How will Putin respond to Ukraine’s Storm Shadow attack?

The air raid sirens sounded yesterday, the American embassy in Kyiv closed, as did the Italian and Greek. The British and French embassy warned nationals to take care and encouraged staff to work remotely. The Ukrainian air force warned residents of the city to seek shelter from an incoming massive air attack. And then nothing happened.

It’s not clear which is more embarrassing. That the Russians seem to have been able to perpetrate a nerve-jangling hoax, not least by circulating messages on social media and messaging apps seeming to come from HUR, Ukrainian military intelligence. These claimed that a ‘particularly massive’ airstrike was on the way involving more than 300 drones and also an equally imposing salvo of missiles launched simultaneously from land, air and sea. Or that at least part of the Ukrainian defence apparatus seems to have taken them at face value and amplified the hoax’s disruptive and alarming message.