Drone strikes on a school show the war in Ukraine is escalating - Patrick Mercer
Every day brings misery in Ukraine. Massacres are so frequent that they’ve become almost unremarkable: just another, heartless notch on the post of grief. But the consequences of the latest blood letting are different.
On Friday, May 22, at the hamlet of Starobilsk in the Donbas a school was hit by a wave of drones. Then it’s claimed that another wave attacked just as civilian medical teams and helpers arrived to rescue and tend to the casualties who lay amongst the rubble. Now, like all such horrors in this war, Russia and Ukraine have wildly different versions of what really happened, but it seems likely that the drones were Ukrainian and carefully targeted. What’s certain is that 21 people were killed and 42 injured, a large proportion of whom were teenage girls at summer school.
Immediately, predictably, dark recriminations began to fly as fast as the bombs. Moscow asked why, if as Kiev claims that everyone in the occupied Donbas is still Ukrainian, they have murdered their own people? Kiev, meanwhile, has suggested that this was one of the Kremlin’s callous, ‘false flag’ operations designed to appall, elicit sympathy and kindle anger.
For once, though, the truth matters less than perception. I’ve seen Slavic stoicism in real time: any nation that has suffered 27 million dead at the hands of the Nazis would pass those scars down the generations and that’s why a child - anyone’s child - is treated with a special veneration. With a baby comes hope that memories can be erased, that a scale of horror which we’ve never endured in the west, can eventually be forgotten. So, these deaths have bitten President Putin’s people deeply and they’re now crying out for vengeance.
Many would say that Russia already inflicts a full measure of vengeance every day in Ukraine. The Starobilsk incident, though, caused extraordinary outrage that demanded much rougher, more vicious retaliation.
President Vladimir Putin didn’t mince his words, “The Kiev leadership, by committing crimes against children and teenagers, has chosen to escalate the conflict to a new level.”
And that escalation happened just two days later. Before any attacks were mounted, though, foreign diplomats were also strongly advised to leave their embassies and homes. Up until now there has been a discreet understanding that ambassadors, their staff and families based in Kiev would not be deliberately targeted.
That’s why Russia’s threat wasn’t quite believed - until it became reality. Six hundred drones, 90 missiles and - crucially - two Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM) (each containing 36 warheads) rained down on or near Kiev in an assault described by the Ukrainian press as ‘devastating’.
Then Zelensky’s troops struck back with swarms of drones hitting Russian supply routes near Zaphorizia, oil depots and tankers. The President’s urgent plea to the west for more air defence systems, though, betrayed a tangible fear that Moscow would strike again with similar or increased fury, underlined by the Kremlin promising to do just that.
A high risk game of cat and mouse followed with rumours and counter rumours about which country’s diplomats would dash for safety. Then, just as the Kremlin promised, the next strike arrived overnight on June 1. No Oresniks this time, but banks of Iskander missiles and hundreds of drones hit not only Kiev, but most major cities causing that now over used adjective ‘devastating’ to be used by the press yet again.
The point is, whatever you believe happened at the school at Starobilsk the conflict is escalating horribly. Consider this: Kiev is defenceless against doomsday, hyper fast missiles which are designed to carry nuclear warheads - the very weapons which are now being routinely used.
What’s the next step, then, on this bloody ladder? Well, in the last couple of years Russian drones have sometimes detonated in the border lands of Romania - a NATO member. The excuse that they’ve gone off course from their targets in Ukraine has been sceptically accepted because there have been only slight damage and minor casualties, yet when a similar incident happened a few days ago it was greeted by the West with fury.
Outraged voices in Brussels demanded that Article 5 (the instrument by which all NATO partners should come to the aid of a fellow country that’s been attacked) should be invoked - obviously, a huge ratchet upwards. Adding to the angry noise NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said that the alliance was “ready to defend every inch” of its territory whilst “Russia’s reckless behaviour is a danger to us all,”
But Romania’s Foreign Minister added a welcome note of calm by refusing such demands and simply asking the others to provide more air defence equipment.
And where was Britain in this latest crisis? Our Prime Minister thundered “Time and again, Russia has shown it has no regard for civilian life, for international law, or for the sovereignty of its neighbours.” And now it’s been leaked that we’re looking at providing more RAF fighters to be based in Romania.
Patrick Mercer is a former MP for Newark and Army Colonel.