The New Year got off to a terrifying and tragic start for residents of the Donetsk People’s Republic on Monday after their regional capital was attacked by Ukrainian-operated HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems.
The intensity of Ukrainian attacks across the front was confirmed by Russia's Defense Ministry on Monday afternoon, with the MoD reporting that Air Defense Troops had shot down a Ukrainian Su-27 fighter jet, intercepted 16 HIMARS and Uragan MLRS rockets, and downed 46 drones over Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, the Donbass and Kherson over the past 24 hours alone.
The string of Ukrainian shelling attacks on Russian frontline towns and cities comes in the aftermath of Saturday’s cluster munition and MLRS strikes on Belgorod, in which 25 people were killed and over 100 injured. Speaking with Russian military personnel on Monday, President Putin called the Belgorod strikes a “terrorist act,” and warned that Russia would only increase its attacks against Ukrainian military targets in response.
Russia's Foreign Ministry echoed the president's sentiments, but in relation to Donetsk, saying in a statement published Monday that "all those involved in and responsible for this and other terrorist attacks on the territory of our country will suffer inevitable punishment," and calling on "all responsible governments" to disassociate themselves "from the actions and decisions of the Kiev junta" and "condemn its crimes...against the civilian population."
“This attack is pure terrorism,” former CIA intelligence analyst and State Department Office of Counterterrorism specialist Larry Johnson told Sputnik, when asked to comment on the Donetsk attack.
“There was no military target or objective. This is first and foremost a war crime, and it is one that was enabled by the United States and other NATO countries,” Johnson said.
Asked why Ukraine has decided to ramp up its attacks against Russian cities, the observer suggested that it signals growing “desperation” on Kiev’s part as it faces setbacks at the front.
“With the advances that Russian forces are making on the ground, coupled with the effectiveness of the missile strikes [on December 29, ed.], the generals, and the politicians in Kiev, are growing more desperate. The frequency over the holidays is the result of their desperation,” Johnson said.
The CIA veteran’s analysis was echoed by retired US Marine and former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who told Sputnik on Sunday that Ukraine’s “desperate” terror tactics were designed to provoke a Russian overreaction to try to renew flows of Western financial and military support for the Kiev regime.
The long-suffering Donetsk People’s Republic have been under attack by Ukraine’s military for nearly a decade now, with Kiev launching an “anti-terrorist operation” against the unruly region in the spring of 2014 after it proclaimed independence from Ukraine in the aftermath of the February 2014 Euromaidan coup d’état.