Why Russia Hit Residential Buildings In Zaporizhzhia: Russian rockets destroyed a five-story apartment building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine on Thursday night. Photographs and videos of the aftermath of the strike show the building in a state of disrepair.
A total of seven Russian rockets are understood to have been launched at the city, three of which struck the downtown Zaporizhzhia area at around 5am local time.
Search operations began soon after the strikes, with emergency workers searching through piles of rubble and pulling victims free. Ukrainian’s emergency service claimed after the strike that a total of three bodies had been pulled from the rubble so far, with twelve wounded by the strikes. Among the injured was a three-year-old child.
By Thursday evening, Zaporizhzhia Oblast Governor Oleksandr Starukh confirmed that the death toll of the strikes had risen to seven. Five people were still believed to be missing.
This morning, russian aggressors carried out 7 missile strikes on the city of Zaporizhia. There are casualties among civilians.
? Olena Yeriomenko pic.twitter.com/ltJRWmBue9— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) October 6, 2022
Reports describe how journalists witnessed emergency workers pulling people from what remained of their beds, having collapsed to the ground while sleeping. One female victim was discovered, who was believed to have been in the bed during the attack, lying lifeless with her eyes wide open.
Oksana Beketova, the head of the Zaporizhzhia Red Cross, told journalists that people were being “continuously” asked to evacuate the city, but that only two blocks away from the site of the strike, people were still “walking in the park.”
Strategy Of Fear and Uncertainty
Launching missile strikes on civilian infrastructure is nothing new for Russian forces in Ukraine, and while it doesn’t immediately assist the Russians in terms of advancing their lines of defense, it does create a climate of fear.
Throughout the conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly denied claims that Russian troops have deliberately targeted residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, but the evidence is substantial and hard to ignore.
Launching deadly strikes on residential areas while denying that the attacks are taking place is the definition of gaslighting – a form of manipulation whereby the abuser aims to make victims question their own sanity or the reality in front of them.
The strikes also come as Russia increasingly relies on threats to the West to prevent further gains from Ukrainian forces in the four regions Putin “annexed” last week.
It’s a perspective shared by the Ukrainian government, too. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba said on Twitter that Russian forces are attempting to spread fear among the civilian population in Ukraine by resorting not just to deadly strikes on civilian infrastructure, but also to torture.
Image Credit: Creative Commons.
“The Russians continue to deliberately strike civilians to spread fear,” Kouleba wrote. “Russian terror must be stopped: by force of arms, by sanctions and by complete isolation.”
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
