"Russia is out of ideas" : why strikes against Ukraine have increased in recent days

• Since this weekend, Russia has been carrying out a series of offensives in Ukraine, particularly in the capital kyiv.
• If the use of the Orechnik missile during Saturday’s attack seems impressive, it reveals numerous flaws on the Russian side.
• The former colonel of the French navy troops and military historian, Michel Goya, gives us his analysis.

Is the Russian-Ukrainian conflict at a turning point? While negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian powers have remained at a standstill since the start of the war in the Middle East, Moscow has carried out a series of strikes in Ukraine in recent days. Kharkiv, in the north-east of the country, was targeted on Monday May 25, causing the death of at least two people.

Russian diplomacy even recommended that foreign nationals residing in kyiv leave the capital this Monday afternoon before new bombings by its army. These threats in fact echo the attack carried out by the Kremlin on the night of Saturday to Sunday which left at least four dead and more than a hundred injured in the Ukrainian capital.

“Hide Russia’s weakness”

Particular attention was focused on the attack in kyiv on Saturday evening due to the use of the Orechnik missile, used for the third time since the start of the war. This latest generation weapon can be very formidable since it is capable of carrying nuclear warheads that the Russian president has constantly praised. Its use could thus have been much more deadly.

The former colonel of the French naval troops and military historian, Michel Goya, recalls that he “was used in a very conventional way, without nuclear power and to target buildings even though it is not a very precise weapon”. Despite the deployment of 90 missiles, including 36 ballistic, and 600 drones, this attack does not appear to have caused significant strategic damage in Ukraine, as Moscow had previously done during the conflict by attacking power plants or other energy infrastructure keys. For the ex-colonel, “It serves no practical purpose, apart from trying to impress”. 

In a note published Sunday (nouvelle fenêtre)the Institute for the study of war (ISW) reports that many Russian military bloggers have described the strikes in kyiv as “coûteuses” et “without real military effects”. And above all, almost “symbolic”as an attempt “to erase the humiliation suffered (by Putin) during the May 9 parade” widely criticized. During the famous strikes in kyiv, it was mainly cultural places and government buildings that were affected, like the threats made by the Kremlin towards Ukraine in the event of an attack. But this did not do it, Putin still struck in order to “hide Russia’s weakness”details the ISW.

Resume the narrative of the war

What Michel Goya does not fail to confirm in his turn, for whom “Using a strategic missile in this way amounts to wanting to stand out because it will not crack down on either the Ukrainian government or Europe”. It also joins the symbolic character of the campaign on Saturday evening, “in this attack on the capital, no military objectives were hit”. For the military historian, it is in reality “an admission of helplessness because Russia is running out of ideas” in a conflict that is no longer moving forward with drone shipments on both sides for a year already.

“There is a ‘retaliation’ side to these attacks because it is also a response to the Ukrainians who are hitting Russian soil hard with state-of-the-art drones similar to long-range missiles. It is an attempt for Vladimir Putin to take over the narrative of this war”explains the expert in military strategy. Russia was in fact targeted on May 17 by around 600 Ukrainian drones, causing the death of three people near Moscow, making it one of the most massive Ukrainian strikes since the start of the conflict.

According to Michel Goya, “Putin thought he would quickly retake Donbass at the start of the war, except that today he finds himself in a situation of military crisis. Either the Russians find solutions by mobilizing more forces, or they do not find any and remain blocked. The Ukrainians do not have the means to recover the territories either, their strategy is to block Moscow until the war stops”. 

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