Analysis Why do Russian Armed Forces commit missile strikes both on civilians AND critical infrastructure at the same time?

[Baba Yaga]

Recently, as you might have seen on news, Russia brought a missile attack on the entire area of Ukraine. Almost half of the missiles reached land unharmed, but among those that did, there were missiles that hit "targets", that bring a lot of suspicion regarding the competence of the Russian Commandment. For example, while numerous missiles hit Thermal Power Plants all over the country, one of the missiles hit a pedestrian bridge:

Being a dweller of Kyiv, I can certainly state, that no military target is within 1 km near that bridge. I would assume that Russians expected many people to be in range of the strike, since on weekends and at around 1 pm the place is crowded. But then, why bother killing so many people in Kyiv, so far from Russia? Why not do that somewhere in Mykolaiv, or Kharkiv? It's definitely closer and easier to hit.

Another strike was near the Shevchenko University:

Again, according to the map, there are no military or critical infrastructural objects around there, it's just a park for students to walk around in.

Yet another video of a missile hit, in Dnipro this time:

The hit is situated very close to the road, and it seems like the missile didn't even hit a building.

I would also assume that these casualties happened due to very inaccurate weaponry used by Russia. But then if you look at specifications of even reasonably old missiles, you will see that accuracy doesn't go further than 10-20 m. I am not even going to talk about Kalibr and Kinzhal -- they are pinpoint accurate. But even c300 and older missiles can't be this inaccurate.

So what the hell is going on? Does Russia have enough missiles to fool around by killing civilians to left and right? Did they want to bring terror to people, to "punish" them for the destruction of the Kerch bridge? And if so, then why did they launch missiles to hit both civilian targets and military and infrastructure at the same time? Hopefully I'll get an answer for at least one of these questions.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Ryder]

Russians strike civilian targets because they do it to starve the enemy to submission.

In Syria they bombed sewage plants, farms even chicken farms so the civilians starve which causes morale to fall and make the enemy surrender.

Its their way of striking terror at their enemies.

Grozny was once the most bombed city on the planet. The Russians literally carpet bombed the city itself.

They havent done this Kiev because Kiev is well defended.

 

[Gary]

The Russians had used their cruise and ballistic missiles on Ukraine's military targets before but it proof to be indecisive to defeat Ukraine militarily, so they used those to punish regular Ukrainian citizens for the purpose of:

1. Try to shatter morale of the defenders
2. Russia's own use for public consumption

 

[Era_shield]

Part of the reason is they're low on precision weapons and are resorting to using inaccurate weapons like the S-300 in ground-to-ground mode. But many of the strikes are nowhere near useful targets. Those ones are just attacks aimed at causing suffering so that Putin doesn't look weak. Perhaps all of them fall into this category.

 

[arkate]

Recently, as you might have seen on news, Russia brought a missile attack on the entire area of Ukraine. Almost half of the missiles reached land unharmed, but among those that did, there were missiles that hit "targets", that bring a lot of suspicion regarding the competence of the Russian Commandment. For example, while numerous missiles hit Thermal Power Plants all over the country, one of the missiles hit a pedestrian bridge:

Being a dweller of Kyiv, I can certainly state, that no military target is within 1 km near that bridge. I would assume that Russians expected many people to be in range of the strike, since on weekends and at around 1 pm the place is crowded. But then, why bother killing so many people in Kyiv, so far from Russia? Why not do that somewhere in Mykolaiv, or Kharkiv? It's definitely closer and easier to hit.

Another strike was near the Shevchenko University:

Again, according to the map, there are no military or critical infrastructural objects around there, it's just a park for students to walk around in.

Yet another video of a missile hit, in Dnipro this time:

The hit is situated very close to the road, and it seems like the missile didn't even hit a building.

I would also assume that these casualties happened due to very inaccurate weaponry used by Russia. But then if you look at specifications of even reasonably old missiles, you will see that accuracy doesn't go further than 10-20 m. I am not even going to talk about Kalibr and Kinzhal -- they are pinpoint accurate. But even c300 and older missiles can't be this inaccurate.

So what the hell is going on? Does Russia have enough missiles to fool around by killing civilians to left and right? Did they want to bring terror to people, to "punish" them for the destruction of the Kerch bridge? And if so, then why did they launch missiles to hit both civilian targets and military and infrastructure at the same time? Hopefully I'll get an answer for at least one of these questions.
Thanks in advance.

