Why Russia is escalating its targeting of Ukrainian civilians

Tom Rogan

June 13, 01:31 PM June 13, 01:31 PM

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Forced into an uncertain defensive posture, Russian forces in Ukraine are re-prioritizing their targeting of civilians.

While Russia’s willful targeting of civilians is illegal under the laws of war, it fits within Moscow’s expansive consideration of legitimate military action. Russian forces have repeatedly targeted civilians since the start of the war in February 2022. Still, recent days have shown a greater shift toward such activity. On Tuesday, 11 people were killed when Russian missile strikes targeted a food warehouse and apartment complex in the city of Kryvyi Rih, 30 miles northwest of the Dnieper River.

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That city is President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, a factor that may well have precipitated this attack (the Russians enjoy making things personal). Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian shelling killed a priest as he walked in his churchyard. Russian forces have also been shelling civilian boats attempting to evacuate those stranded by flooding from last week’s Nova Kakhovka dam attack. Hinting at further escalations, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Tuesday that Ukrainian strikes inside Russia would force him to consider imposing a “sanitary zone” inside Ukraine. This is clearly designed as a threat to clear Ukrainian border areas of civilian populations.

There is, however, a big difference between Ukrainian strikes inside Russia and Russian attacks inside Ukraine.

While Ukraine has occasionally taken poorly judged action to target civilians (such as Ukraine’s killing of ultra-nationalist blogger Darya Dugina), the overwhelming majority of Ukraine’s actions inside Russia have focused on military-enabling infrastructure such as railway lines. In contrast, when Russian forces target apartment buildings, evacuation boats, and food depots, they know exactly what they are doing.

Which is to say, they are doing exactly what their comrades have spent years doing in Syria. Seeking to weaken the morale of rebels opposing Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Russian forces in Syria have repeatedly targeted civilian hospitals, humanitarian aid convoys, and civilian shelter points in rebel-controlled areas. They have done so in the belief that the rebels’ center of gravity is their family members. If they can blow up enough hospitals, the Russians think, those fighting Assad might decide that it’s better to give in than to keep resisting. It’s a very crude and immoral calculation, but one that has paid off. Assad’s regime is now stable, and his regional neighbors are wooing him back into the political fold.

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The problem for Russia is that Ukraine’s will to resist is matched confidently to its capacity to resist. Russia cannot pummel Ukraine into submission because the Ukrainian people are willing to absorb the civilian losses Russia is imposing upon them. And as much as Putin likes to dangle the threat, the use of Russian nuclear weapons in Ukraine offers little better prospect for a Russian victory. Putin’s order to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine would precipitate Russia’s near total international isolation, or Putin’s removal from power, or NATO military intervention, which would annihilate the Russian military in Ukraine.

Put another way, Russia can keep killing civilians, but its killing of civilians isn’t going to help it win this war.