Reflections on attacks in Ukraine and Myanmar
Soe Myint, Editor-in-Chief of Mizzima Media
One of the places that I visited on a recent media trip with other journalists and researchers of the Crimea Global 2026 to Ukraine was a shopping center in Kyiv which had been destroyed by a Russian attack. It was the Kvadrat Shopping Center in the central-western part of Kyiv city, completely destroyed by Russia using drones and missiles.
The officers from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SESU) explained to our group that as a result of that day attack on the city of Kyiv, a total of 144 residential buildings and 11 educational buildings in Kyiv were damaged.
Standing in front of the shattered shopping center and the nearby market, I could not avoid thinking about what happened last month in Myanmar’s Rakhine State where a market at a busy time was bombed by the Myanmar military junta.
On 28 September, the Myanmar military carried out an airstrike on the crowded “India Market” in Kyauktaw, Rakhine State. According to independent media outlets including Mizzima, at least 50 people were killed and dozens injured. Many were traders, shoppers, passers-by and workers; women and children were among the victims.
Ukraine and Myanmar are very different wars, but civilians in both countries are paying a terrible price when markets, homes, schools and other civilian places come under aerial attack. And Russia is involved in both.
Russia has for years supplied Myanmar’s military with fighter jets, drones and other weapons, and Russian-made aircraft and military systems remain an important part of the junta’s airpower. Russian support even comes down to helping maintain Myanmar equipment of war.
What I saw in Kyiv on my recent trip reminded me again why attacks on civilians must never become normal — whether in Ukraine or in Myanmar.
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