Putin’s Vengeance Missiles Rain Down On Kyiv

On Monday morning the streets of downtown Kyiv bustled with vehicles and pedestrians traveling on their way to work. The Ukrainian capital had ceased to be remotely near the frontlines when Russian forces withdrew from its northwestern and northeastern approaches in April. The last Russian missile strikes targeting Kyiv took place in June.

Unfortunately, the calm was about to be brutally shattered. Tu-160 Blackjack supersonic bombers and older Tu-95 Bears took off from Engels and Olenya airbases, over 700 mile east and a thousand miles north of Kyiv respectively. These huge aircraft—built to deliver nuclear strikes targeting the U.S. and NATO during the Cold War—released their Kh-101 and older Kh-555 cruise missiles from well outside Ukrainian airspace.

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Russian warships on the Black Sea contributed volleys of Kalibr naval cruise missiles.

The missiles—totaling 83 by noon local time according to the Ukrainian military—soared towards cities across Ukraine at roughly the speed of an airliner, reportedly reinforced in some sectors by a dozen Iranian-supplied Shahed-136 kamikaze drones rocket-launched from Belarussian soil. Land-based Iskander ballistic missiles, and even re-purposed S-300 air defense missiles, may also have contributed to the onslaught.

According to Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, a gauntlet of Ukrainian air defense missiles downed 43 of the incoming missiles.

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That left at least a dozen to plunge down into Kyiv alone, each bearing around a half-ton of explosives. At a quarter past 8 AM, explosions began tearing through central Kyiv.

One missile blasted a huge crater just a few meters away from a playground.

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Another struck an intersection, incinerating at least six cars of commuters on their way to work.

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A missile narrowly missed huge glass office building owned by Samsung and Ukrainian energy provider DTEK. The weapon instead slammed into the nearby concrete, its warhead shredding more than a dozen floor’s worth of of windows down the building’s side.

Still more missiles narrowly missed the red walls of Shevchenko University. A young woman recording a social media message from across the street by coincidence captured the missile impact. She fortunately survived.

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Another ‘key strategic target’ was a glass pedestrian foot bridge to the island on which is located Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People (until May this year, the Friendship Arch dedicated to Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood). The bridge emerged intact from the near miss.

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Pro-Russian propaganda outlets flocked to praise the barrage supposedly as targeting Ukraine’s “decision-making centers” and security services.

Some of the missiles did land in the vicinity of the headquarters of the Ukrainian SBU intelligence agency on Volodomyrska Street—landing on the street itself, but missing the HQ by multiple blocks. It’s often unclear the extent to which Russian missiles are deliberately targeted at civilian targets or are simply too inaccurate to reliably hit military ones. Both were often the case in Russia’s use of strategic bombers over Syria.

Besides the SBU headquarters, Russian attacks across Ukraine targeted electrical infrastructure, possibly with greater success. Multiple reported missile impacts caused a fire to break out at the thermal power plant north of Kyiv, causing power outages and interruption of the city’s hot water supply.

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In Kyiv alone, internal affairs minister Rostyslav Smirnov reported an initial total of 8 deaths and 24 injured civilians—so far. And the attacks don’t appear to have concluded.

Revenge weapons

The October 10 strikes were undoubtedly made in retaliation for the explosion of the Kerch Strait bridge on October 8 (Putin’s birthday) connecting the Russian mainland to the Crimean Peninsula, a vital logistical artery for Russian forces in southern Ukraine. Moscow believes the SBU executed the attack.

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The scope of the Russian attacks on October 10—with missiles aimed at seemingly every major Ukrainian city—undoubtedly appears intended to induce a degree of ‘shock and awe.’

However, Russia expended a large part of its missile arsenal over the summer and can only produce new ones quite slowly (4-12 of relevant types monthly.) This caused the volume of its standoff missile strikes to decrease drastically in the fall—until now.

But while the savage revenge attack may satisfy the long-running calls of ardent Russian nationalists to ostensibly ‘take the gloves off’ Russia’s war effort with more brutal and wide-ranging strategic attacks, in truth they are not sustainable due to the inadequate long-range missile supply.

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Furthermore, the attacks result in Russia expending thinly-stretched combat power blowing up civic centers in pursuit of a nebulous theory of victory rather than directly impacting battlefields where Russia’s military position grows ever more precarious.

The Kremlin would have to be deluded to think strikes on Kyiv will reverse it fortunes on the frontlines, or make Zelensky and the Ukrainian public broadly more pliable. Perhaps the carnage is foremost aimed at Putin’s domestic audience, seeking to restore his image after the humiliating attack on the Kerch bridge.

Still, Putin’s strategic attacks also risk inspiring more international assistance. Very soon, Ukraine is set to receive batteries of NASAMS and IRIS-T short-to-medium range air defense missiles from the U.S. and Germany which could substantially improve Ukrainian defenses against cruise missiles and larger kamikaze drones.

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For the citizens of Kyiv taking shelter in the subway tunnels under the city, those defenses can’t come soon enough.