‘Massive, maximum destruction’: Putin seeks to bring Ukrainian civilians ‘to their knees’

Home Europe To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: © France 24 05:30 Issued on: 24/09/2026 - 14:17Modified: 24/09/2026 - 14:23 Mark Owen is pleased to welcome Peter Zalmayev from Kyiv, Founder and Director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative. According to Zalmayev, Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine reflect a broader political logic in which military force, political objectives and territorial ambitions are intertwined as instruments of Russian strategy. He argues that Moscow’s attacks on civilian infrastructure are designed to exert extreme pressure on Ukrainian society while demonstrating fierce retaliation to domestic audiences in Russia. Zalmayev contrasts this with Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, which he describes as targeting assets that directly sustain Moscow’s war effort. Keywords for this article