# COMMENTARY: Zaporizhzhia Burns — Nine Wounded and the World's Indifference

> On the morning of June 26, 2026, Russia struck Zaporizhzhia with at least two ballistic missiles and several attack drones targeting residential and commercial neighborhoods of the city. The explosions rang out in two successive waves, preceded by an alert lasting more than two hours. The result, according to the progressive reports of Ivan Fedorov, head of the regional militar

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Commentary
- Published: 2026-06-28
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/commentaire-zaporijjia-brule-neuf-blesses-et-l-indifference-du-monde

## Key takeaways

- Russia struck Zaporizhzhia with at least two ballistic missiles and several drones, in two waves preceded by an alert of over two hours.
- Ivan Fedorov reported 9 women wounded, aged 21 to 86; later counts rose to 15 wounded, including one child.
- The author calls the two-wave tactic deliberate and a war crime, and says the targets were civilian.
- UA.News reported 887 attacks on 44 localities in the region that day, about one every 98 seconds.
- The author argues the city gets little media coverage and that cities like Zaporizhzhia receive weaker air defense than Kyiv.

## Introduction: June 26 in **Zaporizhzhia** — one more strike on a city that burns without end

### The June 26 attack in figures

On the morning of **June 26, 2026**, **Russia** struck **Zaporizhzhia** with at least two ballistic **missiles** and several attack **drones** targeting residential and commercial neighborhoods of the city. The explosions rang out in two successive waves, preceded by an alert lasting more than two hours. The result, according to the progressive reports of **Ivan Fedorov**, head of the regional military administration: **9 women wounded**, aged 21 to 86. An office building on fire. Damaged warehouses. Burned-out cars. Neighboring houses with their windows blown out. In total, according to **Pravda.com.ua** and the **Ukrainian Emergency Service**, the casualty count later rose to **15 wounded**, including one child.

Again, the modest figures. Again, the absence of major headlines in international media. Again, that unbearable trivialization of what remains, for each of these people, an absolute trauma.

### **Zaporizhzhia**: the city that keeps being forgotten

**Zaporizhzhia** is one of the most-struck Ukrainian cities in the war — and paradoxically one of the least covered by international media. **Kharkiv** draws attention through its proximity to the front. **Kyiv** is the symbolic capital. **Mariupol** received intense coverage during its siege. But Zaporizhzhia — a large industrial city in the southeast, an hour's drive from the **nuclear power plant** of the same name, now under occupation — endures regular strikes in a near-total media blackout.

This commentary is also a request: let us look at Zaporizhzhia. Not only when the power plant is frightening. Not only when a death toll is high enough to merit a television segment. Let us look at it as a city inhabited by human beings who are trying to live a normal life under **missiles** that have been falling for more than four years.

*There is a silent hierarchy in the media coverage of the war in **Ukraine**: symbolic cities on one side, cities suffering in the shadows on the other. Zaporizhzhia is in the second category. And this inequality of attention contributes to an inequality of international response that has real consequences in terms of **air defense**, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction.*

## The anatomy of the strike: two waves, civilian targets

### The double wave as a saturation tactic

The two-wave tactic is deliberate and documented. The first strike forces residents out of buildings and emergency services to deploy. The second strike, a few minutes later, targets those same responders and fleeing civilians. It is a method of combat that explicitly violates the Geneva Conventions on the protection of civilians and rescue personnel. It is used regularly by Russian forces in **Ukraine**.

On **June 26 in Zaporizhzhia**, the two waves struck a central residential neighborhood. The targets — office building, warehouses, parked vehicles — are not military objectives. They illustrate Russia's strategy of **civilian terror**: inflicting diffuse fear on the entire population, not just combatants. This strategy is a war crime.

### The victims: women aged 21 to 86

The precision of **Ivan Fedorov**'s report — nine women, aged 21 to 86 — says something important. There are no combatants among the wounded. There is no military objective among the targets struck. These are people who were in their neighborhood, in their offices, in their cars — like any morning in any city in the world. The 86-year-old woman is not collateral damage. She is the target.

The **Ukrainian Emergency Service** reports that **psychologists** assisted **28 people**, including **4 children**. That detail deserves attention: **Ukraine** has integrated immediate psychological care into its crisis protocols — because war traumas are not always visible in statistics of physical casualties, but they are real and lasting.

