The politics behind Putin’s missile strike on a Ukrainian children’s hospital

A Russian missile strike damaged Ukraine's preeminent pediatrics hospital on Monday, killing at least two people. Dozens of others were killed in other Russian strikes. While Russia denies the hospital was targeted, its geographic delineation from other buildings in Kyiv is significant. And Russia has a penchant for attacking hospitals , including those serving the most vulnerable.

Video of burning hospital rubble and of children forced to undergo cancer treatment on the street, their drips in place, isn't one you'd think that most leaders would think valuable. But President Vladimir Putin isn't like most leaders. He likely had two motives in carrying out this attack.

First, as a brutally petulant response to a recent incident in which Russian air defense forces shot down a Ukrainian missile over a Crimean beach, leading to the death of four Russian civilians. While the international community (at least those who haven't been paying attention to Russian tactics in Syria) is aghast that Russia would deliberately target children, this attack will play well with the harder Russian nationalist edges. This psychology is something American conservatives would do well to remember when they delude themselves that the Kremlin ultimately seeks a mutually beneficial partnership. It actually seeks nihilistic domination.

Putin's second likely rationale here is in signaling NATO as the alliance's leaders gather in Washington, D.C., this week — namely, signaling that Russia has a greater tolerance for escalation than does NATO and thus that NATO better stop supporting Ukraine. While this escalation narrative is mostly for show , Putin hopes it will weaken NATO resolve at the margins. Indeed, the timing of this attack may also be intended to test President Joe Biden's ability to handle Russian escalation even as he deals with the political fallout from the recent presidential debate.

Putin's problem is that this atrocity risks aggravating three of his key partners.

First up, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It's a bad look for Modi that he is visiting Moscow at present. Modi knows his Western partners want to see reduced Indian engagement with Putin, not continued close interaction. And while the Indian leader prizes his ability to maintain good relations with both the West and Russia, when Russian missiles are blowing children apart, it becomes far harder for Modi to achieve that balancing act.

Next, there's Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Orban is currently shuttling around the globe on what he pretends is a Ukraine peace effort. But Orban is really motivated by two other objectives.

First, he wants to cultivate popular domestic favor. Orban's supporters want a quick end to the war in Ukraine and the prime minister made successful political use of this sentiment in his party's recent European elections campaign. Facing a rising political challenge on the right from a former ally, Peter Magyar, Orban wants at least a pretense to show that he's delivering on his peace promises.

Second, Orban wants to please Xi. Having happily sacrificed Hungary's sovereignty at the Chinese Communist Party altar, Orban now wants to reinforce the Chinese leader's deeply insincere calls for peace between Ukraine and Russia. While Xi actually wants Putin to defeat Ukraine, he is also aware of growing European frustration over his support for Russia. With China escalating its military support for Russia, Putin's hospital antics pose new vulnerabilities for Beijing.

Orban hopes to shield Xi here. With Hungary now holding the rotating EU Council presidency, it has an additional means of lending political prominence and at least a veneer of EU credibility to Xi's false peace agenda. The problem for Putin is that where Orban is weak and deferential to him, Xi is the opposite. And Xi will be angry that Putin has chosen to so publicly and putridly undermine his careful narrative of European peace building.

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Putin surely knows all this. So why launch this attack anyway?

Probably because Putin's interest in presenting an image of resolution to the Russian people and to the West is the manifest priority. Sooner or later, however, Xi will learn that he'll have to pressure Putin to cut down on these kinds of antics. Either that or Putin will drag Xi's European diplomatic-trade agenda into the ditch.