Politic?: A Sordid Tale of Russian Entitlement to Destroy Ukraine

"Russia is saying, 'We can do this all day long. You guys [G-7 and NATO nations] are powerless to stop us'."
"The Russians are humiliating the leaders of the West."
Lt.-Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. forces in Europe

Cars pass by destroyed Russian armored vehicles outside Kyiv late last month. Although the Kremlin has failed in its initial bid to take his country's capital, Ukrainian lawmaker and special forces commander Roman Kostenko believes Moscow hasn't abandoned its ambitions to take the city

Now that many of the countries that had withdrawn their embassy staff from Kyiv have returned them since the Russian troop withdrawals and their re-assembly in eastern Ukraine, under the impression that the Ukrainian capital is now safe enough for their emissaries to return with Russian troops busy trying to consolidate their hold in the Donbas, it appears that the Kremlin felt this to be as good a time as any to remind the global community that it still had ammunition and the will to spare to continue destroying any sense of normalcy in Ukraine.

Following weeks of relief for the capital, long-range missiles have once again found their targets in and around Kyiv in a show-of-force meant to emphasize to Western leaders that all their efforts to isolate and beggar Moscow have not yet succeeded. While Western leaders are convening in Europe to discuss further economic support and weaponry to Ukraine, Moscow sent yet another message of its willingness to continue destroying the country that had dared defy its edicts.

Two residential buildings were hit by missiles according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, leaving emergency workers to battle flames and rescue civilians from the buildings. A nearby kindergarten was cratered by a strike. The first air-launched weapons to target the capital since early June, according to Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat, were Kh-101 cruise missiles fired from warplanes more than 1,500 kilometers away over the Caspian Sea.

Just prior to G7 leaders announcing the latest in the series of international economic measures meant to continue applying pressure and isolate Russia over its vicious invasion of Ukraine. Along with new bans on imports of Russian gold. Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian parliamentarian, noted that preliminary information indicated Russia had launched 14 missiles toward the region of the capital and Kyiv proper.

"If they are using them, it's going to be for a special purpose", observed retired U.S. General Ben Hodges, referring to the limited stock of precision missiles held by Russia. Governor Serhiy Haidal of Luhansk province pointed out that Russia was conducting intense airstrikes on Lysychansk, which destroyed its television tower, committing serious damage to a road bridge. "There's very much destruction, Lysychansk is almost unrecognizable", he wrote.

As is anywhere that the Russian military has launched its rockets at, from civilian enclaves, hospitals, apartment buildings, shopping centres, and military installations alike. Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov stated that Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces control the city of Sievierodonetsk as well as villages surrounding it, having thwarted efforts by Ukrainian forces to turn the Azot chemical plant into a "stubborn centre of resistance".

Amazing how Russians believe that theirs is a humanitarian mission to rescue Ukrainians from an evil government leading them down the pathway of fascism by joining the EU and aspiring for NATO membership. Ukrainians defying murderous Russian oppression in their own land are 'stubborn', recklessly causing Russians to kill them, to destroy the country's infrastructure, while noble Russia, committed to its task of liberating Ukraine from itself is being punished by the West for its stoic heroism.