Putin Bombs Target a Playground Where Children — Including My Son — Once Gamboled

President Putin bombed my son George’s playground Monday morning. Launched from outside Ukraine, a cruise missile flew hundreds of miles and landed near the swings and jungle gym where George used to play every Saturday. Last year, with war clouds gathering, we moved out of Ukraine. The massive explosion blew in windows of the Khanenko Museum, one of the finest art museums in Kyiv, home to a priceless collection assembled in the early 1900s by a Tsarist-era sugar beet king.After almost eight months of war, Putin has bombed my Kyiv. He also struck the historic core of an ancient city, a capital that the Russian leader had spared, presumably planning to save it for his own viceroy.As air raid sirens sounded again in Kyiv on Wednesday, NATO’s 30 defense ministers met in Brussels to discuss President Zelensky’s appeal for better air defenses. Since Monday’s wave of attacks across Ukraine, Germany has sent four IRIS-T SLM air defense systems and the Pentagon said it is speeding delivery of a NASAMS air defense system.Since then, Russia rained over 100 rockets and dozens of drones at civilian targets, largely aimed at heat and power plants, Mr. Zelensky told a virtual meeting of G-7 leaders Tuesday.With Russia’s ground war against Ukraine faltering, Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday named Air Force General Sergei Surovikin as overall commander of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. In Syria in 2017, General Surovikin’s heavy bombing campaign turned the tide against rebels in Syria’s civil war.Russia’s air assault against Ukraine reportedly was planned one week before the first long range bombers took off. Of the half a dozen rockets that penetrated Kyiv’s air defenses, three fell within two blocks of my old apartment, a late 19th century building standing behind the art nouveau National Opera house, and my old office, in the steel and glass Leonardo Business Center.The raid caught the German Ambassador, Anka Feldhusen, during her morning commute. Like thousands of Kyiv residents, she sheltered in a subway station. On Tuesday, Western embassies issued a joint statement that they are staying in Kyiv.To maintain morale underground, girls from a high school near my apartment are singing Ukrainian folk songs in the lobby of Teatralna station. Dug in the 1950s, the stations of Kyiv’s Red Line were designed to give protection during a nuclear war. Usually, the only music underground at Teatralna are the elderly men and women who gather on Saturday evenings for ballroom dances to old Soviet melodies.Above ground on Monday, the missile that took out the German consulate barely missed the penthouse apartment of Kyiv’s Mayor, Vitali Klitschko, his adjoining strip joint, Rio, and his boutique hotel, 11 Mirrors. Mr. Klitschko, a former world champion heavyweight boxer, was unruffled by the attack. Around the corner, I am told that my possession stored in my old apartment are intact. Two missiles were aimed at the legacy of Taras Shevchenko, the leading 19th century champion for Ukrainian independence and a big thorn in the side of Tsarist Russia.A towering statue of this literary giant dominates Taras Shevchenko Park. It is bounded by Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, Museum, and National University. Russia’s rush hour missile hit precisely at the intersection of this poplar-lined boulevard and Volodomyrska Street. One of Europe’s oldest continually inhabited streets, this cobblestone thoroughfare is named after Volodomyr the Great, founder of the Kyiv Rus in 980 of the common era.At this historic confluence, the cruise missile killed five commuters and rattled windows of nearby buildings: Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, the 1840s, red-walled Taras Shevchenko University, and the Teacher’s House. This 1910 building hosted the first parliament of Ukraine during its first brief independence, from 1917 to 1918. Shrapnel sprayed the statue of the man who presided over that first parliament, Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Like many statues in Ukraine, this memorial has stood for the last six months swathed in protective batting.Similarly, the Khanenko Museum directors are believed to have stored the art collection for safekeeping. They followed history. In the summer of 1941, as Nazi forces approached, most of the collection was shipped east to Bashkortostan, on the Volga River. During the war, the aristocratic building reportedly served as the Nazi Officers Club. By the war’s end, much of the remaining collection had vanished.Far from military targets, the museum’s street includes Children’s Clinical Hospital No. 6 and Preschool No. 78. Apartments on the street command some of the highest rents in Kyiv, partly because they look out on the leafy park.The author’s son, George Brooke, in 2021 at the Kyiv playground that was struck by a Russian missile on Monday. Pen SoyA surprise to first time visitors, Kyiv is a remarkably green city. With two botanical gardens and the banks of the Dnipro River covered with trees, Kyiv has been listed as the only former Soviet city among the 30 greenest cities of Europe.The south side of Taras Shevchenko Park is bordered by Lva Toltsoho street which runs down to Pushkinska Street. With Russian bombs falling on central Kyiv, city authorities are moving to drop the Russian placenames, even of such venerated authors as Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Pushkin.From Moscow, the word is: mission accomplished. “Today, Russia’s armed forces have inflicted a massive strike with high-precision long-range weapons against Ukrainian military, communications and energy targets,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday. “The goal of the strike has been achieved. All designated targets were hit.”The bombing raids are billed by the Kremlin as revenge for last Saturday’s bombing of a four-year-old road and rail bridge connecting Russia’s mainland with Russia-annexed Crimea.In Kyiv on Monday, a Russian missile narrowly missed a Kyiv bridge popular with tourists and the Brooke family. As caught on security cameras, orange flames engulf the ‘Glass’ pedestrian bridge.A pet project of Mayor Klitschko, this popular tourist attraction features unnerving sections with see-through flooring. Despite the spectacular video, complete with one tourist scurrying to safety, the Russian bomb only scorched the bridge, causing damage to the nearby European Union Advisory Mission.It does not seem accidental that a cruise missile struck within yards of projects and properties dear to the mayor. He is a fluent German speaker and a pro-Westerner to the core. If, Heaven forbid, the Kremlin were to manage to assassinate President Zelensky, the voters could turn to Mr. Klitschko, asking him to make the transition to wartime President from wartime Mayor.

Putin Bombs Target a Playground Where Children — Including My Son — Once Gamboled

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