Putin uses the tactics of exclusively attacking civilian objectives in Ukraine to sow panic and to minimize the morale of Ukrainians, which, from this perspective, would begin to ask Kiev to accept the unconditional surrender. But history shows that the air terror did not have the result of collapsing the morale of a nation, but on the contrary, writes the university professor Radu Carp, in a text published today by Hotnews.
Last night (Saturday to Sunday, n.red.), A new gust of shaped drone ravages in Ukraine. This time, it was the turn of the city of Odessa. Iranian drones targeted a 21 -storey block, killing a couple and hurting more children.
Every night, the same scenario is repeated: hundreds of drones are sent simultaneously to all regions of Ukraine. The cities of Herkiv, Herson, Odessa, Kyiv, great Ubane, where the drones certainly make victims among the civilians. In the past, military and civilian objectives were attacked. Currently, civil objectives are attacked exclusively. Sometimes, drone attacks make no sense, as was the attack on the Bilhordod – Dnistrovski high school, near Stefan cel Mare's fortress. The attack occurred the day after the students had celebrated the completion of the school year. There is no military objective in the area within a radius of tens of kilometers. The purpose was just to sow panic, to completely destroy the respective high school and to make human beings. In Herson the building of the Civil Administration of the city was destroyed, occupied shortly in 2022 by the Russian occupation forces. The attack was useless, no one was in the building during the night. The result was the effective destruction of the building, a symbol for the peaceful return of the Ukrainian authorities in November 2022. In Dnipro a devastating attack had a passenger train, right in the middle of the day.
The struggles on the front are practically frozen, the Russian and Ukrainian forces being in a perfect balance situation. When a part makes a minimal advance, it is quickly constrained to withdraw.
Putin is not crazy but has a clear purpose
Since its arrival, Donald Trump has tried to stop the war in Ukraine, by means that attracted at most Ilarity at the Kremlin. Trump believed that a direct conversation with Putin would somehow solve the situation exactly during the last such conversations, Putin launched a devastating attack on Ukraine, which Trump would find out only after completing the conversation. His reaction was: “Putin became absolutely crazy.”
A deeply wrong evaluation. Putin is not crazy, but has a very clear purpose: the restoration of the power of the Russian federation throughout the former Soviet Union, by annihilating Ukraine first. Trump tried to turn Putin into a credible partner, willing to sit at the negotiation table. Deliberately, Putin does everything possible to contradict this ideal portrait created in Washington.
Why do you do this, seemingly irrational? Why not try to take advantage of the outline of a more human portrait?
A common hypothesis is that this campaign of attacks on civilians without defense in the big cities is the prelude to a great offensive, with all the forces. June almost passed and the great offensive is expected. The Russian forces changed the strategy on the front, attacking the Sumî region. The limited operation proved to be a failure. Not to mention a large -scale offensive. If so, military facilities, armament deposits, transport networks used by the military would have been attacked. Nothing of all this.
Putin uses the tactics of exclusively attacking civilian objectives in Ukraine to sow panic and to minimize the morale of Ukrainians who, from this perspective, begin to ask Kyiv leadership to accept unconditional surrender.
However, if we look carefully in history, we can see that Putin was not the only one and will certainly not be the last to use or use the same tactic. All the examples so far failed.
The first time in history when the bombardment of civil targets, deliberately, was used. It was at the beginning of the First World War. German Zeppelin impressed with their appearance and terror they sowed, including in Bucharest but especially in Belgrade. Neither Romania nor Serbia were capitulated, being finally winning in the war. The terror strategy did not work. So did Hitler when he began to bomb London, in the hope that England will surrender, believing that the civilian population will ask this to the country's political leadership. For their part, the British and American forces have intensely bombed Germany, in the hope of Hitler's capitulation, until the alternative of using military forces has been able to achieve a massive terrestrial incursion, by landing in Normandy.
When the American public had reached a saturation regarding the Pacific War, and the number of victims had reached worrying figures, the Washington administration has relied on the same illusion: an intense biombardment campaign on Japan would bring its unconditional surrender. Dimm, the population had exactly the opposite reaction, being more united around the political condition. The war seemed to have no end until the time of the detonation of the two atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Do you know these examples a little? Doesn't it realize that the effect of bombing civilians is exactly the opposite, supporting even stronger for the current condidity of Ukraine?
Those who practiced such attacks generally had two such reasons: despair, due to the unfavorable situation on the front or, on the contrary, impatience to exploit a favorable situation, with which it seemed to be not meeting the war.
American naivety can help them
Is it a little desperate or impatient? Rather, it seems to use this massive bombing campaign as a stage in achieving the strategic objective of capturing the entire Ukraine. Putin has enough long -term patience but it is also eager to see the first results of the terror campaign: small civil, authentic, taking critical positions against Zelenski, etc. Subsequently, these small changes in attitude can be used to the maximum with the help of propaganda. Since this, nothing of all this. The Ukrainians suffer in silence and become more and more determined to fight. However, Putin continues to hope. It has nothing to lose. On the front it cannot be imposed decisively and it would take a few years until it is achieved. Putin realized that the American naivety of the Trump administration, represented by a Steve Witkoff actually impressed by the luxury of the Kremlin, can help them. Putin understood that any attack on civilians in Ukraine will have no consequence unless the panic state is established and generalized. Somewhere Putin has achieved his goal. These massive attacks, which have exclusive target civilians, are no longer related in the Western media. Ukrainians die in silence, nothing seems to disturb the silent genocide on a nation.
The use of drones for this purpose is ideal, from Putin's point of view. They can kill children, women, old people, with minimal costs. The Russian Federation increases the production of shaped drone, initially under Iranian license. They become more and more sophisticated but the production costs remain relatively the same.
Reverse effect
However, this terror campaign of the Russian Federation will finally have the same effect as the previous examples in history: exactly the opposite of the expected one. Putin probably sees the causes of Japan's capitulation differently than most historians. This was possible only due to a massive nuclear attack, the first of its kind in history, as well as the entry into the war, in its last days, of the Soviet Union that penetrated in the itch occupied by the Japanese. Only the perspective of an asymmetrical nuclear war, as well as the union of the Soviet forces with the American forces, has determined the leadership of Japan to make the chapter's decision. Japan looked in 1945 much more destroyed than Ukraine is today – and yet, no Jaoonez revolted against the emperor or made a public appeal. Such an accumulation of external factors is practically impossible in the case of Ukraine – but Valdimir Putin does not see this accumulation, but only rely on the psychological impact of the remaining crimes. Another example. The US believed in the Vietnam war exactly what he thinks now, a little about Ukraine. Northern Vietnam was thrown nearly one million tons of bombs, by no less than 300,000 air raids between 1965 and 1968. The result: South Vietnam, supported by the US, finally lost the war. The communists from Hanoi were not impressed by massive air attacks, on the contrary, they used this opportunity to find reasons to continue the war.
This terror campaign will continue for a long time. We will see more and more images of reduced cities. However, the effect will be exactly contrary to the one expected by Putin: the Ukrainians will be even more determined to continue the war to defend their territory. During this time, there will be naive or only pro-Russian politicians who will talk about the possibility of “peace negotiations” with the Kremlin regime. The hope of a fiery peace with Putin is only a bitter illusion, definitively buried in the debris of Kyiv, Herson, Kharkiv or Odessa demolished by Shahed drones. Putin can be discouraged, it can be determined to conclude this criminal campaign only by counterfeiting a credible force throughout the European continent aiming to stop any Russian imperial ambition. By never in history, the aerial terror was not the result of collapsing the morale of a nation, but on the contrary.
Text originally appeared on contributors.
