Putin's Terror Blitz Has United Ukraine, Exposed Russia's Battle Failures

In what appears to be yet another unintended consequence of Putin's war with Ukraine, his terror bombing of civilian targets is uniting the population in anger (much as happened in Britain during the Nazi's WWII bombing campaign).

In addition, the terror campaign is drawing attention to the failure of Russian forces on the battlefield, where there year long attempt to take Pokrovsk is again mired in stalemate, their summer offensive is considered a failure and 2025 is turning out to be the bloodiest year of the war so far for Russia. As a result, the bombing is considered more of an admission of frustration and rage than a demonstration of power projection for the Kremlin. JL

Jillian Melchior comments in the Wall Street Journal:

Vladimir Putin wants this blitz to demoralize Ukrainians, reassure Russians, and persuade the West that Kyiv is losing. (But) Ukrainian civilians are enraged by the attacks. Many donate to support the military, and the raids boost voluntary enlistment. “We are really becoming more united.” (And) a counter-intuitive interpretation of Russia’s drone blitz: it's “an indicator of a lack of success on the battlefield” for Russia. The Kremlin is enlisting Shahed drones and missiles, as opposed to planes and bombs, because it has been unable to establish air superiority. None of the territory Russia has seized this year is strategically or even operationally significant. Ukrainian defenses have held around key fortified districts and fortress cities in the east.

Photojournalist Anton Shtuka has documented the aftermath of Russian attacks across Ukraine. Last month a missile hit close to home—down the street from his parents’ house. When crowds gathered, “it was so weird to see all the people from childhood around that collapsed building—my mom, the mother of my childhood friend,” he recalls. On Instagram he mused that “today came the realization that the front line has moved much closer. . . . Kyiv has turned into Kharkiv,” the hard-hit city just south of Russia.

 

The sentiment is widespread as Russia conducts missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian capital and other cities. Vladimir Putin wants this blitz to demoralize Ukrainians, reassure Russians, and persuade the West that Kyiv is losing.

If Russia can overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses, then the country’s military and civilian infrastructures also are vulnerable. But Mr. Putin’s chief goal is “to terrorize the civilian population to influence politics, to start negotiations with Russian conditions,” says Mamuka Mamulashvili, commander of the Georgian Legion of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. The United Nations recorded 232 civilian deaths and 1,343 civilian casualties in June—a three-year high.

In Kyiv this month the air alerts often sounded around midnight and continued for hours. Under Stalin’s terror the Russians discovered that “sleeplessness was a great form of torture,” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in “The Gulag Archipelago.” Russia wants to break the Ukrainian will as it seeks to dismantle Ukrainian identity.

Hanna Ustynova of PEN Ukraine says she is equipping the shelter beneath her apartment with bedding, though it means accepting this tough phase of the war won’t end soon. Dark humor is another coping mechanism. One recent Instagram meme recommended “where to go in Kyiv this weekend,” alongside photos of bomb shelters. There was a lull in attacks last week as Donald Trump’s special envoy Keith Kellogg visited the capital; OK, locals joked, let’s crowd-fund an apartment for him here.

Weary civilians are enraged by the attacks. Many donate to support the military, and the raids could boost voluntary enlistment. “We are really becoming more united,” Ms. Ustynova says.

Some have a counter-intuitive interpretation of Russia’s drone blitz: It’s “an indicator of a lack of success on the battlefield” for Russia, said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Kremlin is enlisting Shahed-type drones and missiles, as opposed to planes and bombs, because it has been unable to establish air superiority, said Oleksiy Melnyk of the Razumkov Centre, a Kyiv-based think tank. The situation on the ground is similarly contested. “Let’s be honest: We’re not winning right now,” said Mr. Mamulashvili. “We’re in active defense due to a lack of resources.” But Moscow isn’t winning either, he says.

The Russians have gained about 925 square miles in 2025, according to the Institute for the Study of War. That “looks terrible—it creates the impression that they are moving forward,” said Serhii Kuzan, head of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, a Kyiv think tank. “But when we look at it from a military rather than a civilian point of view, things are different.”

Many Ukrainian civilians I spoke to this month were pessimistic about the ground war, while soldiers and volunteers from the front were more optimistic. None of the territory Russia has seized this year is strategically or even operationally significant. Ukrainian defenses have held around key fortified districts and fortress cities in the east, and “without these spots, you cannot develop your position further, regardless of how many fields you take,” Mr. Kuzan said.

The West harshly judged Ukraine’s fighting potential after its 2023 counteroffensive failed to regain much of the intended territory. But Russia failed in 2022 to seize Kyiv and also hasn’t achieved its more modest goal of gaining full control over Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Its advances in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have stalled.

Britain’s Defense Ministry says Russia has suffered a million combat losses since 2022 and incurred about 1,080 casualties daily in June. Ukrainians who observe the Russians at the front told me the Kremlin’s so-called meat offensives are taking a toll on enemy morale.

As this becomes a war of attrition, Russia hopes to establish resource superiority. The Kremlin is ramping up production of missiles and artillery in addition to drones, and it has received Iranian and North Korean military support. Ukraine is also stepping up weapons production, but it can’t yet make some essential arms, such as interceptors for ballistic missiles. Kyiv also needs Western funding to help Ukrainian arms production match capacity.

Mr. Putin wants to erode the American and European will to arm Ukraine, and one way is promoting the myth that Russian momentum is unstoppable and Russian victory is inevitable. But Mr. Putin’s drone blitz could backfire with President Trump, who recently announced more support for Ukraine and expressed frustration with the Russian dictator: “I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke with Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ She said, ‘Oh really? Another city was just hit.’ ”