Russian strikes on Ukraine cities 'part of clear strategy to terrorise population'
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00:00Russia then has again launched a wave of missiles and drones on Kiev and the
00:05western Ukrainian city of Lviv. A series of blasts around the cities as air
00:10defense systems have been battling to bring them down. At least three people
00:13killed in Lviv as officials say historic buildings in the heart of the city were
00:17hit. We've been hearing from Ukraine's Air Force in the last hour saying in all
00:22it downed seven missiles and 22 drones during Russia's overnight attack there.
00:29It comes just a day of course after Russia hit that military institute in
00:33Ukraine's central town of Poltava with two missiles, ballistic missiles in fact,
00:38in the war's deadliest single attack this year. Killing 50, wounding hundreds
00:42more. The stepping up of attacks seen by many as Russia's response to the
00:46Ukrainian incursion into Russia. We're going to talk to International Affairs
00:50commentator Doug Herbert who's joining me here on set. Doug, more attacks today
00:54just after that huge attack yesterday. Clearly a pattern here, part of a larger
00:59Russian strategy perhaps? Yes, sadly at this point we can hardly say we're
01:03shocked. This is part of a much broader pattern of Russia day after day,
01:08literally almost now, obliterating with a barrage of missile and drone strikes
01:13targets across Ukraine. Targets that range well beyond the so-called
01:18military targets that Russia says it exclusively pinpoints. You know aiming at
01:23power grids, civilian infrastructure. In the case of Lviv in Western Ukraine,
01:28right, it's on the other side of the country from Poltava which is in the
01:30east, really below Kharkiv, near the front lines in Donetsk. In the case of
01:35Lviv, the targets, there was a lot of damage to residential buildings, there
01:40was damage to schools, there was damage to medical facilities. Hardly military
01:45targets here. When I speak of a broader pattern, the pattern is very clear. It
01:50doesn't take a rocket scientist to read the runes here. You have Vladimir Putin
01:56waging a war of attrition against the much-vaunted Ukrainian resilience.
02:02Ukrainians have prided them on fighting to defend their territorial
02:06integrity, their sovereignty, and they have been counting on their leaders.
02:13Especially Zelensky has been counting on and hailing the resilience of the
02:17Ukrainian people. The strategy by which you basically throw all of these missiles,
02:23ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, remember the missiles that hit in Poltava
02:27were ballistic missiles, supersonic speeds, traveling faster than sound. They
02:32struck literally a minute or so after the alarm sirens sounded. The cadets in
02:38the academy that was struck did not have time to scramble for shelter. It was that
02:43quick. So this is part of a clear strategy, obviously not explicitly stated
02:49by the Russian authorities, to terrorize the Ukrainian population. The Russian
02:54authorities, the Russian propaganda outlets, can say day after day that they
02:58are only targeting military infrastructure. The fact of the matter is
03:02civilians are time and again caught in the crossfire of these
03:06missile and drone barrages which have been growing more intense lately.
03:11We forget because the litany, the list of the horrors just keeps growing by the day.
03:15Early last month, July 8th, you had a Russian missile destroying Ukraine's
03:21largest children's hospital. That was in Kiev. At the time, at least 38 people were
03:26killed in that strike. Before that, in January of last year, you had a
03:32Russian missile, a 2,000-pound warhead that destroyed an apartment complex in
03:38Dnipro in northern Ukraine. And you know, I say these things and it's almost like
03:44they were not just yesterday's headlines, they're off the radar. We don't even talk
03:48about them anymore. It's just yet another in a long list of ongoing strikes and
03:53barrages. I guarantee you this Poltava strike, a few weeks time, will be
03:58something merely a blip on the radar, something that people barely remember
04:02aren't really talking about. But it underscores what I said, that war of
04:05attrition against Russian resilience and a war strategy by which Vladimir Putin
04:10is playing the clock and betting on the fact that the West is going to lose
04:14interest and lose the will and the political commitment to continue coming
04:19to Ukraine's defense. Just as you're talking there, we're just getting
04:21information coming in for us, in fact, from Ukraine's energy ministry saying
04:26Russia attacked energy facilities in six Ukrainian regions in the past 24 hours.
