Recently, there have been renewed attacks on residential high-rise buildings, with victims among the civilian population. There are explosions in Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and other cities and villages; people are killed and injured almost every day. What is it – terror, carelessness, or strategy? We find out what military experts think about this.
Price-quality
War is mathematics and precise calculations. According to information from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in the first 18 months since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia spent a total of 51.34 billion USD on ammunition.
The average price of a Soviet-caliber shell is about 1,000 USD. It is much cheaper than modern ammunition, but they have enough disadvantages. For example, the inaccuracy of hitting the target. However, it is not worth considering that their launch is pointless: at least the Ukrainian army spends precious shells to shoot down such targets.
However, Russia directs the most expensive ammunition to the most critical objects. Here, the benefit is more significant precisely from the destruction of targets.
Change of priorities
Until the summer of 2023, these were mostly energy infrastructure facilities. The goal was to destroy Ukraine’s economy to force it to sit down at the negotiating table. However, since Russia’s withdrawal from the grain agreement on July 17, 2023, priorities have changed. Now, the Russian Federation is no longer hoping for a dialogue with Kyiv but is putting pressure on the vulnerable point of the West – the supply of grain from Ukraine.
That’s why now, the most expensive and accurate missiles are used for attacks on grain warehouses and terminals.
Modern rockets enable:
– to hit the target accurately;
– to cause maximum destruction from one hit;
– to have a higher probability that the missile will not be destroyed by Ukrainian air defense.
Strategic goals are worth the cost.
Why aim at civilians?
No matter how much the world community would like to demonize the Russian army, most victims among the civilian population of Ukraine do not appear as a result of targeted terror.
The death of people is most often a consequence of:
– inaccurate work with outdated or imperfect equipment and shells with a large error in the radius of action;
– imperfect sight;
– shooting down missiles by air defense forces.
The last point is associated with the most manipulations of Kremlin propaganda. However, the propagandists deliberately keep silent about the following points:
– the place of landing of the remnants after the shootdown of the missiles by air defense systems cannot be predicted; therefore – a small percentage really falls on residential areas;
– damage after the shootdown of the missiles by air defense systems is usually several times less than after the missile hits the target.
However, the Kremlin portrays it differently, rightly relying on the full trust of the majority of Russians.
