On Friday, it was Odessa’s turn. Two missiles arced across the sky to hit a block of flats and a seaside hotel in the historic Black Sea port. Twenty-one more lives, including those two children, were randomly and senselessly taken. Four days earlier, it was a shopping mall in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk that was hit just as unexpectedly. Nineteen bodies have been recovered there and dozens more shoppers and mall staff are still missing as rescue crews continue to dig through the rubble. The day before that attack, Kyiv was the target. Rockets hit two residential buildings in the capital, killing one person. Urban areas of cities such as Kharkiv and Mykolaiv have also been hit repeatedly in a week of death and chaos. Even up close, it was impossible to tell. Another disaster was likely averted last Sunday when a Russian cruise missile was shot out of the sky by Ukrainian air defenses as The Globe and Mail flew through the commercial heart of Odessa. Less than 24 hours later, much of the Western press was standing in the parking lot of what used to be the Amstor shopping center in Kremenchuk. Russia targeting goods in war with Ukraine to create food shortages breaks West’s resolve Death toll from Kremenchuk mall attack rises to at least 18 as Ukrainians search for missing Canadian volunteer fighter badly injured in Ukraine hopes online campaign will help him return home None of this week’s targets were in the eastern Donbas region, where Russian forces continue to fight a Ukrainian army, capturing the devastated city of Sieverodonetsk last week and this week pounding neighboring Lyscychansk, which is now the new forehead line. None of the strikes in the rest of Ukraine have brought the Kremlin closer to its avowed goals of “liberating” the Donbass region and ousting the government in Kyiv, which Moscow falsely claims is run by far-right figures. The Ukrainian government has begun pushing for Russia to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation usually reserved for countries that help Hezbollah or Hamas. Except Russia is not accused of supporting any illegal militant group – but rather of behaving like one. “Only completely insane terrorists, who should have no place on Earth, can fire missiles at civilian objects,” Ukraine’s furious President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on his Telegram channel after the Kremenchuk attack. “These are not off-target missiles at kindergartens, schools, shopping malls, apartment buildings, they are calculated strikes by attackers. Russia should be recognized as a state sponsor of terrorism. The world can and therefore must stop Russian terrorism.” The Kremlin denies that it has targeted civilians, and despite Mr Zelensky’s impassioned appeal, there is reason to believe that the uptick in seemingly random attacks may be partly due to Russia running out of the high-precision weapons it used at the start of its war. The apartment building and hotel in Odessa, as well as the shopping center in Kremenchuk, were reportedly hit by Kh-22 anti-ship missiles, which have radar systems designed to pinpoint enemy warships at sea, not specific buildings in busy cityscapes. It is equally plausible, however, that the missiles are a message from Moscow to Ukraine and its allies in the West. The Kremenchuk attack came just after the G7 summit concluded in Germany with a vow to maintain sanctions against Russia for “as long as necessary”. Odessa was hit a day after a NATO summit concluded with a statement calling Russia a “significant and immediate threat”, with the alliance confirming plans to expand its high-readiness force to 300,000 troops from 40,000 today. Friday’s attack in Odessa also came a day after Russian troops were forced to withdraw from the strategic outpost of Snake Island – just off the coast of Odessa – due to intense Ukrainian artillery fire. The recapture of the island was the biggest symbolic victory for Ukraine since early April, when Russia was forced to abandon its early bid to seize Kyiv. In that light, Russia’s attacks this week fit the classic definition of terrorism: hitting civilians until the other side agrees to negotiate with you on more favorable terms. There’s no sign the West is willing to do that yet, and Kyiv had its own response on Friday afternoon: The city center was full of people enjoying a warm summer day. Hours after the attack in Odessa – and less than a week since the most recent strikes in the capital – music was playing and shops and cafes on Khreshchatyk Street were full of customers. Cities such as Kyiv and Odessa, which were evacuated at the start of the war amid predictions that Russia would quickly defeat Ukraine’s smaller army, have returned to perhaps two-thirds of their pre-war normalcy. Many of those who fled have since returned, and restaurants and businesses that were abandoned in February and March are also coming back to life. The new attitude of keeping calm and carrying on carries risks. The air raid sirens that early in the war sent everyone scurrying to bomb shelters are now treated as just another noisy urban nuisance. In Kremenchuk, at least some of the victims died because stores remained open and shoppers continued to shop until the rocket attack and explosion set the mall ablaze. Even after this harsh lesson, and all the civilian deaths this week, the sirens still go largely unnoticed. After four months of relentless war, many Ukrainians are simply done with terrorism. The Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.
