Russia deploys new tactic as Ukrainian counter-offensive slowly makes gains

telegraph: The wreckage of the Reikartz hotel smouldered in the distance as a young woman surrounded by her children peered through her fingers at the destruction wrought by a Russian missile.

Moments later a second ballistic missile roared overhead, sending the group diving for cover before another explosion and fireball engulfed the building in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.

The Russian attack was what is known as a “double tap” strike, designed to target those drawn to an initial explosion. It was the second in a week, and also the latest to target a venue frequented by foreign aid workers and journalists.

A shift in tactics appears to have made restaurants and accommodation close to the front line common targets in Russia’s year-and-a-half-long assault on Ukraine.

It comes at a time when Vladimir Putin’s forces are slowly being forced back along the front lines by a Ukrainian counterattack deploying Western arms and training.

Russia is also suffering from embarrassing long-range strikes on command posts and ammunition dumps deep inside its own territory.

Most observers believe foreigners are not the primary targets of the latest Russian attacks.

Ukrainian soldiers, whether meeting senior officials or resting, often mix with journalists, aid workers and visiting politicians at the venues while wearing uniform.

Tanya Lokshina, associate director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch, said very few places can be considered safe from Russian aerial assaults.

“You’re supposed to use your common sense: if you see this cafe is popular with military personnel, you will try to avoid it - as long as you’re able to find an alternative,” she said.

“But having seen all those months that colossal number of indiscriminate strikes, attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure… The only conclusion is: No one is safe.”

After the recent strikes, Russia said it had targeted “foreign mercenary bases” rather than build-ups of Ukrainian troops.

There are some who believe Russia has begun to deliberately target foreigners mixing with uniformed soldiers in response to Ukraine’s successful long-range strikes.

The high-profile attacks on civilian targets are demonstrating to a domestic audience that Russia is responding to evolving threats, Alexander Lord, lead Europe-Eurasia analyst at Sibylline, said.

“Russian claims that the Reikartz hotel in Zaporizhzhia was a ‘foreign mercenary base’ likely indicates renewed Russian focus on deterring foreigners from deploying close to the front line in Ukraine,” he added.

Ukraine officials in Kyiv say Russia believes targeting foreigners will also convince Western governments to withdraw support or even pressure Ukraine into negotiating a sub-standard peace deal.

A rescue worker outside a supermarket destroyed in a night strike on Odesa - OLEKSANDR GIMANOV/AFP

Journalists covering Russian war crimes and aid workers offering humanitarian support have made themselves enemies of Moscow, a top adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told The Telegraph: “Every foreign journalist who covers war crimes or volunteers who help Ukrainians are an absolute enemy in the Russian imperial mindset.”

Many visiting foreigners opt to base themselves in the likes of Kramatorsk, Pokrovsk and Zaporizhzhia while working close to the front lines.

Staying further away and out of range of Russian attacks would significantly impact recording and monitoring what is happening in the war, and the civilian atrocities that often come with Russian attacks.

Security sources have been warning foreign workers about the growing dangers of going to hotels and restaurants along the front line cities and towns.

Anastasia Vlasova, a freelance photographer who has covered the Russo-Ukrainian war since 2014, said she had been told not to “hang out” in places liked the Ria Lounge, a pizzeria in Kramatorsk that was hit by a Russian cruise missile in June.

“But we kept coming back because there were so few places to meet with contacts there.”

After the strike, Ms Vlasova and her friends started circulating a list of likely targets, allegedly circulated by a Ukrainian government contact.

The list purportedly contained the name of the Druzhba, the hotel in Pokrovsk that was hit earlier this month.

Other popular coffee shops and petrol stations, where visiting soldiers and journalists queue up every day, could “totally be next”, the photographer added.

The tactic, which is designed to target rescuers responding to the first strike, has been a defining feature of Russian long-range attacks.

A firefighter battles a blaze after attacks in Odesa - Anadolu

The aftermath of a Russian military strike on shopping mall in Odesa - Reuters

Moscow’s force carried out dozens of illegal “double tap” strikes in Syria and has also used them in Ukraine.

“It’s a tactic that Russia is using to demoralise and break the will of the Ukrainian people,” Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister, told The Telegraph.

One woman died and 19 more were injured when two Iskander ballistic missiles crashed into the Reikartz hotel within half an hour of each other on the evening of August 10.

Her lifeless body was pictured covered in a blanket, with only her neatly manicured hands exposed for all to see.

Days earlier, two Iskander missiles struck a hotel and restaurants frequented by volunteers and journalists in the Donetsk region town of Pokrovsk.

Nine people were killed and 82 others injured in the strike on August 7.