Kyiv — For much of the past 3 years, Ukraine’s capital has stood as a symbol of resistance, a city alive even under threat, a European capital that continued to function despite the grinding war at its edges. That reality is now beginning to shift — violently, and with small announcement from the world.
In fresh weeks, Kyiv has come under an escalating barrage of Russian airstrikes more intense than at any point since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. In the early hours of June 22, a Russian ballistic rocket tore into a residential building in the Shevchenkivskyi district, killing 9 civilians, including an 11-year-old girl. The strike came during a larger offensive in which more than 300 Shahed drones and respective cruise and ballistic missiles rained down on the capital and another Ukrainian cities.
The aftermath of Russia’s June 17 attack on Kyiv. Photo: Joshua Kroeker
The attack mirrored another just days earlier. On June 17, another ballistic rocket struck a nine-story flat complex in Kyiv’s Solomyanskyi district, killing 18 civilians and injuring over 100. The building partially collapsed. For hours afterward, the city was shrouded in smoke, its residents reeling from what has now become a grim routine.
That same night, Ukraine’s air force recorded the launch of 175 drones, over 14 cruise missiles, and at least 2 ballistic missiles targeting the capital — a level of aggression that would have triggered global outcry a year ago. Now, specified figures are reported with grim regularity and met with muted responses abroad.
Russia’s run is not only intensifying — it is evolving. The once-feared Shahed drones, already known for their terrorizing sound and unpredictability, are now being deployed in numbers that would have seemed unthinkable months ago. fresh attacks have seen between 200 and 500 drones launched in a single night, each reportedly carrying nearly twice the explosive payload of earlier models. The aim is not only demolition — it is exhaustion.
These attacks are not coincidental. Since the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency, Russia has dramatically stepped up its aerial run against Ukraine. With the US now seeking a negotiated settlement to the war and withholding further lethal support to Ukraine – peculiarly in the form of air defence systems – Moscow is seizing the chance to press its advantage both militarily and psychologically.
The absence of robust western deterrence has coincided with a renewed Russian push along the frontlines that long over 1,000 kilometres. The logic is simple: escalate on all front while the global community is distracted and Kyiv remains under-defended.
Rescuers at work in Kyiv on June 17th. Photo: Joshua Kroeker
That distraction has a name — the mediate East. The eruption of conflict between Iran and Israel, as well as the increasing strategical importance of the region for the United States, has pushed Ukraine down the list of global priorities. In Washington, efforts like Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed sanctions on Russia have stalled. In Europe, policy attention is splintered between home politics, regional energy security, and fears of broader mediate east instability.
The result: while planet leaders voice concern, Russia continues to devastate Ukrainian cities with close impunity.
Kyiv is bearing the brunt of this fresh phase. What was erstwhile considered a comparatively safe urban hub is now subjected to weekly — even nightly — terror. The streets are no longer simply gritty with defiance; they are covered in ash and debris. Air raid sirens have become a near-permanent background to city life. Civilians shelter underground not for hours, but for full nights. Night after night.
For Ukrainians, the global community, for its part, appears fatigued — if not indifferent. Kyiv’s demolition is happening not in the shadows but in broad daylight, broadcast in photos, numbers, and statements from Ukrainian officials. Yet the planet is increasingly tuning out.
What is happening in Kyiv is not only a humanitarian tragedy — it is simply a strategical one. Russia is demonstrating that it can shift the war’s tempo, scale, and targets with minimal pushback. The longer Ukraine is left without adequate support, peculiarly in air defence, the more emboldened Moscow will become.
If the demolition of Kyiv becomes normalized, it sets a dangerous precedent — that full-scale aerial panic against a European capital can proceed with small cost. And it signals to another autocratic regimes that time and brutality, not diplomacy or restraint, may be the winning formula.
As global attention pivots elsewhere, Russia’s war in Ukraine is not ending — it is escalating. And while Kyiv burns, the silence of the planet speaks volumes.
Joshua R. Kroeker is an independent researcher, founder of the boutique analytic firm Reaktion Group, an analyst at the political analysis task R.Politik, and an editor at RANE. He holds degrees from the University of British Columbia in Canada, Heidelberg University in Germany and St Petersburg State University, Russia.
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