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TALLINN, Estonia , Oct 11 (AP) \u2014 Moscow\u2019s barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield.<\/p>\n
Russian nationalist commentators and state media war correspondents lauded Monday\u2019s attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and a weekend attack on the bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.<\/p>\n
Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday\u2019s strikes to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was becoming a hostage of his allies\u2019 views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold.<\/p>\n
\u201cPutin\u2019s initiative is weakening, and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the \u2018victory\u2019 (in Ukraine) for him,\u201d Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fear of defeat is so strong, especially for those who are now fully immersed in this military venture, that Putin\u2019s indecisiveness, with his logic of \u2018We have not started anything yet\u2019 and \u2018Restrained tactics have paid off\u2019 has become a problem,\u201d the analyst said.<\/p>\n
For weeks, Putin\u2019s supporters have called for drastic battlefield steps in Ukraine. The exhortations intensified over the weekend after an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia; the bridge, Europe\u2019s longest, is a prominent symbol of Russian military might. Putin himself opened the span in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd?\u201d Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia\u2019s state-funded RT television, wondered on social media about Moscow\u2019s response to the Saturday bridge attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of those cases when the country needs to show we can hit back,\u201d wrote Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the popular pro-Kremlin tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.<\/p>\n
Senior Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov, who leads the state-backed A Just Russia party, tweeted Saturday that Moscow should disregard Western opinion in formulating its answer to the conspicuous attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is time for fighting! Fiercely, even cruelly. Without looking back at whatever censures from the West,\u201d Mironov tweeted Saturday. \u201cThere won\u2019t be any bigger sanctions. They won\u2019t say any worse words. We need to do our thing. We started it \u2014 we should go till the end. There is no way back. Time to respond!\u201d<\/p>\n
The response came Monday morning, when Russia simultaneously launched dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding scores and inflicting unprecedented damage on Ukraine\u2019s critical infrastructure. The strikes, which hit 15 Ukrainian cities, most of them regional capitals, knocked out power lines, damaged railway stations and roads, and left cities without water supplies.<\/p>\n
For the first time in months, Russian missiles exploded in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraine\u2019s capital, in dangerous proximity to government buildings.<\/p>\n
Putin said Monday the strikes were in retaliation for what he called Kyiv\u2019s \u201cterrorist\u201d actions targeting the Kerch Bridge, and vowed a \u201ctough\u201d and \u201cproportionate\u201d response should Ukraine carry out further attacks that threaten Russia\u2019s security.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one should have any doubts about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere comes the response,\u201d RT\u2019s Simonyan tweeted on Monday after the attacks. \u201cThe Crimean bridge was that very red line from the very beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, a Russian region in the North Caucasus, said he was now \u201c100% happy\u201d with the course of the Kremlin\u2019s \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine. Kadyrov was among the most ardent proponents of \u201cmore drastic measures,\u201d including the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
The Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, described Monday\u2019s strikes as \u201cgood news.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cheering by Kremlin supporters came with demands for Putin and the Russian military to keep up the pace and intensity of the attacks and the damage inflicted on Ukraine\u2019s infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Aksyonov said that \u201chad such actions to destroy the enemy\u2019s infrastructure been taken every day, then we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that now the pace of the operation will not slow down,\u201d Aksyonov wrote.<\/p>\n
RT\u2019s top host, Anton Krasovsky, posted a video of himself Monday dancing on a balcony in a cap bearing a Z, the symbol that Russian forces painted on military vehicles while invading Ukraine. In another Telegram post, he said the damage to Ukraine\u2019s power lines was \u201cnot enough! Not enough!\u201d<\/p>\n
Another state TV journalist, Andrei Medvedev, called Monday\u2019s attacks \u201ca logical step, which not just the society has long demanded \u2014 the military situation demanded a different approach to the hostilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so it happened. But does it change much?\u201d Medvedev, who works for Russia\u2019s state TV group VGTRK and holds a seat on the Moscow City Council, wrote on Telegram.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the strikes on the critical infrastructure become regular, if the strikes on railways, bridges and power plants become part of our tactics, then yes, it does change (the situation),\u201d Medvedev wrote. \u201cBut for now, according to (official) statements, a decision to plunge Ukraine into medieval times has not been made,\u201d<\/p>\n
Political analyst Stanovaya said in a Telegram post that Putin had faced \u201cpowerful pressures\u201d before Monday\u2019s bombardment \u201cto move onto aggressive actions, massive bombings,\u201d and that prompted the Russian leader to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of today, one can say that Putin was persuaded to resort to a more aggressive line. And it corresponds with his understanding on the situation. But it is a slippery slope \u2014 there is no way back,\u201d Stanovaya wrote.<\/p>\n
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