What did 11 October 2022 mean for Ukraine's security?

What did the security picture look like in Ukraine on 11 October 2022? It was a day shaped by the aftermath of mass missile strikes and by warnings of a possible new threat from the north.

The previous day, 10 October 2022, Russian forces had launched missile strikes on Kyiv, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Sumy, Dnipro, Lviv, Ternopil and Poltava. At least nineteen people were killed and hundreds more injured. On 11 October, Lviv suffered a major power outage after a Russian missile strike damaged what was described as critical infrastructure.

Warnings about Belarus

The other major development was in Belarus. As reported at the time, thousands of Russian troops entered the country by the trainload. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned G7 nations that Russia was planning another offensive against Kyiv, with direct Belarusian involvement. The troop movements came a day after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Ukraine of planning to attack his country.

The wider fallout

The strikes also had effects beyond Ukraine's borders. On 10 October 2022, Moldova confirmed that Russian Navy warships in the Black Sea had fired cruise missiles through its airspace to hit targets inside Ukraine. Moldovan authorities subsequently summoned the Russian ambassador to explain the violation.

The attacks followed another deadly strike on 9 October 2022, when a Russian missile attack on Zaporizhzhia killed at least 13 people and injured 89. The same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally accused Ukraine, and specifically the Security Service of Ukraine, of being behind the explosion on the Crimean Bridge. He called it an act of terrorism. The blast had killed three people and partially destroyed part of the bridge.

On 11 October 2022, Russia also added Meta Platforms, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to its list of terrorists and extremists. The stated reasons were that the company tolerated Russophobia and allowed calls to violence against Russians.

A day in context

Taken together, the reports from 11 October 2022 show a conflict extending in several directions at once. Missile fire reached western Ukraine, including Lviv. Russian troops were reported arriving in Belarus, and Kyiv's leadership was telling its partners to expect an offensive from that direction. Neighbouring Moldova was drawn in through the use of its airspace, and Moscow was escalating its measures against a foreign technology company.