Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States have lifted restrictions on the types of weapons that can be supplied to Ukraine, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced on May 26. (video)
The move clears the way for the EU to send its most powerful and long-range missiles to Kyiv that can strike targets deep inside Russian territory, something the allies have been reluctant to do for fears of escalating tensions with the Kremlin and possibly provoking a direct clash between Russia and Nato countries in Europe.
"There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine, not from the British, not from the French, not from us, not from the Americans either. This means that Ukraine can now also defend itself by attacking military positions in Russia, for example,” Merz said during an interview on German television. “It couldn’t do that until some time ago, and with very few exceptions, it didn’t do that until some time ago. Now it can. In jargon, we call this long-range fire, i.e., equipping Ukraine with weapons that attack military targets in the rear.”
The decision comes the day after Russia launched a devastating missile and drone barrage on Ukraine over the weekend of May 23-25 that largely targeted civilian targets in Kyiv and many other urban centres in Ukraine – amongst the largest attacks since the war started over three years ago.
…
The decision also clears the way for Germany to deliver its powerful Taurus cruise missiles that Kyiv had been asking for, but Berlin had so far been reluctant to supply. Merz didn’t mention the Taurus missiles by name during his interview, but has suggested that unlike former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he was not against supplying Kyiv with the missile, which can hit Russian targets deep in the rear or could destroy the Kerch bridge connecting Russia to the Crimean peninsula.
Ukraine shut down 266 drones and 45 missiles.
That leaves 24 missile and 32 drone hits.
Even if they target infrastructure, 12 seems to be a very low number of casualities.
I would say that either Russia can’t aim or Ukraine is understating their defence capabilities.
There are air raid sirens. Hitting an empty building makes two dozen homeless, but kills nobody. Hitting in a schoolyard might main and cripple dozens, but kill nobody.
And of course, Ukraine is a country at war. They have an interest in understating casualties.
But in the end, terror bombing doesn’t work. It didn’t work for the Nazis, it didn’t work against the Nazis. It didn’t work in Vietnam, or Korea, or anywhere anyone has ever tried it. And it’s not working now.
Did it work on Japan?
One could argue that literally nuking two whole cities and burning a dozen more to the ground DID contribute to the surrender of a nation that was basically already defeated in every single way except for civilians with handguns and pointy bits of metal.
One could also argue the incredible scale of the allied bombing campaign on Japan wasn’t terror bombing. It wasn’t meant to scare the Japanese into surrender, it was meant to destroy them into surrender.
It took the entire industrial power of the allies to make it happen. Over 25000 sorties, millions of liters of napalm, hundreds of millions kilos of bombs (not counting 2 nukes), basically unopposed bombing for years in addition to ground and naval war.
And they still almost committed a coup and against god, rather than surrender.