The latest russian attack, aimed primarily at the Ukrainian capital, left no doubt even among those who might still have assumed that Russia was trying to strike some military or industrial facilities and simply paid no particular attention to the fact that its missiles were landing in residential neighborhoods located near the targeted sites. No, this attack was aimed precisely at residential neighborhoods — it seems the russians were not even looking for any other targets; they wanted specifically to destroy and intimidate. This is the very logic of terror.
A logical question arises: what does putin want to achieve with this terror against the civilian population? Does he really believe he can compensate for the lack of serious results on the front line with such strikes? Knowing the russian president’s behavioral model, this cannot be ruled out at all. At the dawn of his political career, in 1999, putin attacked residential neighborhoods of his own capital — the apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities of the Russian Federation were meant to convince citizens that security could be guaranteed only by this small, puny man who promised to “waste terrorists in the outhouse.”
Now he is acting in exactly the opposite way — attacking residential neighborhoods of Kyiv so that Ukrainians will understand: there will be no security until they agree to his terms and give up their statehood and sovereignty.
Another of his goals fits into the logic of the demographic war he has been waging against Ukraine practically from the first days of the full-scale invasion. We have said many times that putin’s real goal was supposed to be a blitzkrieg — the lightning-fast occupation of Ukraine and the replacement of its government with a puppet one. But in Russia, they understood perfectly well that such an attack would inevitably trigger a wave of refugees to Europe. And they pursued two goals at once. The first was to get rid of the local population in order to later comfortably settle Ukrainian lands with russian citizens, as is, in fact, happening in the occupied territories of Ukraine. And the second was to provoke a large-scale migration crisis in Europe that would help representatives of political forces oriented toward Moscow come to power.
putin already had experience organizing such a crisis — when he helped the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. It was then that far-right and far-left radicals, who had always called for an understanding with the Kremlin, began gaining influence, and their ratings began rising like yeast. I am convinced that without the Syrian migration crisis, there would not have been such a rise of Alternative for Germany and other far-right political parties in Europe.
As we know, putin’s plans failed. The blitzkrieg did not happen. Nor did the migration crisis materialize, because the arrival of Ukrainian refugees did not provoke the same consequences in European societies as the arrival of refugees from the Middle East — although, to be honest, migration-related attitudes in Europe are already beginning to change. Still, the attack in February 2022 did have one important consequence: Ukraine’s population really did shrink significantly, millions of people left the country, and each new year of war leaves little hope that most of them will ever return. And putin continues to use tools that can help increase demographic pressure. After all, strikes on large cities also mean the potential resettlement of the population, its movement to smaller towns and other countries — that is, an attempt to deprive the neighboring state of its economic and demographic future. And this, too, is the logic of terror.
That is why, in my opinion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara, should speak with U.S. President Donald Trump and other Western leaders precisely about this terror. Not only about the war, but also about terror. About the fact that putin has finally turned into the head of a terrorist organization that merely imitates a state. And ordinary citizens, who become victims of his shelling, must now be protected from this chief terrorist of the planet. After all, this is definitely no longer only a war between armies. This is a classic war against women and children — the kind of thing terrorist organizations in the Middle East engage in.
That is why strengthening Ukraine’s air defense in order to protect its civilian population is so important. That is why further strikes on the russian economy are so important — in order to deprive the terrorists of the money that gives them the ability to commit further crimes against civilians. And this means not only Western sanctions that should stop the sale of russian oil and the purchase of russian petroleum products by other countries. It also means transferring long-range weapons to Ukraine, weapons that must destroy russian industry and bring the terrorists to their knees — the very knees they so love to mention in their own self-admiration. It turns out that Russia rises from its knees only in order to kill, rape, and maim. Well then, let it stay on its knees and bother no one.
For those who live in Ukraine, terror is not just an image, not just a metaphor. It is the feeling of the moment when you are in a shelter and realize that missiles and drones are exploding nearby. Or when you are sitting in the corridor of your own apartment and hear the sounds of explosions. Or when you realize that your apartment no longer exists — and that your loved ones are no longer alive, killed by putin and his militants in uniform. And assistance to Ukraine, therefore, is not simply money and hardware. It is the chance to survive when you have been marked for death.
Author: Vitaly Portnikov
