The night over Kyiv passed in waves. A dozen powerful explosions one after another, ballistic missiles on the capital, then the same scene in Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih and Kremenchuk. Ukrainian authorities confirmed casualties and damaged infrastructure. This was not a single strike but a combined missile and drone attack on several regions at once.

Kyiv's military administration reported that debris from intercepted targets fell in at least two city districts, Podilskyi and Shevchenkivskyi, onto the courtyard of a residential building and onto an educational institution. A fire broke out somewhere, but initial reports could not confirm whether it was a direct hit. The air-raid alert was lifted, then switched back on fifteen minutes later because new targets were incoming.

The figures from the other cities show the logic of the attack. Two ballistic missiles on Kryvyi Rih, an industrial facility damaged, two people injured. Kremenchuk in the Poltava region hit with Iskander-M missiles. Zaporizhzhia struck with a KN-23, three people injured. In Odesa, explosions after warnings that fast drones were coming in from the direction of the Black Sea. None of these cities is the front line, but all of them were targets that night.

What makes this attack different is that it was foretold. US intelligence assessments had warned beforehand that Russia was preparing a combined strike with ballistic and hypersonic missiles plus a large number of attack drones and decoys, designed to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences within 48 hours. The assessment came true almost on schedule. When a warning is that accurate, the question is not whether anyone knew, but what could be done with that knowledge.

The tactic is recognisable and it is not new. So many targets are thrown at once that the system has to choose what to intercept and what to let through. The decoys burn up the defence's missiles, and the real ones pass through the gap that opens. Efficient and coldly calculated, and the price is paid by the courtyard of a residential building in Podilskyi.

In the Balkans, news like this already has a habit of being read as distant noise. Another night, another list of cities, another count of the injured. But that is precisely the danger, because getting used to it is the first step towards indifference. How long does a war have to last before it stops being news?