*An 86-year-old woman wounded by missile shrapnel in her own city. I want that image to stay, not to dissolve in the flow. She perhaps lived through the Second World War as a child, survived the USSR, saw Ukrainian independence. And in **2026**, at 86, she ends up in hospital because of Russian missiles. The story of her life is the story of her country.*

## Zaporizhzhia at permanent war: a damning toll

### 887 attacks in 24 hours across the region

To understand what the inhabitants of the Zaporizhzhia region endure, one must look at this figure reported by **UA.News** for the single day of **June 26, 2026**: Russian forces carried out **887 attacks against 44 localities** in the Zaporizhzhia region. **887 attacks in 24 hours**. That represents one strike every **98 seconds**, on average, across an entire region. One dead and ten wounded for that one day alone in the region.

These figures do not make front pages. They appear in daily Ukrainian military bulletins read by analysts and specialist journalists. The broader Western public is unaware of this intensity. And that ignorance has political consequences: it is harder to sustain mobilization of international support when the reality of the war remains abstract for the majority of citizens in allied countries.

### The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant: the sword of Damocles

The city of Zaporizhzhia shares its name with the largest **nuclear power plant** in **Europe** — currently under Russian occupation since March **2022**. This proximity adds a dimension of existential risk to every strike in the region. Shells falling near the power lines feeding the plant, fighting in the buffer zone, repeated attempts to cut the cooling water supply — all of this creates a nuclear risk that is never completely eliminated.

The **IAEA** has maintained inspectors on site since **2022**, publishes regular reports, and expresses permanent concern. The plant is currently in cold shutdown — its reactors are off. But shutdown reactors still require active cooling, and a prolonged power outage would remain dangerous. The war around Zaporizhzhia is never merely a local war.

*Every strike near Zaporizhzhia reminds me that this war has a latent nuclear dimension that everyone prefers not to look at squarely. The plant is in shutdown, true — but it remains a nuclear facility in an active war zone. I have no solution to propose. I simply flag the risk, because the silence around it disturbs me.*

## The city's infrastructure: what is destroyed and what is rebuilt

### A systematically targeted urban fabric

Russia's strategy at Zaporizhzhia — as in other Ukrainian cities — systematically targets the urban fabric that enables normal life: electrical grids, water facilities, markets, shopping centers, hospitals. Every destroyed piece of infrastructure forces residents to devote some of their energy to physical survival — finding water, heat, food — rather than living normally. It is a war against normality itself.

The **June 26** strike destroyed commercial warehouses and damaged residential buildings. Every destroyed warehouse represents lost jobs, inaccessible goods, disrupted supply chains. These economic effects accumulate over time to create distress that goes far beyond the immediate human casualty count.

### Resilience and its limits

Ukrainian emergency teams respond to strikes with remarkable efficiency. Within hours of the **June 26** strike, fires were under control, the wounded had been transported, and psychologists were on site. This responsiveness is not the product of chance — it is the result of four years of intensive training in repeatedly emergency situations. Ukrainian emergency services are among the most experienced in the world in crisis management under bombardment.

But resilience has its limits. Every strike that destroys buildings and breaks lives accumulates in a human and psychological toll that eventually weighs heavily. Rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress in Ukraine — in front-line cities like Zaporizhzhia — are among the highest ever measured in contemporary conflict zones. This is not an abstract figure. It is real suffering that will last long after the fighting ends.

*Ukrainian resilience is admirable — and exhausting. I think of the emergency teams responding to the 887th strike of a given day. At what point does human fatigue exceed training? At what point does the permanent absorption of trauma leave irreparable marks? These questions haunt me, and I cannot answer them.*

## The world's indifference: a diagnosis of moral fatigue

### The media attention cycle

The media world operates in cycles of attention. In 2022, every strike on a Ukrainian city made front pages. In 2023, the threshold was higher — it required significant casualties or spectacular images. In **2026**, a strike leaving 15 wounded in Zaporizhzhia often falls below the radar of international media, absorbed by other crises — the Middle East, US-China relations, elections in various countries. This is not malice on the part of journalists — it is the cruel mechanics of the attention economy.

To understand how problematic this drift is, one must look at what this indifference means in terms of political pressure. When publics tire, governments seek to reduce their commitments. When governments reduce their commitments, **Moscow** calculates it can hold out longer. When **Moscow** holds out longer, the strikes continue — and the cycle closes on itself.

