War in Ukraine: Russia launches 57 airstrikes on Kyiv and Lviv as Ukraine

Sean, what do we know so far about this particular latest round of airstrikes? Yeah, good afternoon Simon. Yeah, this particular round from Russia was about 57 joint mixture of missiles and drones. As you say, range of targets from the city of Kiev, their explosion inside. Lviv across near you, it wasn't actually in the city of Lviv, it was actually in the surrounding area. Largely seem to be targeting critical national infrastructure, particularly around energy. Now Ukraine claims they've shot down the missiles, 18 of 29 and 25 of the 28 drones. But inevitably with that number, quite a lot got through and even those they shot down, the debris would have caused some damage on the ground. What's really interesting about this is the Russian strategy though. Last year and the year before, the Russians targeted the Ukrainian infrastructure just at the start of winter to try and make life as miserable as possible for the Ukrainians in their bitterly cold winter. We're seeing some of the evidence on Kiev, on the ground here from footage from Kiev. But actually at the moment, so why are they doing the attacks in March? It's the end of winter. What looks increasingly likely is Putin now feels emboldened. He's got another six-year mandate. He knows the West is not supplying the weapons that Ukraine needs, particularly the air defence missiles. So the more that Russia piles attacks onto the cities, the more it drains the air defence systems of Ukraine. And of course Russia also knows that its own defence industrial base is actually delivering a sustainable supply of missiles and they're getting them from Iran as well. So all of this I think is an absolutely measured attack by Russia, just ramping up pressure on Ukraine. And we're seeing those pictures of the missiles landing. Sean, Poland's armed forces say one of the Russian missiles actually passed through Polish airspace. How dangerous could that possibly be? Yeah, we hear reports that Poland has identified that one missile did pass through their airspace. And that's a NATO country, so that's incredibly dangerous. Now apparently it was only 39 seconds in the airspace, but really that's not the point. People expect these high-tech weapons to be 100% accurate. They're not. Often they can be 80 or 90%. If something goes wrong and they fall out of the sky, just imagine if that Russian missile had hit a Polish city and done some damage, the impact that would have had. Now this isn't the first time that Russian missiles have gone through NATO's airspace, admittedly fleetingly. I'm sure it won't be the last, but it just demonstrates the risks involved when Russia's prosecuting this campaign, particularly this close to NATO. OK, and looking on the other side as well now, there's been reports that Ukraine has been carrying out attacks on Crimea. What's the latest there? This is interesting because it does seem to be a sort of continued shift slightly in strategy. The Ukrainians claim that they have been attacking the Black Sea fleet even further, but down at the port of Sevastopol, just down near you down there, they claim they've hit two landing ships, also command and control set up, and also part of the Russian infrastructure. Now all the Russians have done is said that they've shot down 10 Ukrainian drones. That's what they do, and they haven't claimed any damage at all. But in the past, it's often been that they've actually caused a lot of damage. Again, why is Ukraine doing this? Almost certainly, they're on the back foot at the moment in the Donbass. Despite the weather, Russia is taking huge casualties, but they are moving forward on the battlefield. And there is a view that says, actually, if Ukraine lets them, just eases them back, forces Russian casualties, but focuses the attack on Crimea, it's not that Ukraine is going to be able to take Crimea, but if they put the port of Sevastopol under threat, because the Black Sea fleet now has been pushed to the east, it could be that Ukraine, with their drone attacks, with their missile attacks, and potentially amphibious attacks, could start to threaten Crimea. And if they were to do that, Crimea, particularly Sevastopol, is what the Westwoods call a centre of gravity. It's the one thing Putin will not want to lose. And there is just the potential that if Ukraine can put enough pressure on Crimea, it might change the calculus for President Putin as to what point he decides to negotiate, because he will not want to lose Crimea. Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. It's a huge sticking point for negotiations, isn't it? Absolutely.