The Kremlin's Rules of War

"[President Vladimir] Putin's goal is to unsettle, drive up prices divide society and to weaken support for Ukraine."

"We don't bow to it but counteract this with concentrated and consistent action."

"We take precautions so that we can get through the winter [storing up energy in the face of Moscow's weaponization of oil and gas in response to Western sanctions]."

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck

"Our assessment is, the Russians will find it increasingly difficult to supply men and materiel in the next few weeks."

"They will have to pause in some way and that will give the Ukrainians opportunities to strike back -- their morale is still high and they are starting to receive increasing amounts of good weaponry."

"To be honest, it will be an important reminder to the rest of Europe that this is a winnable campaign."

UK's MI5 head, Richard Moore

"We saw people drenched in blood. We saw people on fire."

"We helped with bringing the wounded to the subway. The smoke was very thick."

"There were many wounded on the street."

Khaibar Karimi, local entrepreneur, Kharkiv

Black smoke rises into the sky from Russian shelling of Kharkiv's Barabashovo market. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The Russian military does not deliberately strike civilian targets. It would never hit enclaves of civil infrastructure, towns, villages, city suburbs. Its goal is to engage with, to destroy, military emplacements, weapons depots, energy resources to counter Ukraine's aggression against Russian troops. We know this because the Kremlin tells this to the world critical of its decision to leave behind nothing but burning cinders where people once lived in Ukraine. 

Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv, shelled for the past five months, remains an elusive goal for the Kremlin. Ukrainian nationalists are just so unaccommodating. Yet again it was struck, this time shells hit a crowded market. Leaving residents to stand about confused and disoriented as their world continues to fall apart, the marketplace suddenly bloodstained, people lying dead among the stalls.

 

Damage at a school destroyed by a Russian air bomb in Kharkiv. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The chief of the Kharkiv national police, Volodymyr Tymoshko, stated the obvious: no military targets are nearby. How the Russian military could have confused the issue is unknown. They are fatigued beyond endurance, resentful of Ukrainian determination to fight back, so there is no reluctance to follow orders to instill a little humility in the arrogant Ukrainians who believe they can counter the Russian military. Hit them hard, where they live and work, to drain them of the impression they can hold out forever.

Russian troops are exhausted from the combat their conflict with Ukraine brought them to, in finally taking Luhansk province. They've been ordered to focus all their energies now on Donetsk province. What energy? The front lines are frozen in fatigue. But they're moving forward to shell Donetsk in preparation for a new advance. After all, Vladimir Putin months ago proclaimed the Donbas to be Russian territory, to be left in the capable hands of its separatist proxies.

Britain's top spy states with confidence that intelligence indicates the Russian military is "running out of steam". A successful counter-strike by Ukrainian forces could yet set Russia on its back feet. It's what happened with the Kremlin's original intention to occupy Kyiv and neutralize the government. Until it ran into too many responding roadblocks and regrouped and withdrew claiming its real intention was the Donbas.

The United States, it would appear, is now prepared to send advanced fighter jets to Ukraine, another advantage on top of the long-range howitzers the Ukrainian military is making good use of, enraging Vladimir Putin by the West's meddlesome interference in what he planned to be an easy campaign of enter, occupy, expand.

A man in a wheelchair moves past rescue workers clearing the rubble of a building of the Kharkiv Regional Institute of Public Administration destroyed by Russian bombardment. (Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)