Moscow Steps Up Deadly Missile Strikes in Ukraine as Macron Warns of ‘Very Tough’ Summer

While this is the month when most Europeans typically gear up for extended summer idylls, such luxuries are off the table in parts of Ukraine left reeling from brutal Russian missile strikes that show no sign of letting up. Russia on Thursday launched Kalibr cruise missiles from a submarine in the Black Sea that struck a cultural site in the west-central city of Vinnytsia. By Ukrainian estimates, 22 civilians were killed, including three children, about 100 were injured, and 39 were reported missing. These are preliminary estimates, and the number of casualties is expected to rise. President Zelensky spoke of the attack in a video address to an international conference in the Hague that aims to lay the groundwork for prosecuting Russian war crimes in Ukraine. “Today in the morning, Russian missiles hit our city of Vinnytsia, an ordinary, peaceful city. Cruise missiles hit two community facilities, houses were destroyed, a medical center was destroyed, the cars and trams were on fire,” he said. “What is this, if not an open act of terrorism?” Russia is “a terrorist country.”The rocket barrage follows a similar one last week at the city of Chasiv Yar that killed 48 people, ostensibly all civilians. One difference is that Moscow on Thursday did not stop after targeting Vinnytsia. The Kyiv Independent reported that Russia also attacked “multiple Ukrainian cities,” including Mykolaiv and Kharkiv as well as several cities in the fiercely contested Donetsk region, namely, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Mykolaivka, and, again, Chasiv Yar. According to Ukrinform, the early morning assault on Mykolaiv, a strategic shipbuilding center with access to the Black Sea, destroyed a hotel and damaged a shopping mall.On the opposite side of Europe, a sense of resignation was expressed that more violence is to come. In his traditional July 14 interview with French television, President Macron said, “We all have to be prepared for a [war] that is going to last. The summer and the beginning of fall are going to be very tough.” In other remarks that will not be warmly received at Kyiv, Mr. Macron said of the war that “we did not start it and we are not involved.” Well north of the combat zone, meanwhile, there were odd stirrings in Moscow. The Kremlin announced that the 450-member Russian State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, will be meeting on Friday for an emergency session. While President Putin calls virtually all the shots in Moscow and the Russian parliament is generally seen as a rubber stamp to the Kremlin’s daily dictates, the body does much of the day-to-day work of seeing through various policy decisions. The Moscow Times reported that more than 60 issues are expected to appear on Friday’s agenda, including measures to support Russia’s citizens, military personnel, and the faltering economy. Friday’s meeting comes less than one week after the Duma’s official spring session ended, which in itself should send a warning bell to Kyiv, if not other European capitals. During a similar emergency session in 2014 the Duma ratified the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Only days ago the Kremlin fast-tracked a procedure for Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship, and Russian-occupied Kherson has already forcibly shifted to the use of rubles instead of Ukrainian currency. Will the Duma seek to make official some of Mr. Putin’s strategic gains on the ground in the Ukrainian heartland? Paris, London, Washington, and Kyiv all have their hands full despite the summer season, but all should be keeping an eye on the doings in downtown Moscow.

Moscow Steps Up Deadly Missile Strikes in Ukraine as Macron Warns of ‘Very Tough’ Summer

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