It's still snap-and-slash time in Eastern Europe. 

The Russo-Ukraine War sure isn't showing any signs of winding down anytime soon. On Monday, a Russian jet-powered drone, a cruise missile in all but name, struck the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. This wasn't the only Russian attack that landed in Ukraine on Monday; Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky took to his X account to describe and condemn the attacks.

President Zelensky writes:

A Russian strike against the building of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. A rescue operation is underway: crews are putting out the fire and searching for people who may have been trapped inside. All services are deployed. Today in Kyiv, a pharmaceutical company and gas stations were also attacked; in Dnipro, a business center; and in other cities and regions, civilian facilities, businesses, and communications infrastructure were targeted as well. Sadly, people have been killed… My condolences to their families and loved ones. Russia will definitely face a response to this. And every one of Ukraine’s partners must see from this terror, from these strikes, that supporting Ukraine means truly supporting people’s lives – supporting the principle that terror must never be normalized, anywhere. Russia must be held accountable for all of this and face real consequences. I thank everyone who helps Ukraine!

It's hard to see this as a military target. The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine doesn't appear to be working on military research. Their stated areas of investigation are  "mathematics; computer science; mechanics and mechanical engineering; physics and astronomy; Earth sciences; materials science; energy and power technologies; nuclear physics and energy; chemistry; biochemistry, physiology and molecular biology; general biology; economics; history, philosophy and law; literature, linguistic and art studies."

Nuclear physics may be a concern, but there are plenty of American universities that have counterparts for all of these studies. It's hard to see why Russia chose this target, except to simply put more pressure on Kyiv to make a deal acceptable to President Putin - which would likely mean handing over much of eastern Ukraine.

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Russia has already hit civilian targets with drone strikes. Ukraine hasn't shied away from that tactic, either. This only seems to escalate; neither side is, at the moment, pushing hard to move the entrenched lines. Instead, they seem content to toss drones and missiles at each other, and they aren't limiting their attacks to military targets. Most notably, Ukraine has started targeting Russian diesel fuel refineries and storage facilities. That is, in one sense, a smart target; any modern army moves on diesel fuel, and every war, anytime, any place, is won or lost by logistics. It makes sense for each side to target the other's supply chain.

But a science academy?

Another observer on the scene reports people escaping out windows as the building burns.

The entire "civilians escaping a burning building after an attack" brings some uncomfortable reminders to Americans, who only recently observed the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This attack by Russia is nowhere near the scale of that attack, but like that attack, it seems to have been targeted on a purely civilian target.

This remains a developing story. Stay tuned.