What do you know about the Russian double-tap strike strategy being used in Ukraine?

Russia has been accused of attacking Ukrainian cities since the first days of the war and those accusations have included more alarming indictments from Ukraine that suggest Moscow has purposefully used a double-tap strategy in some of its attacks. But what does this mean? Let's look at one recent attack.

On April 3rd, Russia attacked the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv with a swarm of drones but it was a strike unlike the others that the region had seen in preceding months. Moscow struck the city with a second attack just as rescue workers arrived to help the injured and wounded. 

Three rescue workers were killed in the assault according to a BBC News report at the time, which was less than the four who were killed and twenty wounded in a similar attack that happened only a few days later in another Ukrainian city on April 5th. 

Moscow attacked Zaporizhzhia with missiles and then fired two more at the city when its rescue workers arrived at the scene of the first strikes. This type of attack is known as a double-tap strike and Russia has allegedly used these types of strikes on Ukrainian targets for quite a while. 

The double-tap strike attack is exactly what it sounds like, a strike that includes at least two attacks separated by enough time to make the follow-up attack as fatal as possible according to The Kyiv Independent. 

The Kyiv Independent reported double-tap strikes are a war crime but Moscow has made extensive use of this military tactic in Ukraine. Reports indicate that Russian forces have been employing double-tap strikes against Ukrainian cities as early as March 2022.  

In April 2022, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) issued a report on Russian violations of humanitarian and international law, which referenced a Russian double-tap. strike on Kharkiv on March 1st, 2022. 

The report revealed Russia used a Kalibr-class cruise missile to strike the Kharkiv regional administration building. Roughly Five to seven minutes after rescue workers arrived at the scene of the missile strike, a second strike hit the building. 

While the attack on Kharkiv may have been one of the first recorded double-tap strikes in Ukraine, it wasn’t the last. Several cities and towns have been the victims of double-tap strikes from Odesa and Kharkiv to Zaporizhzhia and Pokrovsk. 

Russian forces had reportedly killed at least 90 Ukrainian emergency responders since that time and 350 had been wounded in its double-strike attacks since April 2022 according to one U.S. official. 

"In March and April alone, Russia’s iterative attacks hitting first responders killed nearly 30 rescue workers in Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia and wounded more than 20," the acting U.S. envoy to OSCE Tim Hanway wrote in a statement in April about Ukraine's double-tep strike casualty statistics in 2024.  

“International humanitarian law requires all parties to an armed conflict to distinguish between civilians and combatants and between civilian and military objectives,” Hanway added. “It prohibits deliberate or direct attacks against civilians and civilian objects.”

Hanway went on to note that Russia has violated international humanitarian law with its double-tap strikes and wrote Russia cannot be allowed to continue impunity. “Russia’s merciless campaign against Ukraine’s civilians must stop.”

However, Russia has only been increasing its double-tap strikes according to Oleksandr Khorunzhy, a spokesperson for Ukraine's State Emergencies Service DSNS, who talked about the tactics used with BBC News’ Vitaly Shevchenko. 

"Unfortunately, the tactic of double-tapping has been used increasingly often recently,” Khorunzhy said. “They know perfectly well what they're doing, and not just to rescuers, police officers, utility workers or medics. This affects ordinary civilians.”

"I can't wrap my head around this, it's just inhuman," Khorunzhy continued. "They see perfectly well that unarmed rescuers are the first to arrive at the sites of their attacks.” Unfortunately, the deadly attacks are likely to continue. 

The Kyiv Independent noted that Russian use of double-tap strikes may be linked to an attempt by Moscow to weaken Ukrainian morale after more than two years of full-scale war and as a means to further damage the country's critical infrastructure.