Following Russia's largest air attack, Ukrainians want 'real action' to achieve peace

As It Happens6:29Following Russia's largest air attack, Ukrainians want 'real action' to achieve peace

Ukraine faced its largest air attack since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, as an onslaught of drones and missiles struck cities across the country early Sunday. 

The attack marked the second night in a row of intense aerial strikes. According to Ukraine's air force spokesperson, Yuriy Ignat, Russia launched a record 355 drones and nine cruise missiles that hit dozens of regions, including the capital, Kyiv.

At least 12 people were killed and dozens more injured in the strikes. Among the victims were three siblings — ages 8, 12 and 17 — who were killed in the northern region of Zhytomyr. 

Russia ramped up its aerial assault on Ukrainian cities starting Friday, unleashing nightly waves of drone attacks that have forced residents to seek refuge in air raid shelters, basements and metro stations.

The Kremlin has said the attacks were aimed at military targets and denies targeting civilians.

Ukrainian activist Olena Halushka is the co-founder of the International Centre for Ukrainian Victory. Based in Kyiv, she spoke with As It Happens host Nil Köksal about what she hopes the international community will do.  

Olena, have you slept at all over the last three nights? 

The last three nights were absolutely sleepless. One of the nights I spent in the metro station sheltering from the Russian ballistic missiles. The other two, I slept at home but I was regularly waking up by the explosions. They were very loud and of course it was very chilling. 

People have had to try to become accustomed to air raids and sheltering. What were the conversations like this time with people who were also there? 

On one hand, you are trying to get accustomed because otherwise you wouldn't be able to survive to live in such conditions. But on the other hand, it is still impossible to do that fully. 

If you take a look on Kyiv's reality, I can hardly recall more than five nights over the last half a year where we didn't have air raids, where we didn't have drones coming, or we didn't have missiles. 

People are super frustrated and tired and sleep [deprived]. This is the means of torture which Russians are using in the prisons, but they are using this also against tens of millions of Ukrainians keeping us all awake at night.

WATCH | Ukraine says Russia's air attack is largest so far:  

Russia's deadly air attack the largest of war so far, Ukraine says

5 days ago

Duration 3:29

Ukrainian officials say a massive Russian attack of drones and missiles targeted Kyiv and other regions in Ukraine early Sunday for a second consecutive night, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens. At least four people were killed and 16 were injured in the capital itself, according to Ukraine's security service.

Russia is once again saying that its targets were military installations, but how does what has happened over the last several nights compare to what you have seen and experienced before? 

I think it's very important that our partners do not actually care or seriously treat what Russia is saying because Russians are lying. They are just inventing disinformation, they are inventing new reality and they are trying to sell this new reality to our partners. 

Their official statements may be that they want peace, that they are attacking only military facilities, but their reality on the ground is absolutely different. They are attacking playgrounds, as we have seen in Kryvy Rih. They are attacking the city centre in Sumy during the Palm Sunday when people were going to the church. They are attacking residential houses, private and multi-story buildings. Russia killed three siblings in the village of the Zhytomyr region. Three kids, school kids, they were killed because of the Russian attack. 

[Russia's] policy is absolutely full-scale terrorism. They want to make all Ukrainians feel unsafe and they hope to get the pressure from the Ukrainian society over Zelensky to capitulate. 

But they do not understand that by unleashing this horrible terrorism at Ukrainians, they are actually achieving the opposite. The resistance is growing, the anger is growing, and the readiness to resist even harder is also growing. 

[With] the latest online comments by the U.S. president, Donald Trump, saying Putin has quote, "Gone absolutely crazy," how does that sit with you? What do you make of that? 

I am used to judge by the actions because over the last couple of months, when the U.S. started to mediate the peace talks, we've seen a lot of different mixed statements. But we've also seen the basically lack of actions, lack of any pressure on Russia as an aggressor. 

So much could have been done over the last couple of weeks in order to force Russia into the real peace talks. For example, maximum military aid for Ukraine, really toughening the sanctions — confiscation of Russian assets, 300 billion of the central bank assets that are frozen in G7 jurisdictions. 

Canada can be very helpful for us with pursuing this goal because both parties during the elections supported the seizure of the central bank assets, and Canada presently leads G7, they have the power to mobilize European countries — maybe even the U.S will join when we will have consensus. Carney is super positioned to make this his legacy. 

The actions [are] what matters because statements or concern or words they cannot intercept the missiles that are targeting residential areas within Kyiv or Zhytomyr or Dnipro or any other region. But real action like confiscation of the frozen Russian assets and maximum military aid for Ukraine can. 

Do you think … we're now at a point where it's testing Trump's patience and it might push him to do more than he has? 

We would, of course, hope very much. We would hope very much that President Trump would finally see the real nature of Putin and finally start implementing his own principle — peace through strength. But this strength should be pressure over the aggressor, not pressure over the victim. 

But still, I'm afraid that there might be the outcome where President Trump would say that he tried, it didn't work, this is not his war, and he might simply … withdraw from the talks, from this war. 

I think that this is actually what Russians are betting for. They want Trump to be tired of all of those processes, and they want him to simply refocus on other issues. 

Can you imagine a point where the peace process is actually unfolding and working and that you won't have to go to bed every night worrying about sirens and waking up to explosions? 

Unfortunately, at this point, Russians feel appeased, when they are seeing that they can demand much more concessions and that they can break the unity of the Western democracies. 

Putin is betting [on] the decline of the global solidarity and the support of democracies towards Ukraine. He thinks that he can outlast the West and Ukraine in the long-term perspective. 

That's why for us, it is so important to have things like confiscation of the Russian assets, which can be game changers, which can be long-term sustainable sources of support for Ukraine without the links to domestic political agenda or turbulence.