Finally: US Army Unveils New StrykerX Variant that Can Fire Lasers, and Counter Enemy Air Strikes

 

[Baba Yaga]

Russians strike civilian targets because they do it to starve the enemy to submission.

In Syria they bombed sewage plants, farms even chicken farms so the civilians starve which causes morale to fall and make the enemy surrender.

Its their way of striking terror at their enemies.

Grozny was once the most bombed city on the planet. The Russians literally carpet bombed the city itself.

They havent done this Kiev because Kiev is well defended.

Thanks for the answer. However, another question arose: if you say that these strikes intended to decrease the morale of Ukraine, then why not hit a city that has weaker defense, or is closer to the Russian border, thus, more vulnerable to missiles - for example Kharkiv, or Zaporizhia? And why hit an empty bridge or a park, when you can target something like Squares, where there is nowhere to hide. Or for example high-storey buildings, where people have no time to take cover in an underground shelter? Why hit such a subtle target, when there are so many other places where you can kill waaaay more people, and do it a lot easier?

 

[Baba Yaga]

The Russians had used their cruise and ballistic missiles on Ukraine's military targets before but it proof to be indecisive to defeat Ukraine militarily, so they used those to punish regular Ukrainian citizens for the purpose of:

1. Try to shatter morale of the defenders
2. Russia's own use for public consumption

Thanks for the answer, AlphaMike, appreciate it. But I have the same question to you, as to Ryder (the first answer in this thread) - why hit a subtle bridge in Kyiv, when you have more handy places where you can terror more people, like squares, or crowded subway entrances? And why hit Kyiv, if it is heavily guarded by Air defense systems from USA and Europe? You have Kharkiv which is near the border with Russia, and has a decent population and area to kill civilians, why not hit there instead? Thanks in advance.

 

[Baba Yaga]

Part of the reason is they're low on precision weapons and are resorting to using inaccurate weapons like the S-300 in ground-to-ground mode. But many of the strikes are nowhere near useful targets. Those ones are just attacks aimed at causing suffering so that Putin doesn't look weak. Perhaps all of them fall into this category.

Thanks for the answer!.
Honestly, looking at Russia's arsenal and list of currently equipped weaponry, it's hard to believe that you can have a 100m miss even with an old rusty Soviet ballistic missile. At least, Wiki for Iskander says it's 5-7m accuracy. For S-300 wiki doesn't mention its precision, but considering it's a 1980-s missile, it should be at least around 10-20m of precision, or less. Kalibr has 50m precision, and other funky missiles like Kinzhal are pinpoint accurate. So what essentially can happen to these missiles for them to be this inaccurate?

 

[Baba Yaga]

Finally: US Army Unveils New StrykerX Variant that Can Fire Lasers, and Counter Enemy Air Strikes

Not quite sure how exactly this video can answer my questions...

 

[Gary]

Thanks for the answer, AlphaMike, appreciate it. But I have the same question to you, as to Ryder (the first answer in this thread) - why hit a subtle bridge in Kyiv, when you have more handy places where you can terror more people, like squares, or crowded subway entrances?

There are 72 cruise missile fired and acc to Ukraine own defense ministry half of it are intercepted. We don't know where does those intercepted missile will land had it not been intercepted.

And why hit Kyiv, if it is heavily guarded by Air defense systems from USA and Europe?

As far as I'm concerned, NASAMS and IRIS-T SL had not yet been delivered/activated by the time if the attack.

 

[Baba Yaga]

There are 72 cruise missile fired and acc to Ukraine own defense ministry half of it are intercepted. We don't know where does those intercepted missile will land had it not been intercepted.

As far as I'm concerned, NASAMS and IRIS-T SL had not yet been delivered/activated by the time if the attack.

Huh, yeah, that makes sense. Yet still, I believe there are more suitable objects to attack, if one wants to bring fear and terror: hospitals (since you can't quickly transport patients to shelter), kindergartens, schools, factories that produce medicines and drugs, factories that contain highly hazardous chemicals. But not a random bridge or a park that will barely have 10 people nearby... Plus air defense in Kharkiv will have a lot less time to react to a missile launch. So on one hand, the pattern of terror from Russia can be observed throughout history (Syria, Grozny, and now Ukraine), and on the other hand, they could've performed attacks better, with higher casualties. This is what makes me doubt about the intention of this missile strike.