Moscow's plan: bomb the residents of Ukrainian cities out! Zelensky steps up attacks on Russian refineries

Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Reuters that Ukrainian intelligence has obtained documents showing that, as winter approaches, Putin has widened the range of targets for air strikes. According to the Ukrainian president, by attacking infrastructure, logistics networks, roads, schools and hospitals, the Russian leadership wants to force people to leave Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

The announcement came amid a wave of attacks in which Kyiv's energy and telecommunications facilities were hit by drones and missiles, with the bridges over the Dnieper connecting the city's eastern and western parts also targeted. In Zelensky's reading, Putin is trying to project strength through this, while Ukrainian troops are carrying out a counteroffensive in Donbas — according to the president, about 140 square kilometers have been recaptured so far, and the operation continues. Ukraine's response will be to intensify attacks on Russian oil refineries. Zelensky called these important elements of the energy system that finances the war, and made clear that Ukraine intends to respond to the energy strikes with strikes on Russia's energy sector. At the same time, he stated that they do not want to follow Russia's methods and will not take revenge on civilian targets.

And that is precisely the distinction that comfortable Western sermons on peace keep blurring. Ukraine wants to weaken the aggressor's war-making capacity, while, according to the Ukrainian president, Moscow is trying to empty cities by destroying the conditions of civilian life. When keeping Russian refineries running is treated as more important than Ukrainian civilians' ability to defend themselves, we are effectively asking the invaded country to subordinate its own survival to other people's economic comfort. Yet the war machine must be weakened for as long as it remains capable of preparing, financing and carrying out new attacks; not a single Ukrainian school has become safer thanks to the Kremlin's polite understanding. Zelensky also said that Moscow has given no signal suggesting Putin is willing to negotiate peace or accept a ceasefire covering energy infrastructure, and he interpreted the drone incidents and hybrid attacks across Europe as attempts at intimidation aimed at splitting support for Ukraine. He believes some European leaders are starting to recognize this and are hardening their stance.

It is high time this recognition turned into consistent action across the whole of NATO: more air defense, more weapons, the support Ukraine's defense needs, and firm action against Russian operations targeting European countries. Moscow only understands it when its offensive capability deteriorates, its room for maneuver shrinks, and the price of continuing aggression rises. Meanwhile, amid the West's endlessly cautious concern, Ukrainians are left to wait among the ruins for us to finally arrive at this damn simple conclusion.

Russia, of course, denies it all and calls Zelensky's accusations baseless, yet the bombed-out apartment blocks, the murdered civilians, the schoolchildren forced into shelters, the torture, the abducted children and the mass rapes somehow fail to prove the Kremlin's innocence. After all these years, Moscow's denials deserve about as much credence as an arsonist standing in front of a burning house, gas can in hand, explaining that he only came to do some gardening — while the cowardly Western citoyen believes it and passes it on.....

Outrage