Ukraine is the victim of unprovoked Russian imperialist aggression. Ukraine is facing an enemy — Russian President, Vladimir Putin — who has openly stated that Russia’s war aims are to abolish Ukraine and subsume it into Russia.
Russia’s brutal war has probably cost Ukraine 70,000 military dead, some thousands of civilian casualties including at least 550 children.
1700 secondary schools and over 1,200 medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed together with 170,000 units of housing.
18% of Ukrainian territory is currently occupied by Russia and 5mn people have fled the country.
Russia has, for the second successive winter, targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the hope of demoralising the population in cold as bad as -20ºc.
Since late December waves of missiles and drones have been used against civilian targets. On the night of Friday 14 January Russia launched 37 missiles and three drones at five regions of Ukraine. Russia is now using North Korean ballistic missiles, which are difficult to intercept, as well as Iranian drones.
By the end of 2023 Russia had launched 7,400 missiles and 3,900 Shahed drone strikes against Ukraine, according to officials.
Ukraine is also running out of anti-missile munitions, as aid for Ukraine is being blocked by Republicans in the US Senate and by Hungarian leader Victor Orban in the EU.
A particularly heavy assault on Ukraine began early on the morning of 29 December, lasting for 18 hours. Russia used 122 cruise and ballistic missiles and 36 drones; Ukraine said the majority were shot down, but, nevertheless, at least 58 people were killed and 160 injured. 100 private homes, 45 multi-occupancy housing blocks, hospitals and shops were hit.
This was an attack on civilians. This was a war crime.
In response, on 30 December, Ukraine launched its own strike. Belgorod in southern Russia, a city of 330,000 close to the border with Ukraine was shelled. 25 civilians, including parents with their children, were killed as bombs exploded in the centre of the town, leaving glass shattered and cars burning.
Ukraine does not comment on attacks on Russian territory. Off the record an official said Ukraine was aiming for military targets and the carnage in central Belgorod was caused by debris falling from incompetent Russian air defence. That’s not convincing.
No doubt many Ukrainians will simply shrug: the Russians are simply getting a little bit of what they have been subjecting Ukraine to. Yet the six-year-old-girl and her mother who died in the Ukrainian attack while ice skating in central Belgorod were not responsible for Russia’s war.
Residents of Belgorod reacted with shock, anger and panic to the attack. The war, or “special military operation” as Putin euphemistically calls the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is not supposed to kill Russians in Russia. The Russian state had clearly made no provision for civil defence. Basements were locked, and the small number of residents who were given temporary accommodation elsewhere were treated shoddily.
Given the repression in Russia it is difficult to gauge the political ramifications of such attacks. Probably, immediately, the reaction will be chauvinist and buttress Putin.
Small scale incursions and drone attacks on Russian munitions factories, and bomb attacks on rail lines have taken place in 2023, but nothing on this scale, and generally against targets which have military justification.
Solidarity supports Ukraine’s war of self-defence and believes that Ukraine has the right to strike military targets inside Russia in that frame. However, it is neither politically sensible, nor reasonable, for Ukraine to bomb Russian civilians.
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