Warning: this article contains distressing images
Zaporizhzhia has had a tumultuos history, being heavily fought over during World War II and later becoming a centre of Donbas military and industrial production. It sits across the River Dnieper at what is now its southernmost crossing; all the bridges and dams south of Zaporizhzhia on the road to Kherson have been destroyed by Russian aggression, in July 2023 notoriously causing the flooding of Kherson Oblast including parts of the city itself. Now the southernmost crossing point of the Dnieper River is the dam in Zaporizhzhia, an enormous structure that the Russians too have tried to blow up but have failed. The Russian positions are about 25-30 kilometres to the east and south of Zaporizhzhia, making it literally the last stop on the railway. You can't go any further without bumping into the Russians. This has placed the city outside the range of accurate Russian artillery, especially because Russian logistics arteries in the occupied territories around Melitopol (the first city you encounter in Russian-occupied territory if you head south of Zaporizhzhia, about 135 kilometres away) and the city was the subject of periodic missile strikes throughout the course of the war. However Russian cruise missiles are expensive and Zaporizhzhia no longer has any strategic assets to spend that sort of money on. So the city, within the sights of Russian occupation, is now the subject in the winter fighting season of terrorising actions against civilians.
Zaporizhzhia is known for having the longest high street in Europe and before the war it was quite a pleasant place, full of parks and gardens, grandiose buildings in the Soviet style and quite a decent place to live, with a thriving nightlife. Not anymore. Russian glide bombs (essentially cheap old Soviet bombs equipped with laser sighting) are now being aimed at the city and are being used to destroy its city centre.
When I was last in Zaporizhzhia, a few weeks ago, the relentless wail of air raid sirens kept me awake all night. There are very few hotels left in Zaporizhzhia (the Russians blew them all up at the beginning of the war, presumably to deter journalists) and one of the few remaining structures was the Hotel Intourist obliquely opposite the City Hall, where my team and I stayed. It had about half of its windows blown out through fragmentation warheads (designed to kill as many civilians as possible) but it still operated as a hotel. It had nine floors, and I was rather unnerved to find that all of our rooms were indeed on the ninth floor but the building was still standing and it had a restaurant and bar of sorts and it was one of the few remaining beacons of civilisation in the city. The rooms were cold, but the elevator worked (a rarity in Ukraine) and the staff were as pleasant and welcoming as they could be in the difficult circumstances. A surly doorman kept security 24 hours a day (Zaporizhzhia's curfew is more or less theoretical given that the city is under constant attack). I wasn't entirely comfortable staying there but I was reassured, I suppose, by the fact that Intourist was the Soviet era chain of hotels and the Russians weren't going to blow their hotel up. I was wrong.
Just a few days ago what appears to have been a glide bomb hit the hotel and left it totally destroyed. I had been playing with my life and I was lucky. The rest of the city has also been hit by glide bombs and there is now a steady flow of refugees out of the city as it prepares for a Russian assault. This is another angle of the Russian winter offensive as they prepare to enter into negotiations with the United States about freezing the front line amidst the anticipated entrance into office of US President-elect Donald J. Trump who has vowed to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Let's hope he is capable of that; I rather suspect it will take somewhat longer. In the meantime, Zaporizhzhia is blown to pieces. A children’s hospital was hit by another glide bomb, killing at least eight; these events rarely make the headlines in the West because they are so commonplace. But make no mistake: the Russians intend either to take the city by force or to drive all the civilians out so that there is nothing left of of it to remain in free Ukraine.
Bogged down in infantry battles on the battlefield during the 2024/2025 winter fighting season, with only tiny progress being able to be made at huge loss of Russian personnel, the Russians are taking to just destroying as much Ukrainian infrastructure as possible and to terrorising as many Ukrainian civilians as possible. This is their idea of war tactics and it is an outrageous war crime.
The Russians will say that the hotel was a target because soldiers would spend their rest and recuperation time there from the front line but that is no excuse. No military operations were planned there; it was just a place for soldiers to go with their wives and girlfriends and for the occasional foreign visitor to stay. (There are hardly any foreigners left in Zaporizhzhia now; there used to be an NGO community but they have almost all gone, except those collecting evidence of war crimes.) Almost every building in Zaporizhzhia is covered in shrapnel marks and this is striking as soon as you get off the train in Zaporizhzhia. I have friends in Zaporizhzhia and I worry for them. This Russian indiscriminate devastation must be brought to an end as soon as possible.
