Russian Strikes on Western Assets in Ukraine Send an Ominous Message
nytimes.com
Hitting an American-run factory and European diplomatic offices, the Kremlin appeared to signal that it would resist Western efforts to make peace and protect Ukraine, analysts and officials said.
The missiles were a shock in this western Ukrainian city spared from much of the war, a place so far from the front lines it does not even have a curfew. When the mayor heard the first strike, he thought it was thunder.
But the target and timing of the cruise missiles were even more surprising. They hit a factory run by an American multinational, best known for making coffee machines, six days after President Trump met President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Alaska to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
“Two hits in one location?” asked Andriy Baloha, the mayor of Mukachevo. “No, they didn’t mess up. They knew exactly where they were hitting.”
A week later, two missiles hit central Kyiv, damaging the offices there of the European Union and the British Council, a cultural organization. Russia typically avoids striking that area, where foreign diplomatic missions are concentrated. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, accused Moscow of intentionally targeting the European Union.
Striking American and European assets, analysts and government officials said, sent a confrontational message: Mr. Putin feels empowered to rebuff pressure to make peace, to wage war as he sees fit, and even to inflict pain on the West in the process.
Mr. Trump has been calling for direct peace talks between Mr. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, while European countries are discussing what security guarantees to provide Ukraine after the war to prevent another Russian invasion. The Kremlin has dismissed negotiations as premature and Western security guarantees as unacceptable.
“Russia is now striking at everyone in the world who seeks peace,” Mr. Zelensky said.
Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles on Thursday at Kyiv, the capital, killing at least 25 people in the deadliest civilian strikes since Mr. Trump met with Mr. Putin. None of the fatalities were at the diplomatic buildings.
“Putin is very cautious, and what he does has a certain goal,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian Parliament. Striking Western targets, he added, is “a clear signal from him that he feels confident, and that he is waging the war not only against Ukraine but also against the West.”
After the attack in Mukachevo, Mr. Trump said that he was “not happy” with it and that he had expressed his displeasure to Mr. Putin. After the attack in Kyiv, Mr. Trump was also “not happy,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. But that has been the extent of the American response; the president’s threats of additional sanctions against Russia have remained only threats.
“The escalation reflects Moscow’s calculated assessment that it can impose costs on Western support without triggering direct military retaliation,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst based in Vienna.
“Russia is effectively testing the boundaries of Western deterrence while pursuing a broader coercive strategy aimed at weakening allied resolve and forcing Ukraine toward unfavorable negotiating positions,” he added.
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