Brute force and Moscow’s show of strength, from Ukraine to Europe

Cases of corruption cause greater outrage than missiles, and whilst the international press was dissecting the struggle of the anti-corruption agencies in Ukraine and Kyiv was going to sleep reeling from investigations into the finances and embezzlement of yet another of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s loyalists and the unbridled ambitions of the former Defence Minister, Mykhaylo Fedorov—who has thrown his hat into the electoral ring and will be in the United States next week to meet Elon Musk and perhaps even Donald Trump—Russia unleashed its full arsenal into Ukrainian skies: 44 cruise missiles, two Banderol missiles and 168 Shahed drones. The favourite target: Kyiv. The Ukrainian capital came under fire until the early hours of the morning, with at least fifteen dead and more than thirty injured. Amid all the talk about the purity of Ukrainian democracy, Russia has taken action, as it does regularly, sometimes even several times a week. The shortage of interceptor missiles in Ukraine is well known; Zelensky continues to appeal to both American and European allies, requesting Patriot missiles. 

But the arsenals remain empty and Kyiv is heading into winter with the realisation that the summer has been a foretaste of what may happen in winter. The Ukrainian capital is now exposed, on the front line. Every Russian attack is becoming more devastating, and the addition of ‘banderols’ to the arsenal allows Moscow to combine the characteristics of a cruise missile with those of a jet-powered drone in a single weapon that is cheaper to produce and harder to intercept. This is why the Russians have given it a name steeped in cheap sarcasm – ‘banderol’, meaning ‘postal parcel’ – to emphasise its function as a small parcel sent to Ukraine. It is the Russians’ gift to Ukrainian nights. The capital acts as a shield, but every day in Ukraine attacks are repeated both at the front and further afield: in Kherson, for example, a drone attacked a bus, whilst in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region, commercial premises were struck.

For months now, Russian military activity has not been confined to Ukraine’s borders. Even yesterday, whilst Kyiv was under attack and missiles and drones were moving through Ukrainian airspace, Poland scrambled its fighter jets, fearing that, as has happened on other occasions, weapons from Moscow or the anti-aircraft fire used by Kyiv to repel them might fall onto its territory. Yesterday, however, something else happened – more than a mere incursion: a maritime drone, believed to be from Moscow, was shot down in the Black Sea. After consulting with NATO, Romania scaled up two F-16 fighter jets to destroy a drone carrying explosives, just a few hundred metres from the Naptun Deep gas extraction platform. The Romanian Defence Minister, Radu Miruta, explained that the decision was taken to protect the infrastructure and the people working there, and before taking action, Ukraine was asked whether the drone belonged to it. Following Kyiv’s denial, Romania and its allies decided to strike. In recent weeks, several international publications have reported that Russia is becoming less and less reluctant to take military action against a NATO member state; yesterday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, described the approach of the maritime drone – which was subsequently shot down – as an act of ‘hybrid warfare’, cautious language for an action that NATO deemed dangerous enough to warrant intervention. Russian actions against Ukraine and against Europe are proceeding in tandem and, perhaps partly for this reason, for the past three days in the skies over Poland and the Baltic states, NATO has been conducting large-scale air operations in response to the increase in military threats. Moscow is testing NATO’s defences and its willingness to respond, whilst NATO is sending strategic signals in reply.