The war against Ukraine's civilians

Recently, when Bogdon was in the Czech Republic visiting his family and collecting aid, a German man saw his Ukrainian license plates at the gas station and approached him. Working through their language barrier, the man asked Bogdon if the way German media was portraying the war was accurate. (I’ve had people in the states ask similar questions, and this is really hard. What is the media you are watching showing? There are people in all countries who get at least some of their news reporting directly from Russia.) This guy seemed genuine, and as they talked, Bogdon learned that German media was showing that Russia was carrying out a war and that they were heavily bombing the country … BUT … German media seemed to make the claim that most of the bombs were hitting military targets.

This was where Bogdon had to set the record straight.

According to Ukrainian military announcements, Russian forces have fired over 4,500 missiles at Ukraine. They have also fired millions of artillery and tank rounds across the country. The official Ukrainian reports are that 97% of the missiles have been fired at civilian and civilian infrastructure targets. I’m not sure which western media organizations are carrying that number, it is impossible for them to accurately verify it since Ukraine is trying to keep details of missile strikes quite to keep Russian forces from learning the details of their strikes to make adjustments. Responsible media companies are careful about spreading information that they can’t verify.

I will say that my own anecdotal experience is that this number (97%) feels right. I have seen three missile strikes on military targets because of where my apartment is located. But there are a number of military based not far from us or from Safe Haven, and those have largely been untouched. But I have seen missile strikes and reports of so many missile strikes on civilian targets. The most recent massive waves of attacks, the reports are that everyone of them are targeting the power infrastructure and a few civilian targets. Just yesterday, I drove through downtown, where there is a two block section of the city with boarded up windows because two months ago a missile struck in the middle of the road in the middle of a city of 3.3 million people.

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The Voices of Ukrainians

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