### The responsibility of columnists and readers

That is why this commentary on Zaporizhzhia on **June 26, 2026** is also a plea for a form of editorial resistance to normalization. Continue covering the smaller strikes, the modest casualty tolls, the less-celebrated cities. Continue naming the victims. Continue reminding that behind every figure there are human beings whose lives were overturned by the decision of a man in the Kremlin.

This is not sentimentalism — it is politics. Attention is a strategic resource in this war as much as weapons. And the columnist who keeps looking when others have turned away performs an act, modest but real, of resistance to the forgetting that **Putin** seeks to cultivate.

*The world's indifference — I named it in this commentary's title. But I must be honest: I am part of that world. There are mornings when I read "Zaporizhzhia struck, 9 wounded" and move quickly to the next news item. This commentary is also my way of correcting myself. Of resisting my own moral fatigue.*

## What the international community can do — and does not do enough

### Zaporizhzhia's **air defense**: a secondary priority

The city of Zaporizhzhia is not as well protected as **Kyiv**. The capital concentrates the most modern air defense systems — **Patriot**, **NASAMS** — because its symbolic and political value is immense. Cities in the south and east, including Zaporizhzhia, must often make do with less capable systems. This is a reality that Ukrainian authorities acknowledge by constantly requesting more air defense systems.

The international community could change this reality. Additional air defense batteries — especially for southern and eastern cities — could significantly reduce the number of successful strikes. The technological and industrial infrastructure exists in the **West** to produce these systems at an accelerated pace. What is missing is the political decision to make it a priority.

### Humanitarian aid and parallel reconstruction

Zaporizhzhia needs not only air defense but also humanitarian aid and financing for the ongoing reconstruction of infrastructure. Organizations like the **Red Cross**, **UNHCR**, and dozens of NGOs work on the ground — insufficiently funded, insufficiently known to the broader public. Every euro or dollar invested in Zaporizhzhia's reconstruction during the war reduces the total cost of post-conflict reconstruction and signals to the local population that the world has not forgotten them.

This support for ongoing reconstruction is also a political message: Ukraine will not be abandoned halfway. That message has a morale effect that translates into resistance — and resistance translates into costs for the aggressor. The logic is circular, but it is real.

*Sometimes I wonder whether the debate over heavy weapons and tanks drowns out another equally important debate: that of air defense for the cities of the south and east that do not make headlines. An 86-year-old woman in Zaporizhzhia deserves a **Patriot** battery as much as a ministry in **Kyiv**. Is anyone in Brussels thinking about her?*

## The allies and the defense of Zaporizhzhia: a priority to reassess

### The geography of air defense inequality

The distribution of air defense systems in Ukraine follows a logic that is understandable but unjust: the best-performing resources protect the capital. **Kyiv** benefits from several **Patriot** batteries, **NASAMS** systems, and dense radar coverage. Cities in the south and east, including **Zaporizhzhia**, operate with fewer capabilities — Ukrainian **S-300** systems, German **Gepards**, transitional systems that intercept cruise missiles and **drones** but struggle more against ballistics.

This inequality is not Ukraine's fault — it is a resource constraint in a country attacked across its entire territory. But it is an inequality that the international community could reduce if it decided to make it a priority. Every successful ballistic strike on **Zaporizhzhia** is also a consequence of this decision — or non-decision — by the **West**.

### What the **EU** can concretely do for Zaporizhzhia

Several European countries have air defense capabilities that are not being used to their full potential — German **IRIS-T** systems, modernized French **Crotale** batteries, **Hawk** variants refurbished by Nordic countries. A coordinated **EU** effort to identify these underutilized capabilities and transfer them to the most exposed Ukrainian cities — including **Zaporizhzhia** — would be achievable within months. This is not a question of technology. It is a question of political will.

**Ukraine** has repeatedly requested a dedicated conference on air defense for secondary cities. The responses have been partial. **Zaporizhzhia** deserves better than partial responses — it deserves protection comparable to what capitals receive. Nine wounded women, including one aged 86, deserve what the minutes of international summits have not yet given them.

