- An ex-Russian foreign minister said that “terror is the only thing left” for a “desperate” Vladimir Putin.
- The Russian military on Monday and Tuesday launched a barrage of deadly strikes on cities across Ukraine.
- Andrei Kozyrev told CNN Putin ordered the strikes because he “is desperate, because he made miscalculations.”
Former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev said on Tuesday that “terror is the only thing left” for a “desperate” Vladimir Putin after the Kremlin unleashed deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Kozyrev compared the Russian leader to a “miserable terrorist” in an interview with CNN.
“He’s desperate and he returns to what he’s doing: intimidation, that is, threatening nuclear weapons — which he will not use — and terror actions in Ukraine and in Russia,” Kozyrev told the news outlet of Putin.
The Russian military on Monday launched a barrage of deadly strikes on civilian infrastructure in cities across Ukraine, including the capital of Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, and Zaporizhzhia.
Those strikes — retribution for the destruction of a key bridge in Crimea — continued on Tuesday.
Kozyrev said Putin ordered the strikes because he “is desperate because he made miscalculations.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday called Putin a “terrorist” whose “only tactic is terror on peaceful Ukrainian cities.”
“But he will not break Ukraine down,” Kubela said in a tweet.
US President Joe Biden condemned the Russian missile strikes on Monday, saying that they “demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putin’s illegal war on the Ukrainian people.”
The latest Russian attacks come after Ukrainian forces last month launched a lightning-fast counteroffensive in Moscow’s nearly eight-month war with the country, resulting in them reclaiming vast swathes of territory from Russian occupation.