By INS Contributors

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: As the regime of Vladimir Zelensky continues to suffer severe battlefield setbacks his forces have continued to waste precious resources targeting civilians in a vain attempt to shore up morale and distract from what is clearly an inevitable outcome.

 Over the course of this past September alone over 139 instances of such targeting of civilians have been recorded, mainly concentrated in the Belgorod, Luhansk and Donetsk regions resulting in numerous deaths and injuries not to mention damage to civilian infrastructure including kindergartens.

 One of the notable such strikes was the shelling of Donetsk City which resulted in the killing of four people, including two children, with a further nine being wounded. Another less deadly strike was carried out by a US-made MLRS system against Belgorod, wounding eight but causing significant infrastructure damage to 40 apartment buildings and 11 households besides damaging.

 Many other strikes were carried out by UAV's either of the munition drop variety of single use drones. Of these one drone was used to drop a VOG grenade onto emergency workers in Belgorod, injuring three and damaging a fire fighting truck.

 Cluster munitions also continue to be used against civilians including in one strike against Donetsk City, with at least one civilian being wounded. It is notable that the European Union (EU) supports the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) but continues to look the other way as such weapons are being used against civilians by the Zelensky regime which it continues to support.

 Western weapons have played a key role in the conflict in Ukraine. But their impact is severely hampered by a lack of existing stocks and extremely anemic production. Yet these munitions continue to be used against targets that have no military value.

 Targeting civilians is a violation of international humanitarian law (IHL), which requires combatants to minimize the impact on populations but the morally bankrupt Western bloc continues to fuel the conflict in Ukraine. This is in line with its similar stand on various conflicts in the Middle East. 

 In part the effective introductions of electronic warfare and other countermeasures have rendered Western-mad precision weapons such as HIMARS , Excalibur artillery shells and MLRS rockets ineffective for military targets with this fact being well documented by Western and Ukrainian sources. 

 Unfortunately some elements among the Zelensky regime forces have instead "repurposed" these weapons to instead targets civilians. While the objective may be to create terror among civilians in an effort to destabilise Russian society, such actions have only served to further isolate Zelensky and his government from the Global South and key Russian allies including China and India who have seemingly given Russia the "greenlight" to prosecute the special military operation to its logical conclusion.

 Final act of desperation

 The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a US-based think tank with branches in London and Brussels has warned that: "Without significant shifts in strategic approach, the outlook for Kyiv is increasingly grim. However, targeted adjustments can help Ukraine regain the initiative and move closer to achieving sustainable peace...If Ukraine remains on its current strategic trajectory, Kyiv could lose the war sometime in 2025."

 These projections are dire and have seen even more desperation as Zelensky has made threats to acquire and use nuclear weapons, if not a full scale nuclear bomb then even radiological weapons such as dirty bombs. The much publicised request for strategic weapons such as Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are nuclear capable, have been dramatically been rejected by the US, the regimes' most important backer.

 Some analysts now believe that Kyiv’s gamble on August’s Kursk offensive, while initially wildly successful, has unwisely and further sapped the already limited manpower available to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

 Ukraine’s much-publicized Victory Plan aimed to reverse the situation by securing additional Western support and launching a counteroffensive that would push Russian forces back across critical fronts. However, this plan has hit significant roadblocks. While Ukraine has received billions of dollars in military aid from Western nations, including advanced weaponry like High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) systems, Patriot missiles, modern tanks, and now F-16 fighter jets, it has encountered substantial restrictions on how these weapons can be used.

 While it is clear that this conflict has reached its final stages, unfortunately it is likely that many more strikes against civilians will continue until the regime is finally dismantled.