hours after … retaliation

I press X for doubt. With a strict top-down command chain I don’t believe the response could come that fast. My conspiracy monkey brain thinks that’s the strike on Belgorod was to prevent that planned strike from Belgorod, a part of a long-going shelling, rather than the other way. They said they struck mil targets there, so maybe that was the point, and maybe they prevented some of the shelling of Kharkiv. If you turn it that way, it seems more sequential.

I don’t think that word means what you think it means… Just a heads up, Russia, it’s not called “retaliation” when you’re the assholes who struck first. You’re just being a whiny little bitch because Ukraine didn’t roll over and take your bullying.