There was a time when when you wanted to challenge an opponent, you threw your glove on the ground and found yourself the next day on neutral ground, in a fight for honor. Thursday, December 19, during his traditional four-hour annual press conference and wheelbarrows, Russian President Vladimir Putin, visibly excited at the idea of scaring the world with his new toy, the Orechnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, offered Westerners his personal version of a high-tech duel in the 21st century. “Let them determine a target, say Kyiv, he taunted. Let them concentrate all their anti-aircraft defenses there, we will launch a strike [d’Orechnik] over there, and we’ll see what happens.”
Putin's knowing smile perhaps sent a shiver down the spine of some of the 27 leaders of the European Union gathered at the same time in Brussels around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to ensure that the latter really wants to make peace, without really knowing yet what security guarantees to provide to Ukraine. Clack, during the night from Thursday to Friday, Russian pilots fold down the cockpit of their MiG-31K fighter, take off into the Russian skies of Briansk and prepare to bring the dreamers back down to earth. The target, Kyiv, is locked on radar. At 6:50 a.m., the reinforced anti-aircraft alert, ballistic, screamed in the Ukrainian capital, suddenly raised by several shock waves.
“We just have to ask each other: are you alive?”
“High-speed machines heading towards Kyiv!” the Ukrainian Air Force instantly announces. According to Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv military administration, the city is attacked by five Russian Iskander ballistic missiles, but also KN-23, North Korean missiles launched at a European capital, as well as two Kinjal hypersonic missiles, recognizable among all to the sound of their detonation. To the ear, the anti-aircraft defense, whether American or German, holds up well. A majority of the projectiles were apparently intercepted, but in several central districts of Kyiv, debris falling vertically caused numerous fires, while a missile crashed in the city center.
Very quickly, images of Velyka Vasylkivska Street, one of the main arteries of the city center, ravaged by the explosion and flames, emerged on the networks. The main body of an intercepted missile crashed into the roof of the Toronto business center, a stone's throw from the Kyiv Olympic stadium, destroying facades and vehicles in a very populated and dynamic area. A nearby Holiday Inn hotel, six embassies and a significant number of residential apartments were also damaged, killing one person and injuring twelve. Part of the stained glass windows of the rose window of Saint-Nicolas Cathedral, a vast neo-Gothic building erected between 1899 and 1909 and dedicated to Catholic worship, was shattered. At daybreak, while firefighters put out the fires, residents came out of the buildings under blankets, shocked, with bloody faces.
“It's like deadly Russian roulette, the Russians keep hitting Kyiv, and it's just a matter of luck as to where their missiles will land, testifies Tetiana Pechonchyk, activist at the Zmina center, dedicated to the defense of human rights. This time it landed just a few blocks from my house, as it happened two years ago. We just have to ask each other: are you alive? Yes, we are alive. Are you holding on? Yeah, we’re holding on.” On the airwaves of Suspilne or Radio NV, some experts wonder if the previous evening, Volodymyr Zelensky would not have given Putin a pretext to unleash his morning anger by letting loose on social networks.
“Dovboyob, asshole of your race!”
After hearing the master of the Kremlin rant in a completely cynical and frankly morbid manner that “war is interesting” that things are moving, and the bullets whizzing by, it's a change from the dullness and boredom of everyday life, Zelensky sees red, and on X, Thursday evening, the president or his right communications arm taps. “People are dying and he finds it interesting… Dovboyob!” Ukrainians smile. This is one of the trashiest insults in the Ukrainian language. Something like “you stupid asshole of your race.” Ukrainian leaders have reason to be angry. Thursday evening, Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanichyna revealed that the country had just suffered one of its worst cyber attacks.
Russian hackers have penetrated the national civil registry, the unified register of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, as well as that of owners. Estimated response time to restore data: two weeks. Also during the night from Thursday to Friday, in a daring and even almost suicidal manner, Russian amphibious troops attempted to cross the Dnieper in Kherson, in the south of Ukraine, to establish a bridgehead there, two years after having left the city. Two Russian reconnaissance groups were reportedly annihilated, the city being massively bombed and left without electricity. In Brussels, European leaders, led by Emmanuel Macron, are talking about “stabilize the path to peace”. Peace, the Russians would still have to want to make it.
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