The Terror Campaign

I have a few thoughts on Russia’s strategic air campaign, which seems to have succeeded at nothing other than mollifying Putin’s most bloodthirsty supporters:

As with nearly every other strategic bombing campaign in history, the promise of the attack outpaced its actual performance. Although morale is difficult to measure, there seems to be little indication that Ukrainian will to fight has diminished. As in nearly every other case, the Ukrainian victims of Russian terror bombing have tended to blame Russian leadership rather than Ukrainian leadership for the inconvenience. And much as with Russia’s economic campaign to bring Europe to heel, warm winter weather took some of the sting out of the bombing offensive. Russia’s offensive does not appear to have diverted much attention from Ukraine’s efforts at the front. Any damage to Ukraine’s economy inflicted by the campaign pales in comparison to the effect of the rest of the war. On the upside Russia isn’t losing much, other than the use of the drones and munitions in other parts of the war.