Vladimir Putin's 'Terror' Tactics Will Not Help His War

Russian strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine will only strengthen the will of the Ukrainian people to resist Vladimir Putin's forces, according to a Pentagon official.

Explosions rocked the cities of Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv on Tuesday, a day after Russia launched drone strikes on multiple cities, including Kyiv. Russian forces have targeted Ukraine's energy facilities, leaving part of the capital and other cities with no power and water, according to the administration of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

At least four people, including a pregnant woman, were killed on Monday in the Ukrainian capital due to the unmanned aircraft which exploded on impact.

However, a senior U.S. military official told reporters on Monday that an attempt to frighten a population into submission by targeting non-military targets and civilians "to decrease the resolve of the Ukrainian people...doesn't work."

"If anything, you've seen that with the Ukrainians, it has increased their resolve," the unnamed official said, adding that the U.S, would provide Ukraine "with the support that they need, as they try to push these Russian forces back."

A Gallup poll released last month, conducted more than half a year into the war, showed an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians— 70 percent, believed that they should continue fighting until they win. Only just over one quarter of respondents, or 26 percent, believed there should be a negotiated settlement with Moscow to end the fighting.

The poll—which took place between September 2-11 across all regions of Ukraine, including the Donbas region—also found that 91 percent of respondents believed victory would entail Ukrainian forces retaking all territory that Russia has seized since 2014, including Crimea.

"The Russian tactic is to try and break the will of the people and to break the political will to continue with the conflict," former British Army intelligence officer Philip Ingram told Newsweek, "but, as ever, the Russians have and are underestimating the resolve of the Ukrainian people and how it is being galvanized by the leadership of Zelensky."

Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at the Chatham House think tank's Russia and Eurasia program, said that "people are defiant and they understand Putin wants them to give up."

"They are determined not to give him this gift. It is tough to bear these violent drone strikes but last week on the 10 October Ukrainians fundraised around $5.3 million for 'revenge drones' as part of Serhiy Prytyla Charity appeal," she told Newsweek.

The U.S. think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Monday that Russia intended to focus on terrorizing the Ukrainian population instead of pushing for gains on the battlefield. Key to this were Iranian-supplied Shahed-136 drones and other UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) which are making up for Russia's depleted arsenal.

Marina Miron, a research fellow from the Defense Studies Department at King's College London (KCL), said Russia's strikes delivered Moscow a public relations boost rather than a military one.

"The impact that drones are generating in the information space is probably much greater than their kinetic capabilities," she told Newsweek. "They obviously have a psychological effect because Ukraine doesn't have contemporary air defense systems to counter those drones."

"They fit into this overall strategy of trying to damage civilian infrastructure and cause chaos and panic on the streets so as to divert the attention of the leadership in Kyiv away from the battlefield."