Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes on Ukraine
Moscow’s barrage of missile strikes on cities across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Moscow's barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield.
Russian nationalist commentators and state media's war correspondents lauded Monday's attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to Ukraine's successful counteroffensive in the northeast and the south and a weekend attack on a key bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.
Many argued, however, that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday's missile strikes in order to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin is becoming a hostage of his own supporters' views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold.
“Putin’s initiative is weakening and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the ‘victory’ (in Ukraine) for him,” Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think-tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday.
