Ukraine More Determined to Win After Putin Mass Strikes: 'Coming After You'

Russian President Vladimir Putin's deadly wave of missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday has spurred Ukrainian officials and organizations to assert that they are even more determined to win the ongoing war.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry said on Twitter that Russia's attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian areas were an attempt to "compensate" for recent setbacks that Russian troops faced on the battlefield.

"You just don't get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you," the ministry tweeted.

In addition, Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, stressed that the strikes only inspired "rage and contempt" among Ukrainians.

"You awaken in us the desire to destroy you, terrorists, wherever you are - on the streets and in bunkers, at sea and on land," he tweeted on Monday. "You can scare only the obedient Russian herd. You will NEVER break us. And no rockets will save the terrorist state, it only increases our thirst for Victory!"

The Russian attacks followed a strike on Saturday that damaged the Kerch Strait Bridge, which connects Russia to the occupied Crimean peninsula and is also a key supply route for Putin's troops. Though Ukraine has not officially taken responsibility, Putin blamed the war-torn country for what he said was an act of "terrorism" and vowed to respond.

The subsequent series of Russian strikes on Monday hit key cities and regions across the Eastern European country. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said in its latest update on the aftermath of the attacks that 14 people had been killed and 97 were injured. Additionally, it said that more than 1,300 settlements across Kyiv, Lviv, Sumy, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky were without power because of "rocket fire."

However, rather than break Ukrainian morale, the mass attacks only seem to have bolstered Ukrainian resolve to succeed in the conflict.

"Ukrainians are feeling today entire spectrum of emotions... Anger, hatred, outrage, fury, disgust towards the russians," Olena Halushka, a board member for the Ukraine-based Anti-Corruption Action Center, tweeted. "More determination to win than ever before. And not a drop of fear."

In an address on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia was aiming to sow "panic and chaos" by targeting Ukraine's energy system and its people.

"There may be temporary power outages now, but there will never be an outage of our confidence—our confidence in victory," Zelensky said. "Why such strikes exactly? The enemy wants us to be afraid, wants to make people run. But we can only run forward—and we demonstrate this on the battlefield. It will continue to be so."

While global leaders have responded to Monday's attacks with condemnation, Dmitri Alperovitch, a Soviet-born investor and general security expert, said on Twitter that one "sliver of good news" amid the tragedy is that Russia "likely can't sustain this rate of missile launches."

"It's very telling that they have not had this rate of long range fires since the start of the war," he wrote.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Defense Ministry and experts in Russian and Ukrainian politics and history for comment.