On the morning of Friday, December 8, Russian Tu-95MS bombers fired 19 cruise missiles into Ukraine. After a long pause, with the onset of freezing weather, Russia resumed massive strikes.
Some of the missiles hit energy infrastructure facilities in Dnipropetrovsk region in a continued bid to disable the Ukrainian power system as much as possible. Given that Ukraine’s grid suffered significant damage in last year’s attacks, a new wave of massive missile strikes could cause even greater damage. Thus, Russia keeps trying to freeze Ukrainians to death during the coldest period of the year.
Russia is revisiting missile attacks, taking advantage of winter cold, which the Kremlin seeks to weaponize to exert psychological pressure on the civilian population, while also intensifying assaults on the battlefield, reinforced by propaganda injected into Western media spaces, calling for a halt of any security assistance to Ukraine. Without the help of its Western partners, including a sufficient amount of air defense capabilities, Ukraine will eventually find itself in a dire situation. This, in turn, will lead to a significant influx of refugees to European countries as people will be seeking shelter from massive shelling.
Meanwhile, Russia has returned to pre-war levels of cruise missile production. The Russian defense industry operates 24/7, and the government allocated almost a third of the entire budget for the defense and security sector. The sanctions imposed so far have not proven to be much of an obstacle for Russia, and, as the recent events have shown, international isolation is giving way. After all, Putin was a welcome guest in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, while Lavrov visited a NATO member state, North Macedonia, for the first time since war-start.
Russia will continue to commit crimes and brutal attacks against civilians, as evidenced by the increase in Russia’s defense budget and their arms production boost. If Russia sees no resistance, its heinous crimes will never end.
Europe’s security now completely depends on further developments in Ukraine. If Russia prevails, Russian cruise missiles flying toward European cities will only be a matter of time.