Ukraine Attacks: What You Need To Know About Russia’s New, Brutal Offensive

Russia has just launched another offensive, this time striking all over Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin doubles down on his war effort.

Here’s what you need to know.

Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, reported “several explosions” on Monday morning just after 8am local time, leading to numerous casualties.

This is a particularly noteworthy moment, partly because government offices (based in the capital) have not been targeted much throughout the war.

Russia’s inability to seize the capital back in the early days of its invasion of Ukraine was also seen as a source of great embarrassment, especially because Moscow was expecting to take it within just three days.

The mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko said there have been “several explosions in the Shevchenkivskyi district – in the centre of the capital”.

A Ukrainian newspaper, the Kyiv Independent, has reported that there were “power outages” across the capital after the attack.

Clips shared on social media show that many civilian areas have been destroyed in the ongoing strikes.

In response to the attacks, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said on Twitter: “The only thing they [Russia] demolish irreversibly is the future of [Russia] – a future of a globally despised rogue terrorist state.”

Moscow has not yet commented on the attacks.

It’s not just the capital either. Cities in the east such as Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, and in the west, such as Ternopil and Lviv, have all been targeted, too.

Russia has been concentrating its war efforts along its Ukrainian border to the east in recent months – including annexing some regions there – so the shift to the west shows Putin is throwing everything he can at the war right now.

Moscow’s previous attempts to invade Kyiv and claim the west of the country were unsuccessful, as Russia was forced back by the Ukrainian forces.

As the UK’s work and pensions secretary Victoria Prentis told Sky News on Monday, this proves “we are very much in the midst of war” – despite Ukraine’s success with its counteroffensive over the last few weeks.

It’s widely believed that the Russian president’s new acts of aggression are in response to the recent attacks on a bridge connecting Crimea to Russia. It was of critical importance to connect trade between the two.

Putin has already accused Ukraine of attacking the bridge, claiming it is an “act of terrorism”.

The bridge was supposedly a personal project for Putin and seen as a symbol of Moscow’s power.

Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula which was annexed by Russia in 2014, was considered a Russian stronghold until recently.

Explosions in the region along with Ukraine’s vow to reclaim all of its land appeared to signal that Kyiv might be trying to retrieve it. However, the Ukrainian government has not taken responsibility for either the explosions in Crimea or the bridge.

As the UK minister Prentis told Sky News: “I don’t think the Ukrainians have taken responsibility for that destruction – we have to be very careful, we don’t know who was responsible for it.”

Still, after the bridge was targeted, many Ukrainians were anticipated a significant backlash from Russia in response to the bridge attack.

Many also celebrated the downfall of the bridge, posing in front of a stamp model of the explosions over the weekend.

The new wave of aggression could prove to be yet another key moment in the war.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, dubbed these attacks as “deliberate” and further proof of “the Kremlin’s terrorist inadequacy”.

“Russia is not capable of fighting on battlefield, but capable of murdering civilians. Instead of talking we need air defence, MLRS, longer-range projectiles.”

However, former US ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, said that Putin does not want the war to turn nuclear, despite his ambiguous threats.

He told Sky News: “They constitute Russia’s strongest claim to great power status, and Putin and [the] Kremlin seek to project [the] image of Russia as [a] great power.”

He claimed that the use of nuclear power in Ukraine would not necessarily have decisive military impact, and would likely push Russia’s allies in China and India away.

The UK’s ministry of defence claimed that the new strikes follow increasing “pressure on Russian forces” in the north-eastern and southern regions of Ukraine.

It said Russia is pushing its “grinding Donbas offensive” – in the east of Ukraine – amid “serious threats on its operational flanks”.

The MoD claimed this all emphasised the “imperative to deliver operational success while also underlining the inflexible operational design which has undermined its plans thus far”.