DNIPRO, UKRAINE — On May 20, 2026, an Iskander ballistic missile slammed into a warehouse in Dnipro, an industrial town about 60 miles from the front line, killing two workers. For the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other U.N. agencies, Dnipro was a hub. The U.N. rented space in a warehouse. UNHCR alone kept about a million dollars in supplies — plywood to board up shattered windows, emergency hygiene kits for those burned out of their apartments, tarps, and other goods — in the facility. Five days later, another Iskander destroyed World Food Programme stocks in Dnipro.Visiting the still-smoldering warehouse housing UNHCR gear, two things became clear.First, the attack was no accident. While the Russian military sometimes uses the presence of nearby factories or industrial sites to excuse its targeting of apartment blocks and schools as collateral damage, there were no such sites around the warehouse. Indeed, the warehouse abutted a World War II monument and sat down the street from a couple of ramshackle shops. The U.N. shares the location of its facilities and storage with both the Russian and Ukrainian governments and does not co-locate its facilities with anything related to the military.
The UN secretary-general shows weakness in face of Russian attack
The United Nations secretary-general should condemn Russian attacks such as that which recently targeted a U.N. facility in Ukraine.
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