04:31It's just coming into us from Ukraine. Doug, I mean, a familiar plea back from
04:36this from Zelensky, Volodymyr Zelensky, following this for more air defense. He's
04:40been going on about this for months now. Is anyone actually listening?
04:45Sure, the West is listening. The problem is, even if they had the will to keep
04:51pace with the Russian bombardment, they don't literally have the capacity right
04:54now to answer every one of Volodymyr Zelensky's pleas, his wish list. Look,
05:01the most important element of the Ukrainians defense, if you will, of the
05:05Patriot missile systems, these batteries, which literally are the most
05:09sophisticated air defense batteries in the U.S. arsenal. There's a very limited
05:15supply. They're very expensive to make. They take time to produce, which is the
05:19reason there's so few of them. Ukraine only has a handful of them. The U.S. has
05:23given about two, Germany a couple more, Romania has just flagged a Patriot
05:28defense system. Four or five right now, at most, is what Ukraine has. It said it
05:33needed at least two to defend Kharkiv back a few months back, Zelensky was
05:38saying. These are the only things that can knock those ballistic missiles out
05:41of the sky. So Zelensky's skies are open, no match for the supremacy of
05:46Russian Air Force and all of that, the planes. It lost, Ukraine lost one of its
05:52precious F-16s, one of a half a dozen of them in a recent crash, still being
05:56investigated, what happened there. He is pleading more weapons, more air defense,
06:02and also the permission, we've talked about this before, Stuart, the permission
06:07to strike, use those missiles for long-range strikes, deep within Russia, at
06:13military targets within Russia. Not civilian infrastructure, legitimate
06:17military targets. Hit the targets from which the Ukrainians say the Russians
06:22are launching the types of missiles that are causing this horrific damage in
06:26Ukraine. Right now, effectively, what the Ukrainian military is saying is, the West
06:31has done an amazing job, thank you so much for your support, we cannot be more
06:35appreciative, but we, as of now, are essentially still fighting with one hand
06:39tied behind our backs, because we do not have the air defense capacity that we
06:44need, and we do not have the permission and the authority to use
06:49the weapons in the way we need to use them, in order to more effectively fight
06:53back against these ongoing barrages of missiles and drones. And finally, Doug,
06:57that's what Vladimir Zelensky's been up to. What about Vladimir Putin? Where is
07:01he in all of this? Silent. He's not saying anything, he doesn't have to say anything.
07:04The war strategy is set. His silence is a measure of Vladimir Putin's
07:11unblinking determination to meet what he calls all the strategies of what he
07:16still calls the strategic military operation, not the war, and that is
07:21basically taking control of all of Donetsk, and a lot of people suspect,
07:24ultimately, causing the fall of the Ukrainian government and taking control
07:27of Ukraine, because he doesn't consider Ukraine a legitimate state. Is he
07:32bowed? Is he hesitating because of the Kursk incursion, which is now
07:38almost a month old? It was launched on August 6th. Ukrainians have taken, I
07:42think, 1,100 square kilometers of territory, or are claiming to. Not
07:46really. Yeah, sure, he's deployed, redeployed some forces from within
07:51Russia, some lower combat forces from the Ukrainian front, but the high
07:56effective, the most highly effective special forces, those fighting on the
08:00front lines in eastern Donetsk, those most notably who are making that push
08:04towards Pokrovska strategic transport hub that the Russians keep saying that
08:09that is their next objective. He hasn't deployed forces from those regions.
08:13He is going forward as ever. He is not really changing his strategy, and he
08:20has also signaled that he is determined as ever to push this war to its
08:24conclusion, a conclusion which he says will have only one inevitable ending,
08:28and that is Russia triumphant.