Alarm, nerves and British missiles

Alarm spread across some embassies in Kyiv yesterday when the US Embassy announced its closure after receiving “specific information” of a “major airstrike”. The diplomatic legations of Spain, Italy and Greece were closed to the public and Portugal said it would do so today, while France simply issued a notice to its staff. A few hours later, Washington clarified that the closure was due to “ongoing airstrike threats”.

The Kiev authorities were offended by the reaction of the embassies, it is not without reason that the Ukrainian capital is well protected. The State Department stated, “The threat of Russian bombing is as relevant as the last 1,000 days of the war”. In the evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily message to the country that “Today there are a lot of nervousness and questions about a particular threat (…). The intimidation that took place would only have helped Russia. Is.”

Zelensky asked people to take care of themselves and not let their emotions be played with.

Ukrainian military uses Storm Shadow against Russian Kursk region for the first time

These kinds of quick reactions happen in US embassies anywhere. But where did the information come from? Who knows. The Ukrainian military intelligence service, GUR, announced that “there was a message about the threat of an ‘especially large-scale’ attack with missiles and bombs on Ukrainian cities,” but, without ruling out that possibility and calling for caution. Without warning, she noted that the message was false and a typical case of “intimidation and psychological pressure”. But at the same time, two military sources told the Reuters agency that they had received messages warning that Russia would launch more than 300 drones and missiles from ships, aircraft and land. The soldiers also received an official alert.

In many parts of Ukraine, alerts are common and everyday, either through mobile phone applications, without any applications and in addition to public sirens, in the form of direct messages from the local administration. However, it is impossible to know where the threat is specifically directed, as the alarm generally refers to the entire area. The problem is who sends the message. There are several of these services on the Telegram social network, one of them belongs to the Ukrainian Air Force itself, but the origin of the others is more or less unknown. Another, more serious problem is that most Ukrainians get their information through Telegram, and there are many channels on this social network that spread Russian narcissism.

The latest escalation began with the bombing of Ukrainian energy facilities last Sunday – with 120 missiles and 90 drones – and followed US President Joe Biden approving the use of ATACMS missiles against Russian territory and on Monday he added an arsenal of Destroyed Bryansk region. Ukrainian drones took action against Russia on Tuesday night, and the Russians also took action against Ukraine.

Partial closure of embassies due to threat of air strikes bothers Kiev as it is nothing new

To completely escalate tensions, the Ukrainian military yesterday used a British Storm Shadow missile against Russian territory for the first time, according to sources cited by the newspaper. many times A spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there would be no comment on the matter and the Ukrainian government also did not confirm the information, while several Russian sources considered it good and spoke of twelve missiles.

If confirmed, it would mean the US has also given permission to use the projectile – which has a French version called the Scalp – because the device has North American components). red line For Moscow this is the use of Western missiles against Russian territory… and indeed Scalp/Storm Shadow has already been used against occupied territory in Ukraine, which, at least for the Kremlin, is now officially Is part of Russia. But this time they would have been fired upon in the interior of Russia, and precisely in the Kursk region, which has been partly occupied by Ukrainian troops since last August.