Russia’s threats of new strikes on Kyiv are not only a military signal. They are an attempt to put fear back at the center of the war at a moment when Moscow has no quick breakthrough on the battlefield and no desired result at the negotiating table.
After a ballistic missile strike on the capital earlier in May that killed civilians, and after one of the heaviest missile-and-drone attacks of the war, the Kremlin began speaking of “systematic strikes” on Kyiv and urged foreigners to leave the city.
There is a familiar Russian logic in this threat: present a future attack as a forced response, shift responsibility in advance onto the victim and test whether panic can achieve what missiles have not.
According to Daycom’s earlier analysis, the current intimidation campaign is a reaction to lost momentum. Russia is trying to create the impression that its military machine has not yet used its full force, even as the battlefield increasingly reveals the limits of that force.
In May, Russian advances became almost microscopic. Drones, minefields, artillery, infantry exhaustion and Ukrainian strikes on rear areas have made every kilometer expensive. The war the Kremlin wanted to wage as an offensive increasingly resembles the slow grinding down of its own resources.
It is at such moments that Moscow tends to raise the tone. When tanks do not produce the desired effect, threats against “decision-making centers,” displays of missile power, claims of exhausted patience and hints at heavier weapons enter the conversation.
Волонтери Червоного Хреста перевозять поранену жінку до карети швидкої допомоги після обстрілу Києва — Євген Малолєтка
The formal pretext was a strike on a dormitory in the occupied part of Luhansk region, where Russia claimed students had been killed. Ukraine rejected the Russian version as a disinformation construct, but the Kremlin immediately used the episode as moral cover for threats against Kyiv.
This is not a new pattern. Russia regularly tries to turn a single wartime episode into justification for broader terror. It speaks the language of “response,” while itself waging a daily war of aggression against the country it attacked, occupied and continues to bombard.
The threats against Kyiv have several audiences. The first is Ukrainian society. The Kremlin wants to restore a sense of helplessness, force people to pack emergency bags, sleep in metro stations, wait for impact and think not about resistance, but survival.
The second audience is Western diplomats. Calls for foreigners to leave the capital are meant to create an image of Ukraine’s isolation. If embassies reduce their presence, Moscow presents it as proof that its threats work. If they stay, it tries to keep them under pressure.
The third audience is Washington. Russia sees that U.S. attention is stretched by the war around Iran, domestic politics and fatigue with peace initiatives that have produced no result. The threat of escalation against Kyiv becomes a way to force America to look back at the Ukrainian front.
In this sense, the Kremlin is not only threatening Ukraine. It is trying to return itself to the center of the American agenda. Moscow is signaling that if Washington does not engage with the Russia-Ukraine war on terms convenient to the Kremlin, Russia will raise the cost of indifference.
This matters especially against the backdrop of diplomatic paralysis. The negotiation process, which at times gave Moscow a channel for pressuring Kyiv through intermediaries, has effectively stalled. For the Kremlin, that is a problem: without a diplomatic track, it is harder to sell concessions as “realistic peace.”
So missiles become a substitute for diplomacy. Russia is trying to prove that it cannot be ignored because it can strike harder. Yet the very need to prove this speaks less of confidence than of a shortage of other tools of influence.
Kyiv responds differently. Despite destruction, smoke, shattered windows and deaths, the city did not stop. Conferences went ahead, cafés reopened after strikes, people helped neighbors board up windows. Russia wanted to create emptiness. Instead, it met a picture of stubborn normality.
That normality does not mean the absence of fear. When Russia uses ballistic missiles and displays rare systems, even people accustomed to ignoring air alerts begin planning for shelter. Ukraine’s air-defense problem remains acute, especially because of shortages of Patriot interceptors.
That is why Zelensky’s appeal to the United States for additional air defense is directly connected to Russian threats. If ballistic missiles remain Moscow’s last major advantage, every new battery and every interceptor reduces not only the Kremlin’s military space, but also its psychological one.
Russia wants Ukraine and its allies to believe that it can strike much harder. This is part of a game of uncertainty. Even if Moscow’s actual capabilities are limited, doubt itself is meant to function as a weapon — forcing events to be postponed, people to be evacuated and decisions to change.
But this strategy has limits. Repeated threats that do not produce political results gradually lose force. Ukrainians have learned over years of war to distinguish real danger from Russian theater, even though the two often exist side by side.
For the Kremlin, the domestic audience matters just as much. When Ukrainian strikes reach Russian oil refineries, military sites and occupied territories, the authorities in Moscow must demonstrate a “tough response.” Otherwise, war fatigue can more quickly become a question: why is all this still going on?
Укриття на станції київського метро рано вранці в неділю — Аліна Смутко
That is why Russian rhetoric is becoming more belligerent. It must compensate for weak results. If the front does not deliver victory, propaganda must create a feeling of control, strength and inevitable punishment for Ukraine.
Nuclear hints are a separate danger. Each time Russian commentators or Kremlin-adjacent voices speak of “heavier weapons,” they are testing the Western reaction. This does not mean such a scenario is inevitable, but it does mean Moscow is once again using fear of escalation as political currency.
Ukraine’s challenge is to prevent that currency from shaping allied decisions. If the West again begins debating not how to stop the aggressor, but how not to irritate it, Russia’s intimidation strategy will work regardless of the real scale of its strikes.
The current moment reveals the central weakness of Russia’s position. The Kremlin threatens precisely because it cannot win quickly. It speaks of escalation precisely because ordinary instruments are not producing the breakthrough it needs. It demands attention precisely because it risks losing it.
Kyiv remains a target not only as a capital, but as a symbol. If the city endures, works, hosts diplomats and does not sink into panic, the Russian strike fails to achieve its main purpose. Destruction then becomes evidence of cruelty, but not evidence of victory.
So the question is not only whether Russia can hit harder. It already strikes hard and proves every day that it is willing to use terror. The more important question is whether it can make Ukraine, Europe and the United States believe that fear is stronger than collective defense.
The answer will not be decided by Moscow’s statements. It will be decided by the number of interceptors in Ukraine’s Patriot batteries, Kyiv’s resilience, the presence of allies, the speed of decisions in Washington and Europe’s ability not to confuse Russian fury with Russian strength.
