Russia launched waves of drone and missile strikes across Ukraine overnight into Tuesday, while accusing the U.S. of involvement in Kyiv's incursion into Russia and repeating warnings it could review its nuclear doctrine in response.
In the last 24 hours, more than 90 missile and drone attacks rained down across the country, killing at least four people and injuring 16 others, the Ukrainian air force said.
It came a day after one of Russia’s biggest aerial assaults during the 30-month war, firing some 200 missiles and drones at its neighbor. President Joe Biden called that attack “outrageous.”
Following the barrage, Ukraine reiterated its call for more freedom to use long-range Western weapons to strike deeper inside Russia.
One of the reasons the U.S. and others have imposed restrictions on the use of its weapons is to avoid an escalation with the nuclear-armed Kremlin. And on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued Moscow's latest round of nuclear saber-rattling.
Lavrov accused the West of complicity in Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region, saying that Russia's nuclear doctrine was being "clarified" accordingly.
He did not elaborate on what this meant, exactly, but Russia has often made these sorts of threats since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. As recently as June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the same thing, that he could modify his country's nuclear doctrine, which currently permits the use of such weapons only in specific circumstances.
These threats have remained just that, despite the U.S. and other Western powers giving tens of billions of dollars in weaponry to Ukraine, some of which has been used to strike Russian soil.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov alluded to Russia's anger at American participation in Ukraine's cross-border military activity, saying the U.S.'s involvement in Kursk incursion was a "fact."
"The consequences [for the U.S.] could be much harsher than those they are already experiencing. They know where and in what areas we are reacting in practical terms," Ryabkov said on Tuesday, according to TASS.
Also on Tuesday, Zelenskyy promised payback for the most recent night of destruction.
“We will undoubtedly respond to Russia for this and all other attacks,” the Ukraine leader posted on X. “Crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished.”
Two people were killed overnight when their hotel in the central city of Kryvyi Rih was “wiped out,” Serhii Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk, said on the messaging service Telegram. Just three days ago, on Saturday, a security adviser with the Reuters news agency was killed when his hotel in Kramatorsk was struck.
Russia has repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure, from schools and hospitals to apartment blocks and grocery stores. The Kremlin nevertheless claims it only strikes military targets.
When asked about the death of the Reuters employee, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov told reporters: “I repeat once again: The strikes are carried out against military infrastructure facilities, or those somehow connected to military infrastructure.”
Russia likely isn’t able to sustain this intensity of attack for long, according to a note late Monday from the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War. They nevertheless have painful and lasting consequences, not just the loss of life but disruption to energy and water supply in Kyiv and elsewhere after critical infrastructure was damaged.
Though these were bigger than most, such bombardments have become a grim constant in a Ukraine beset by full-scale war.
Several Russian military bloggers, such as the pro-war collective under the name Rybar, called the recent uptick in attacks an “act of retaliation” for Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
The chief of Ukraine's army, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that his troops now control some 500 square miles of Russian territory — approximately the size of Los Angeles — since launching the surprise offensive earlier this month.
Russia has accused Ukraine of attacking the Kursk nuclear power plant, allegations to which Kyiv has not formally responded. Rafael Grossi, head of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, visited the plant and told reporters that the "risk of a nuclear incident has emerged."
He said that comparisons to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 would be an "exaggeration," but noted that it was "the same type of reactor" as the one that melted down in the former Soviet Union, but this time there is no separate protection by a dome.
Grossi saw evidence of drone impacts at the facility, he said, adding that the fact that the plant is still operating made it even more serious.
However, Ukrainian voices have pushed back against the narrative that Russia's latest attacks are a retaliation.
“Why do western media keep asking if the attacks of the last 36 hours are a retaliation for #Kursk?” Ukrainian lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko posted on X. “Anyone following the news these last 2.5 years can clearly see that NOTHING changed in #russia war tactics: they just keep bombing whatever they can bomb in #Ukraine.”
CORRECTION (Aug. 27, 2024, 7 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated when Russia invaded Ukraine. It was in February 2022, not February 2024.
