Townhall Times, New Delhi
Reporter: Bhavika Kalra
The air raid sirens didn’t just wail in Kyiv on Sunday morning; they screamed across the entire country, from the Black Sea ports of Odesa to the western cobblestones of Lviv. It was a massive, coordinated “hell-storm” of nearly 300 drones and 50 missiles. By the time the sun came up today, Monday, February 23, 2026, the tally was grim: homes leveled, families buried under rubble, and a western city usually spared the worst of the front line now reeling from what looks like a calculated act of sabotage.
This wasn’t just a military operation. This was Russia marking the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion (which hits tomorrow, February 24) with fire and steel.
Midnight Sabotage in Lviv
While the drones were swarming the capital, something much more sinister was happening in Lviv. Around midnight, a massive explosion ripped through a shopping street right in the heart of the city, not far from the famous Opera House.
Initial reports were confusing—first a call about a break-in, then a blast. When the first responders arrived, a second bomb went off. It’s a “double-tap” tactic usually seen on the battlefield, but this time it was in a civilian shopping district. Viktoria Shpylka, a 23-year-old police officer who had been serving since the start of the war, was killed in the blast. 25 others are in the hospital. Mayor Andriy Sadovyi didn’t mince words, calling it an “unmistakable act of terrorism.” Ukrainian intelligence is already pointing the finger at Russian sleeper cells recruited via Telegram to destabilize the west while the missiles hit the east.
The Massacre of the Suburbs
In the outskirts of Kyiv, specifically in the town of Fastiv, the scene was pure nightmare fuel. A Russian missile—one of the few that made it through the air defense net—slammed directly into a private two-story house. There were no military bases nearby, no logistics hubs, just families sleeping in a village called Putrivka.
One man, 49 years old, was killed instantly when his home collapsed. Rescuers spent hours digging through the dust and twisted metal, eventually pulling eight people out alive, including a child. Imagine that for a second: you go to sleep in your own bed and wake up buried under three tons of concrete because of a war that’s been going on for 1,460 days.
The Strategy of Exhaustion
Russia’s play here is obvious, but no less deadly for it. They launched 297 drones—some were the usual “Shaheds,” but others were newer, cheaper “Gerbera” and “Italmas” models designed to do one thing: soak up Ukraine’s expensive air defense missiles.
President Zelenskyy was blunt on social media today. He noted that while Russia is hitting energy sites in Odesa, they’ve started shifting targets to railways and water supplies. It’s a pivot toward total societal breakdown. If you can’t break the army, you try to make life so miserable for the civilians that the will to resist snaps.
But if the mood in the metro stations on Sunday morning was any indication, that “snap” isn’t happening. People weren’t just sheltering; they were angry. There’s a grit in the air in Kyiv right now that only comes from four years of surviving the unsurvivable.
The Global Chessboard
While Ukraine burns, the rest of the world is busy with its own drama.
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Hungary’s Blockade: Viktor Orbán is once again threatening to block EU sanctions unless Ukraine reopens the Druzhba oil pipeline (which Kyiv says was damaged by Russian strikes anyway).
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Slovakia’s Threat: Bratislava is warning it will cut off emergency power to Ukraine by tonight if their oil demands aren’t met.
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The U.S. Vacuum: With the peace process in Geneva ending in a stalemate last week and U.S. weapon supplies slowing to a trickle, Ukraine is increasingly fighting this war with its own grit and whatever it can scavenge from European partners.
The Human Toll
As we roll into the fifth year of this “all-out” war, the numbers are becoming incomprehensible. 1.2 million casualties on the Russian side, and a Ukrainian civilian death toll that hit its highest annual level in 2025. Today, the hospitals in Sumy are treating people hit by “double-tap” drone strikes on emergency vehicles. In Kherson, shells are still raining down on administrative buildings.
The war isn’t “over there” anymore. It’s in the water pipes of the cities, the heaters of the apartment blocks, and the trash cans of Lviv. Tomorrow is the anniversary, and no one is expecting a celebration. They’re just expecting more sirens.
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