The situation in Ukraine is taking a shocking turn: Soldiers on the front lines are now calling their homes in the capital, Kyiv, to ask if their families are safe.
Peter Dickinson, who lives in Kiev, told the BBC World Service: "When people talk about Kiev now, they say it is a frontline city."
"Basically, right now it's just as dangerous as cities that are geographically on the front line, maybe even more dangerous."
Russia has stepped up missile and drone strikes in Ukraine's capital and other major cities in recent weeks, attacking civilian targets including schools, hospitals, hotels, data centers, trains and bridges.
For example, on September 30, drones damaged two shops near Kiev. The next day, a drone hit a school building in the capital's Solomianskyi district, and a business center in Odesa region was also attacked.
On October 8, a Russian drone hit the campus of a school and kindergarten in Bucha District, Kiev Oblast.
The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that these civilian buildings were used to manufacture or store weapons, and Russia only launched attacks against military and defense industry facilities.
However, Dmytro Lubinets, the Human Rights Commissioner (Ombudsman) of the Ukrainian Parliament, said that between January and August this year, Russian attacks caused 15,280 civilian casualties, an increase of 55% compared with the same period last year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said one of Russia's "most despicable attacks" last week killed at least 25 people, including children.
Bombings of Ukrainian cities have been a feature of the war since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.
"I wouldn't call it a transformation, I would call it an upgrade," Professor Phillips O'Brien of Scotland's University of St Andrews told BBC World Service.
But Dickinson, who edits the Ukrainian Alert blog of the U.S. think tank Atlantic Council, said the nature of these recent attacks has been different, with Kiev now being targeted day and night.
"It's a huge threat to life, but it's also hugely disruptive because it means schools can't operate, businesses can't operate, and people are feeling some kind of ongoing uncertainty," he said.
One of the most telling signs of the escalation was Russia's move to attack bridges across the Dnieper River that separates Ukraine's capital. Dickinson called the bridges "vital arteries of the city."
The right bank of the river houses government agencies, businesses, and most of the capital's economic activities; the left bank is dominated by residential areas. There are no tunnels here, only bridges, and these bridges not only carry road traffic, but are also part of the subway system. Millions of people travel between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait every day.
Severe winter is coming
Dickinson said Russian drones may not be powerful enough to destroy a structure as large as a bridge, so forcing the bridge to close appears to be the goal. The timing of the attack is also intriguing.
He said: "If their mission was just to destroy infrastructure, they could do it late at night or early in the morning... with exactly the same effect, but obviously not endangering human lives. But instead of doing that, they launched the attack during busy hours."
"It does give the impression that this is a very, very deliberate policy. You simply cannot explain these attacks in terms of collateral damage or legitimate military objectives."
Zelensky himself told the Financial Times: "The Russians failed to capture us. So now they carry out massive attacks and mass killings. Of course, they want to attack our bridges, and as we understand them, they also want to attack our data centers, the Internet, mobile networks, hospitals, kindergartens, schools, universities, everything. They want people to flee their cities."
He added: "We know from intelligence and from some people close to Putin that Putin said in early September: 'There are no rules now.'"
O'Brien said Zelensky believed Putin wanted to "make Ukraine as uninhabitable as possible for civilians, especially as winter approaches."
In a country where the temperature can drop to minus 20 degrees Celsius, life may become extremely difficult if the city loses heating and water supply by cutting off the connection between nuclear power plants and the power grid.
"Spreading fear"
"When you add it all up, it's basically about putting tremendous political pressure on the Ukrainian government to agree to a deal that's consistent with Russia's wishes," O'Brien said.
It appears that Kiev is the primary target, but Odessa, Lviv, Dnipro and Kharkiv are also likely to be attacked "because they do want to target civilians where possible."
Dickinson said one of the main purposes of pushing civilians to "flee the city" is to demoralize Ukrainians.
"This will create the impression that the government is helpless and that the government cannot protect the people," he said. Russia hopes this will increase calls for surrender.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha posted on the
But this also serves another purpose.
"If there's no one there, people can't work in the factories and produce the weapons we need to defend our country," Dickinson said.
If businesses cannot function properly and cannot pay taxes, the government will have difficulty maintaining fiscal operations.
Economy and Environment Minister Oleksandr Kravchenko said that Ukraine loses about US$45 million (301 million yuan; NT$1.448 billion) every time air raid warnings force businesses to stop work for an hour.
"If people are hiding in air-raid shelters, business will come to a standstill," he told The Guardian.
And Ukraine has already had to ask its allies for more money.
Dickinson said another reason Russia is now stepping up these attacks is simply "because they can."
Ukraine's Patriot missile air defense system, which "is the only truly reliable system to deal with ballistic missile threats," has very little ammunition left.
The United States is the only country capable of mass-producing such systems, and "the United States and its Middle Eastern partners have exhausted large inventories in this war against Iran."
At the same time, Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko said: "The enemy is not reducing the production of any type of missiles, nor is it depleting its stockpiles. On the contrary, they are increasing their stockpiles."
In addition, since mid-August, Russia has begun using a new type of jet-powered drone, "and Ukraine currently has no way to deal with it."
The drones fly twice as fast and higher than previous propeller-propelled models and are equipped with more advanced targeting and navigation tools, making them harder to intercept.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said that Russia dispatched 2,850 such drones to attack Ukraine in August; as of September 29, it had dispatched a further 3,177 drones.
Eric Schmidt, one of the largest foreign investors in Ukraine's defense industry and a former head of Google, admitted that they underestimated the speed with which Russia would deploy these new drones.
He told The Economist: "Russia has been able to guide a drone directly into the central window of the headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). This is a reminder of what these systems are capable of."
Zelensky said: "The current interception rate against jet-powered drones is about 50% to 55%, and sometimes it can reach 60% with the assistance of Ukrainian aviation forces."
But O'Brien said that although Ukraine is researching new interception methods and seems to have made progress, the number of Russian launches is too many. Even if the shootdown rate reaches 80%, "there are still a large number of drones that can break through the defense every night."
But Schmidt added: "At least five Ukrainian companies have developed solutions and are testing them."
Dickinson said Moscow originally expected this to be a quick war, but four and a half years later, Russian forces are still fighting for villages within walking distance of the starting point of the invasion in February 2022. Russian military blogger talks about quagmire and trapped situation. "We're losing a lot of lives every day," Dickinson said.
Maj Gen Mick Ryan, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Lowy Institute and the Modern War Institute (US Military Academy) and retired Australian general, said Putin wants to create the impression that Russia is making progress.
"Terror Strategy"
O'Brien agrees. With Russia unable to advance the front and facing difficulties in its own economy, air strikes are "an area where they believe they can exert pressure." But this "is not the strategy adopted by a country that is convinced that the war situation is developing in its favor."
O'Brien said Putin will win the war "at any cost necessary," with two exceptions: He doesn't think Putin will use nuclear weapons because Russia's key partner China doesn't want him to; nor does he think Putin will use chemical or biological weapons to attack entire cities.
Dickinson said there has not yet been a large-scale exodus from Kiev, but many families are discussing temporarily leaving during the winter.
Dickinson had reservations about the word "terrorism," "but I don't think there's any other way to describe this situation. It's purely a terrorist tactic... to keep people uneasy, to keep people disturbed, to keep people on edge. And it's working."
