(Editor’s note: This column was written before Russia’s missile attacks on Kyiv, including on a children’s hospital, Monday.) SELYDOVE, Ukraine — In this devastated small eastern town, in the heavily contested region of Pokrovsk, Russia’s deliberate bombing of civilian targets is visible everywhere. I emphasize the word deliberate, because bombing civilians and civilian infrastructure is the centerpiece of Russia’s strategy to destroy Ukraine, even if it can’t occupy the country fully.
As I drive around with Maj. Boris (call sign: Johnson) of the 59th Brigade, he points out an apartment building partly crushed by a glide bomb. “What great military targets!” Boris laughs, without humor.
Two missiles hit the elementary school, one destroyed the kindergarten. The bank, the polytechnic college, a restaurant — all crushed. The roof of the local hospital was destroyed; a bomb even targeted the cemetery.
This is not collateral damage from war; there are no military installations anywhere in the vicinity. “They can’t take the big cities, so they try to empty and destroy every village and town, as well as civilian infrastructure for the entire country,” Boris said bitterly. “It’s nothing but civilian destruction.
” Indeed, Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukrainian civilians makes clear what some NATO leaders are still too timid to face up to, as they prepare to meet for the alliance’s 75th-anniversary summit this week in Washington, D.C. Putin wants to destr.