The sirens rip you out of sleep at 2 a.m. They're followed by blasts in the distance, getting closer. Somewhere, an electrical transformer is burning with incandescent sparks. Somewhere else, an entire stairwell is gone.
By dawn, the list of casualties is gruesomely familiar: multiple homes, a clinic, perhaps a mother and a baby. All gone. Dead. Another night in Ukraine.
For the Russians, this is not inaccurate fire through the fog of war. It is a method. Deliberate.
International humanitarian law has a name for this method. Article 51(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1977) prohibits "acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population."
Terror, in other words. Terror against people, against their bodies and minds.
We at Euromaidan Press have decided to use that language in our coverage. From now on, when Russia's attacks meet this standard, Euromaidan Press will call them what they are: terrorist attacks or terror strikes.
This is not a branding exercise, nor an act of defamation. It is a clear-cut guideline, grounded in facts and international law.
Russia's pattern of behavior is stark, and it's right in front of us. In winter, Russia targeted Ukraine's power grid to deny civilians heat, water, and light, in an attempt to break their will.
Repeated nighttime attacks have torn through just about every kind of civilian target, including apartment blocks, kindergartens, and hospitals. Cluster munitions, and more recently, FPV attack drones, have been fired on city centers, against people walking their dogs.
Russia has been doing this since the very first phase of the war. In April 2022, they hit a Kramatorsk train station, killing at least 50. In October 2023, they dropped a missile on a Kharkiv Oblast cafe, where people were holding a wake for a soldier—59 died.
In July 2024, a Russian missile hit the toxicology department in Ukraine's largest children's hospital in Kyiv, killing two adults and injuring 32, including children with cancer. On 9 September in Yarova—a small village in Donetsk Oblast—a glide bomb struck elderly people waiting for their pensions, killing two dozen.
These are just examples. The attacks happen just about weekly. Sometimes they happen multiple times per week. The countrywide barrage on 10 October that killed a child in Zaporizhzhia, injured at least 16 people in Kyiv and other cities, and triggered power outages across multiple regions is only the latest.
These are not mistakes, but a deliberate, doctrinal practice designed to frighten the public and make everyday life impossible.
We are not alone in our decision. Democratic institutions have been shifting towards the same language. The European Parliament has said Russia "uses means of terrorism," but even this falls short of a legal distinction. We are describing acts that meet the standard set by international law.
We also have a clear line of restraint. We will use the terms "terrorist attack" or "terror strike" only to describe the pattern of repeated attacks on civilian targets with the clear, apparent purpose to spread terror or destroy vital infrastructure on which civilian lives depend.
This includes coordinated attacks against the energy grid in the winter, repeated night strikes on residences, and deliberate or indiscriminate targeting of public civilian areas.
Words in wartime must be exact, not anesthetic. We owe that clarity to our readers, and we owe that accuracy to the victims.
