammunition for them will therefore always remain a clear priority when it comes to arms deliveries from our partners.”