Russia launches major missile strikes against Ukraine, Belarus may be signaling that they will join the war.

 

A civilian runs in the aftermath of one of the strikes. The Daily Mail/Reuters. 

Russia has launched a major missile and drone strike against Ukraine. The Daily Mail. Russia said the attack was "revenge" for the attack on the Kerch Bridge, which left three people dead and caused a parietal collapse. Russia launched 83 missiles at various infrastructure targets in multiple cities, including the capitol. Kiev claims to have shot down half the missiles, while the others hit in various areas. Casualties were light, with Kiev claiming 11 dead and more wounded. Russia's ally, Belarus, appears to be getting close to joining the war, announcing joint cooperation with Russia and claiming Ukraine was looking to attack them. Belarus has been used as a staging area for Russian troops but have not joined the war so far. Russia says that the attacks, which involved missiles, airplanes and drones, will continue. 

My Comment:

I'm usually fairly critical of the Daily Mail but I have to say that this was a good, even handed report, that explained both sides of the issue without taking sides. I had difficulty finding a source that wasn't either shrilly pro-Ukraine or shrilly pro-Russia. It also had a large series of photos and videos from this attack, so I highly recommend checking the article out. 

The shrillness largely seems to be about this being an attack on civilians. But I think the answer is more about Russia not being all that competent with their long range weapons. Attacking something like the pedestrian bridge makes zero sense as it has little to no military value and isn't even effective as a terror weapon. Instead it just seems like they were shooting at something else and missed. I do think that they weren't particularly worried about hitting civilians, and given the fact that their civilian infrastructure was just hit, I understand why(the Kerch Bridge was a military target given the supplies moving across it, but Nord Stream was absolutely not). 

The Russians were aiming at Ukrainian infrastructure, which is an escalation to the war. In the past Russia only rarely targeted things like power plants and rail lines. I have been fairly critical of this as it hasn't really advanced the Russian cause to hold back like that. Whether that decision was due to incompetence, pragmatism or even a genuine desire to reduce civilian casualties, it has now been reversed in response to the Kerch Bridge bombing. 

The attacks did not seem all that effective in this round. I don't buy Ukrainian claims that they shot down half the missiles, but it does seem that the Russians didn't hit everything they wanted to hit. Indeed, many of the missiles seemed to hit totally randomly, blowing up random buildings and parks. They also seemed to not be using that much of their air power, which is baffling to me. I think they are afraid of SAM sites, but you would think they could try and take those out. Plus they could use their heavy bombers to destroy these targets, even though that would probably lead to more casualties. 

Belarus possibly joining the war is a bigger news story than the strikes though. Belarus has been a major ally to Russia and allowed them to use their country as a staging area in the initial stage of the war, and it looks like they are going to do the same thing again. From what I understand a large number of the Russian reserves are crossing into the country and are preparing for an offensive. 

I don't buy Aleksandr Lukashenko's arguments about Ukraine threatening Belarus. Though they probably would love to shut down the country and force them to stop helping Russia, I don't see how they can. Ukraine does not want to draw Belarus into the war, for reason I will explain below, so I can't imagine them doing anything to provoke Belarus. Then again, I consider Ukraine's leadership to be utterly insane at this point, calling for nukes to be used and other bizarre demands, so I guess anything is possible. 

Belarus is not much of a threat on their own. Their military is fairly small for the size of their country and their weapons are outdated Soviet tech. In a straight up war against Ukraine without Russian help, they would lose, even in Ukraine's degraded state now. And I can't imagine that the quality of the mostly conscripted force. But they are going to have a lot of help from Russia and their troops will act as a force multiplier for them. Indeed, I think the Belarusians will be nothing more than auxiliaries to the main Russian force.   

The main issue is that Ukraine will again face a 2nd front. Assuming these new forces attack in the North, they should be able to easily threaten Kiev, like the Russians did in the early stage of the war, before they retreated. Again, I don't think the objective would be to take and hold Kiev, it would be to draw forces away from the Donbas region and halt the advances the Ukrainians have had in the south and east. 

Will the attack be effective, with the addition of Belarusian troops? Possibly. The Russians should be able to threaten Kiev again easily and that will force the redeployment of troops. Given how committed the Ukrainians were to the offensives they have launched, they may be in serious trouble. But then again, we have seen this before and though I think it allowed the Russians some success in the end the offensive had to be abandoned. Time will tell if the new stage of war will change things fundamentally, or if the current stalemate will continue.