hankyoreh

The body of a person killed in an explosion likely caused by a Russian missile strike on Kyiv on Oct. 10 can be seen on a street as smoke billows from a fiery car. (Reuters/Yonhap)

At 8:20 am on Monday, an eerie whistling came across the sky above Kyiv’s main street, where Ukraine’s presidential palace and government agencies are located. The ineffable sense of terror it brought with it sent shudders through my body. No more than 30 seconds after the scream had passed over the building where I was lodging came the resounding boom. Five minutes later, ambulances raced down the street to the scene.

What should have been the start of a new week for Kyiv brought disaster.

The faint sense of joy Kyiv residents had felt upon hearing the news of Ukrainian troops’ victories along the southeastern front in late September was short-lived. Roughly 300 locals were forced to cut short their daily commute to take refuge in Khreshchatyk Station. Constructed with the capability of doubling as an air-raid shelter, it takes three minutes on an escalator to reach the depths of the metro station.

Basim, 35, a civil servant who had been making the 40-minute trip to drop off his daughter at school before quickly taking shelter with her, said, “We’re witnessing death all around us.”

“Russia is a terrorist,” he said in a fury. “All the children are suffering on its account.”

When asked how he comforts his only child, a 9-year-old named Zlata, since the outbreak of the war following Russia’s invasion, Basim pulled his daughter into his arms and simply said, “This is all I can do.”

Only one day prior to the attack on Monday, long lines had formed outside the McDonald’s in Kyiv. Life seemed like it was back to normal, enough to make you feel as safe as you would in any given tourist location in Europe. But in an instant, that sense of normalcy gave way to terror once more.

A mere two days after the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, which links the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland, Russia rained down missiles on 10 major cities across Ukraine, including the capital city of Kyiv.

This massive strike came one day after President Vladimir Putin of Russia tentatively concluded that the bridge explosion had been a “terrorist attack” carried out by Ukrainian special services.

Not only Kyiv, but Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, Dnipro in central Ukraine, Lviv in the west, and Mykolaiv in the south were among the 10 major cities and 12 regions hit by missiles.

Monday’s missile strikes left at least 11 dead and 64 wounded in Ukraine. The entire country was plunged into chaos when the attack hit key infrastructure, leaving many without power, internet access, or heating. The bodies of those killed in the attack could be seen strewn about the streets of Kyiv.

Kyrylo Timoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, wrote on Telegram that the Russian attacks targeted energy infrastructure in 12 regions. He acknowledged that they “may affect the stability of the energy supply.”

Commenting on the aerial attacks Monday, the New York Times and other international news outlets said they were part of wide-ranging strikes against civilian facilities and key social infrastructure that Russia has been carrying out since invading Ukraine in late February. They saw these as sending the message that while Russia may be on the defensive on the southeastern front and suffered a blow with the strike on the Crimean Bridge, it still has the capability to strike deep within Ukrainian territory.

Many Kyiv locals taken by surprise by the missile attack took shelter in Khreshchatyk Station, a metro station in the city’s center. (Im In-tack/The Hankyoreh)

Indeed, Putin made no secret about the attacks taking place on his orders. Shortly afterward, he declared that “a massive strike was carried out [. . .] on Ukraine’s energy, military command and communications facilities” in Ukraine.

“If attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory continue, Russia’s responses will be harsh,” he warned.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed anger and stressed that he did not intend to bow to Russia. In a video taken in central Kyiv after the strikes, he said, “They [the Russians] want panic and chaos, they want to destroy our energy system.”

“They are incorrigible,” he added.

Ukraine proceeded to launch a counterattack. A Russian committee investigating the Crimean Bridge bombing said in a statement Monday that Ukrainian artillery had been fired on the cities of Belgorod and Kursk in Russia and the occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk. The strikes left three people dead, and cut power to Donetsk.

A day before the attacks, Alexander Bastrykin, chairperson of the Russian investigative committee, met with Putin on Sunday to share the early results of the investigation into the Crimean Bridge bombing. During the meeting, he presented the provisional conclusion that the bombing was “a terrorist act which had been prepared by Ukrainian special services.”

According to a transcript of the meeting published on the Kremlin’s website, Bastrykin explained that upon arriving at the scene, the Russian investigation team “carried out a detailed examination of the site together with explosives experts and forensic team and reached well-grounded tentative conclusions.”

“[T]his was a terrorist act which had been prepared by Ukrainian special services with the aim of destroying a large civilian infrastructure facility of crucial importance to the Russian Federation, especially to Crimea,” he was quoted as saying.

Upon receiving the report, Putin said, “There is no doubt here, as you have just reported, that it was a terrorist act aimed at destroying critical civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation.”

“Ukraine’s special services were the initiators, performers and masterminds,” he added.

Putin had previously avoided speaking directly about specific developments in the war. But a day after declaring the bombing to have been a “terrorist act” by Ukraine, he launched a large-scale retaliation. He also appeared likely to discuss additional retaliatory measures at a meeting of the country’s security council on Monday.

One figure who has been drawing particular attention amid all of this is the commander of Russia’s aerospace forces, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was appointed Friday as general commander for what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine. The Guardian described him as “notorious,” noting that he had ordered indiscriminate bombing without distinguishing between civilians and combatants while leading a Russian military expedition in Syria.

After becoming involved in the Syrian civil war in September 2015, Russia surrounded the northern city of Aleppo — Syria’s second-largest city, where anti-government forces were putting up a tenacious resistance — and launched an indiscriminate strike there. Many civilians lost their lives as a result.

The tragedy of Aleppo appears bound to be repeated.

By Im In-tack, staff reporter; Jung E-gil, senior staff writer; Cho Hae-yeong, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]