The BBC has been granted exclusive access to a block of flats in Kyiv that recently played host to a Russian missile. Not that the missile was a polite guest. It arrived unannounced, declined the tea, and proceeded to redecorate the building with a distinctly Soviet disregard for load-bearing walls. Now British structural engineers, flown in on a wing and a prayer (and likely several hundred thousand pounds of taxpayers' money), are prodding the wounded concrete with all the solemnity of doctors examining a patient who has been through a blender.
The attack, which claimed multiple lives, has left the building looking like a giant had taken a bite out of it. Residents wander past in a daze, clutching plastic bags of salvaged belongings. One woman, Irina, told the BBC she had been in the bathroom when the missile hit. "I thought it was my husband snoring," she said, with the hollow laugh of someone who has seen too much. The engineers, meanwhile, are taking measurements and clucking their tongues. "This is not a quick fix," one of them opined, as if anyone had asked for a quick fix. They're probably billing by the hour for the privilege of stating the bleeding obvious.
The Kremlin, in its infinite wisdom, has dismissed the attack as a "high-precision strike on a military target." Perhaps they consider the elderly lady with the cat a military asset. Or maybe the flats were secretly housing a battalion of ninja florists. We shall never know. What we do know is that Putin's strategy seems to be a combination of grudge and goading, a policy of kicking over sandcastles and blaming the children for building them too close to his boots.
Back in the UK, the government has announced a new aid package, which will no doubt consist of several dozen thermal imaging cameras, a box of reinforced wheelbarrows, and a strongly worded letter. Meanwhile, the structural engineers will continue their work, providing expert analysis on the precise extent to which a building can be turned into swiss cheese before it weeps itself into oblivion. They may even issue a preliminary report, full of jargon and grimaced conclusions.
I propose we rename this conflict the "Special Banana Operation" after the Russian habit of slipping on their own imperial ambitions and landing face-first in a pile of international condemnation. But until then, the BBC will continue to broadcast from the rubble, reminding us that while buildings can be rebuilt, human lives are not so easily patched up. They require something harder to source in times of war: not replacement bricks, but a cessation of the lunatic ideological machinery that churns them into dust.
As for the structural engineers, they have become unwilling archaeologists of a modern catastrophe, layer by layer revealing the absurdity of a world where flat blocks are targets and gin is priced like gold in airport lounges. They will leave soon, their clipboards full of data. But the silence they leave behind will speak louder than any report.
