A Russian jet-powered drone struck the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv during the working day. Hours earlier, the Kremlin said Ukraine was now “paying the price” for its attacks on Russia. The combination provides a stark indication of how Moscow is framing its continuing air campaign.
Russia did not simply launch another attack on Kyiv on Monday. A jet-powered drone hit a building of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the centre of the capital while people were at work inside.
At least one person was confirmed killed at the site, while Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 19 people were injured across the capital during the day’s attacks. Fire engulfed part of the Academy building as rescuers used ladders to reach people trapped inside. Elsewhere in Kyiv, a pharmaceutical company, petrol stations and a medical facility were hit. In Dnipro, three people were killed when a drone struck a business centre during working hours.
The physical destruction was accompanied by unusually explicit language from Moscow.
Asked on Monday how recent Ukrainian attacks on Russia had affected prospects for negotiations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied: “Ukraine will have to pay a price for the actions that have taken place in recent months. This is what is happening now.”
The statement was not made by a television propagandist or military blogger. It came from Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, in response to a question about Moscow’s position on negotiations.
That places the latest attacks in a different context. Russia is not presenting its military campaign solely in terms of destroying Ukrainian military capability. The Kremlin is publicly describing what is happening as a price Ukraine must pay.
The timing is difficult to separate from the scenes in central Kyiv.
Russia’s Defence Ministry later said its forces had struck fuel and telecommunications infrastructure in Kyiv, several data centres, cargo vessels bound for Ukrainian ports and a ship-repair facility. It did not identify the National Academy of Sciences as a military target. Reuters said it could not independently verify the ministry’s claims.
Nor does the fact that the Academy was hit, by itself, establish whether Russian commanders specifically selected that building as the intended target. That requires evidence about targeting orders which is not presently available.
But the legal difference between military and civilian objects is straightforward.
International humanitarian law permits attacks on military objectives. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, an object must make an effective contribution to military action and its destruction must offer a definite military advantage in the circumstances at the time. Civilian objects may not be directly attacked.
A defence factory can plainly meet that test. Fuel infrastructure can become a military objective depending on how it is being used, although it does not automatically lose civilian protection merely because it contributes to the wider economy.
Ukraine has increasingly attacked Russian oil installations and defence production. EU Today reported last week on a large Ukrainian drone operation against Moscow that struck the Kapotnya oil refinery and a logistics complex, part of Kyiv’s campaign against infrastructure it says sustains Russia’s war effort.
A national scientific academy starts from a very different position. Unless a specific military use can be demonstrated, it is a civilian institution.
This is why Peskov’s choice of words deserves particular attention.
He did not say merely that Russia was attempting to destroy Ukrainian weapons, command centres or military production. He spoke of Ukraine having to “pay a price”. The statement was made while explaining the consequences of Ukrainian actions for Moscow’s approach to negotiations.
That is the language of coercion.
It also comes as Russia changes the technology used in its campaign against Ukrainian cities. Russian forces have increasingly deployed faster jet-powered drones against Kyiv and other urban centres. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the weekend that Ukraine was intercepting only slightly more than half of these weapons — substantially below the interception rate achieved against older propeller-driven drones.
EU Today has previously examined the pressure these faster Russian drones are placing on Ukraine’s air-defence network. Their speed reduces reaction times and makes attacks on major cities more difficult to stop.
The result is increasingly visible away from the front.
Earlier this month, another Russian attack on Kyiv damaged residential buildings, a school, medical facilities and commercial premises, killing three people. That September 8 barrage followed a brief pause associated with diplomatic activity.
Monday’s strike on the Academy adds another element. The institution is not simply another office block. The National Academy of Sciences is one of Ukraine’s central scientific institutions and has existed, in different forms, since 1918. A burning Academy building in the centre of Kyiv therefore inevitably carries significance beyond the physical damage itself, irrespective of whether symbolism formed part of the targeting decision.
International humanitarian law also prohibits acts or threats of violence whose primary purpose is to spread terror among the civilian population. Establishing such a purpose in any individual attack requires evidence. The broader prohibition, however, is important when a government publicly couples continuing strikes with language about making the population of an adversary state “pay a price”.
This is also relevant to European governments assessing repeated Russian references to negotiations.
Moscow’s military campaign and its diplomatic language cannot be treated as entirely separate tracks when the Kremlin itself connects them. Peskov was asked about peace negotiations and answered by describing the price Ukraine was being made to pay.
The question raised by Monday’s events is therefore larger than why one drone hit one building in Kyiv.
It is what Russia expects continuing attacks on Ukrainian cities, businesses and civilian institutions to achieve politically.
If their function is partly to raise the cost of resistance until Ukraine accepts terms it would otherwise reject, then the air campaign is also an instrument of negotiation by coercion.
The burning Academy of Sciences provides an unusually stark image of what that policy looks like on the ground.
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