*The air defense policy for non-capital Ukrainian cities is one of the most scandalous blind spots of this conflict. We talk about tanks, long-range missiles, F-16s — and that is necessary. But meanwhile, 86-year-old women end up in hospital in Zaporizhzhia because nobody decided to send a **Patriot** there. That is a choice. And it is a shameful choice.*

## The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the risk no one wants to see

### The **IAEA** inside, war outside

A few dozen kilometers from the city of **Zaporizhzhia** stands the **nuclear power plant** of the same name — the largest in **Europe**, under Russian occupation since March 2022. Its six reactors are in shutdown, in cold cooling mode. **IAEA** inspectors have maintained a permanent presence on the site since 2022, publishing regular reports documenting risks and near-incidents. This presence is valuable. It is not sufficient.

On **June 26, 2026**, as **887 attacks** struck the **Zaporizhzhia** region within twenty-four hours, the plant found itself within range of those hostilities. Power lines feeding the cooling systems pass through areas close to the front. Interruptions have been documented on multiple occasions. Each time, backup generators have taken over. But every recourse to backup generators is a rehearsal of a scenario whose ending would be catastrophic if something went wrong.

### The international community facing civilian nuclear risk

The international community has primarily treated the nuclear risk at the **Zaporizhzhia** plant as a diplomatic problem — UN resolutions, calls for de-escalation, demands for demilitarization of the zone. None of these initiatives has produced a concrete result. The plant remains under Russian occupation. The war continues around it.

The only real protection for the plant would be a cessation of hostilities in its vicinity — a Russian withdrawal or a freeze on combat in the buffer zone. In the absence of this political solution, the **IAEA** works with what it has: courageous inspectors in a war zone, reports that nobody is obligated to act on. The **Zaporizhzhia** nuclear plant is this war's greatest sword of Damocles, and it remains suspended over the heads of all of Europe.

*I have no solution for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. That may be the most honest thing I can write in this commentary. I see the risk. I see the inability of international instruments to resolve it. And I find myself hoping that the backup generators will hold — one more time. That is a position of vertiginous fragility.*

## Conclusion: do not look away

### Zaporizhzhia should not be a distant symbol

This commentary ends with a simple request: do not look away. Every strike on **Zaporizhzhia** — whether it leaves **9** or **15** wounded, whether it burns a warehouse or an office building — deserves to be seen, named, transmitted. Not because every incident is in itself a global crisis. But because the accumulation of these incidents constitutes a reality that the world must keep in view in order to maintain the political pressure necessary to end this war.

**Putin** counts on forgetting. He counts on fatigue. He counts on the fact that the nth strike on a city whose name is difficult to pronounce will eventually provoke no reaction. That is his long-game strategy. And the only way to counter it is to keep watching, naming, reporting. Even the modest casualty counts. Especially the modest casualty counts.

### For the 15 wounded of June 26

For the **86-year-old woman**, for the **four children** who received psychological support that morning, for all the inhabitants of Zaporizhzhia who live under permanent threat — this commentary is also an act of solidarity. Modest. Textual. Insufficient. But real.

*Zaporizhzhia burns. Since 2022. In a near-indifference that this commentary has tried to name without fully correcting — because a text does not replace a Patriot battery, a political decision, a concrete international presence. But naming is a beginning. Not naming is complicity. I choose to name.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Euronews — Zaporizhzhia ablaze after Russian attack, at least 9 wounded — June 26, 2026](https://www.euronews.com/video/2026/06/26/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-ablaze-after-russian-missile-and-drone-attack-leaves-at-least-nine-hu)

- [UNN — Already 9 wounded in Zaporizhzhia after strike on civilian neighborhoods — June 26, 2026](https://unn.ua/en/news/already-9-injured-in-zaporizhzhia-after-russian-missile-and-drone-strike-on-civilian-neighborhoods)

- [Ukrainska Pravda — 15 wounded including one child in Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia — June 26, 2026](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/26/8041211/)

### Secondary sources

- [RBC-Ukraine — Russia strikes Zaporizhzhia with ballistic missile — June 26, 2026](https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/russia-strikes-ukraine-s-zaporizhzhia-with-1782469153.html)

- [UA.News — 887 attacks on 44 localities in the Zaporizhzhia region — June 26, 2026](https://ua.news/en/war-vs-rf/ppo-znishchila-3-balistichni-raketi-ta-174-droni-pid-chas-masovanoyi-ataki-rf)

- [UNN — New drone attack on Zaporizhzhia overnight — June 26, 2026](https://unn.ua/en/news/the-enemy-attacked-zaporizhzhia-with-a-drone-there-are-wounded-and-destruction)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/commentaire-zaporijjia-brule-neuf-blesses-et-l-indifference-du-monde