- May 24, 2026
- 5:59 pm
- World News
Russia is once again trying to sell its massive attacks on Ukraine as ‘retaliation.’ The formula is convenient: Moscow strikes with missiles and drones, then explains it as a supposed response to Ukrainian operations on Russian territory.
But there is one problem with this logic.
Russia itself started the war.
This is precisely what the Israeli military analyst Yigal Levin points out on May 24, 2026. In his assessment, the Kremlin behaves childishly: first, it unleashes a full-scale war, bombs Ukrainian cities for years, and then portrays itself as the aggrieved party when Ukraine begins systematically targeting Russian refineries, arsenals, headquarters, ports, ships, logistics hubs, and enterprises working for the war.
For the Israeli audience, this scheme is well recognizable. When an aggressor tries to be both the attacker and the victim, it is no longer military argumentation but a propaganda spectacle.
Moscow wants to call Ukraine’s response the ‘first strike.’
Russian rhetoric is built on substituting the sequence of events. The Kremlin talks about ‘retaliation’ as if Ukrainian strikes appeared on their own, without February 2022, without invasion, without occupation, without Mariupol, Bucha, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipro, Kyiv, Odesa, and hundreds of destroyed settlements.
But the war does not start from the moment the aggressor feels pain.
It began when the Russian army went into Ukraine.
Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory are not a separate new war and not an ‘attack on peaceful Russia,’ as they try to present it in Moscow. It is a continuation of the defense of a country that is being attempted to be destroyed. Kyiv targets objects related to the Russian military machine: oil refining, warehouses, port infrastructure, airfields, military enterprises, command posts, and logistics.
Levin formulates it very simply: if a state decides to bomb someone, it must be ready for the fact that it will also be bombed.
Infantilism as a style of war
The strangest thing about the Russian position is not the cynicism itself. Cynicism has long been the norm in Moscow.
The strangeness lies elsewhere: the Kremlin wants to maintain the right to impunity. That is, Russia can launch missiles at Ukraine, erase cities, destroy energy, attack residential areas, but at the same time declare every strike on a Russian refinery or arsenal as ‘terrorism’ and a reason for a new ‘response.’
This behavior is not of a mature state, but of a political teenager who started a fight, got hit back, and ran to complain.
Inside Russia, this scheme works because people have been sold a convenient picture for years: ‘we didn’t touch anyone,’ ‘we were forced,’ ‘this is a response,’ ‘we are being attacked.’ But the main frame is constantly cut out of this picture — the moment when Russia itself brought the war to Ukrainian soil.
Why Ukrainian strikes are not the same as Russian terror
The difference is visible in the targets.
Ukraine strikes at what helps Russia to wage war. At fuel for the army. At ammunition depots. At ships. At enterprises, logistics, headquarters, supply nodes. This is painful for Russia, but the military logic here is clear: deprive the aggressor of resources, slow down the front, disrupt supply chains, force the Kremlin to pay for continuing the war.
Russia acts differently.
It regularly strikes Ukrainian cities, residential buildings, energy, civilian areas, objects where ordinary people are under attack. Moscow may call these ‘military targets,’ but the consequences too often look the same: destroyed entrances, broken windows, burned apartments, dead families, wounded children, nights under sirens.
This is not symmetry.
These are fundamentally different models of war.
In the middle of this story, it is important not to let the Kremlin’s formula turn reality upside down. NANews — News of Israel Nikk.Agency considers the thesis of Russian ‘retaliatory strikes’ as an attempt to remove responsibility from the aggressor and shift it to the country that is defending itself.
Why Israel understands this dispute about targets
The Israeli society knows well that in war, the choice of targets matters. You cannot simply equate a strike on military infrastructure with an attack that turns civilian neighborhoods into a field of fear.
That is why Russian propaganda tries so hard to mix everything into one heap.
It needs the viewer to stop distinguishing cause and effect. So that a strike on a Russian refinery looks the same as a Russian missile on a Ukrainian home. So that the word ‘response’ sounds louder than the word ‘invasion.’
But the facts do not change because of this.
Russia attacked. Ukraine responds.
Further strikes on Russia will increase
Levin points out another important thing: the war develops along its own technological trajectory. Ukraine in 2022 had certain capabilities. In 2023 — already others. In 2024, the range, accuracy, and scale of strikes increased. In 2025, Russian infrastructure began to suffer even more painful defeats.
In 2026, this dynamic has not disappeared.
The longer the Kremlin continues the war, the more Ukraine develops long-range means, intelligence, drone production, and the ability to strike deep into Russian territory. This is not a ‘sudden escalation by Kyiv.’ This is a normal evolution of defense against a state that itself bet on a protracted war.
Moscow has long been striking Ukraine with almost everything it has.
But now Russians are increasingly seeing that the war has ceased to be a television picture from foreign cities. It comes to refineries, factories, warehouses, airfields, ports, and military objects inside Russia itself.
The main culprit is not Ukraine, but the Kremlin
Russian citizens can be told as much as they want about ‘Ukrainian aggression,’ but the cause-and-effect chain remains short.
If the Kremlin had not started a full-scale war, there would be no Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian objects.
If Russia had not destroyed Ukraine, Russian infrastructure would not be burning as part of the retaliatory military logic.
If Putin had not decided that he could redraw borders with impunity, Russians would not be living in a country where the war is gradually returning home.
And here Levin’s thought is especially important: Ukraine, even having the opportunity to deliver increasingly distant and heavy strikes, does not build its strategy as a mirror terror against the Russian civilian population. Kyiv has the technical capabilities to make the war even harsher, but the Ukrainian logic remains tied to the military infrastructure of the aggressor.
This is something for which Russians, if they can ever honestly look at what is happening, should be grateful to Ukraine.
Because Ukraine’s response could have been much scarier.
Why the word ‘retaliation’ does not save Moscow
The Kremlin tries to hide behind a beautiful word. ‘Retaliation’ sounds stronger than ‘another strike on a country we ourselves attacked.’ It is supposed to create a sense of moral right, although the aggressor has no such right.
You cannot first set your neighbor’s house on fire and then call his attempt to extinguish the fire an attack.
You cannot start a war and demand that the victim defend itself only in a way that is convenient for the attacker.
You cannot strike Ukrainian cities for years and be surprised that Russian military objects are no longer unreachable.
This is the main meaning of the Israeli analyst’s assessment: Russian ‘retaliatory strikes’ are not a military necessity, but an infantile attempt by Moscow to play the victim after its own aggression.
Russia started the war.
Ukraine responds.
And every new strike on Russian military infrastructure is not the beginning of the story, but the continuation of the war that the Kremlin itself brought to Ukraine.