How Russia uses double-tap strikes in Ukraine, as it did in Syria

A fire engine is parked in the middle of a junction. The engine is humming. The blue flashing lights mean only one thing - there's trouble.

To find out where, you can trace the now-empty fire hose that snakes along the ground and disappears behind a five-storey Khrushchev-era apartment building.

7 August 2023, Pokrovsk. A Russian missile has hit a residential building on Tsentralna Street, which, as its name suggests, is located right in the centre of the city. The missile has pierced two floors.

"No injured people yet," a local police officer says as he switches on his body camera. We will be watching events through its lens.

Not only are there no casualties yet, there aren't many ordinary civilians at all, in contrast to the several dozen rescue workers and police officers who have turned up. The officer walks along the fire hose, picking his way through bricks and pieces of pipe.

He passes an ambulance and learns that there is at least one casualty, a woman, who hasn't been seen by the doctors yet. He walks over to her, crossing a children's playground, the bright orange swings standing out sharply against the grey of the surrounding buildings. Only now the playground is littered with bricks like shrapnel.

The elderly woman is lying on a fabric stretcher, with several men leaning over her. The police officer hands them a bandage and tourniquet from his backpack. They stop the bleeding, and the men lift up the edges of the stretcher and carry the wounded woman to the car.

It's a black off-road vehicle with police number plates. The officer lowers the back seat to make more room for the injured woman among the clutter in the back of the car. Together, they manage to squeeze her into the vehicle.

The police officer puts another injured person in the passenger seat - a man who has come outside in his boxer shorts and has cuts to his arms and legs.

Finally the officer slams all the doors and starts the engine. "F**k!" the wounded man shouts in despair. A moment later, it becomes clear why.

The policeman's body camera captures a sudden humming sound, followed by a bright flash of light and an explosion. Shards of glass swirl inside the car like snowflakes under a streetlight. The windscreen is covered with a thousand cracks.

The police officer drives off as fast as he can. His hand is covered in blood, leaving thick dark streaks on the steering wheel - it looks like venous bleeding. He'll reach the hospital in three and a half minutes.

The emergency room will already be full of people who were injured in the first missile hit. Casualties from the second one will start to arrive soon, and there will be more. The first missile that day killed two restaurant workers: a chef and the manager.

The second killed a sergeant in the Military Law Enforcement Service, two State Emergency Service employees and a gas service worker, in addition to three civilians. The Iskander missile attack on central Pokrovsk in August 2023 is considered a double-tap strike. This is the name given to attacks when the first strike is quickly followed by a secondary one targeting the emergency workers, medical personnel and other civilians who come to the rescue of those injured by the first one.

The aftermath of the Russian missile strikes on PokrovskPhoto: National Police of Ukraine

Russia's tactic of double-tap strikes in Ukraine is the subject of an investigation by Truth Hounds, an NGO that documents and investigates international crimes and significant human rights violations in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The investigation found that the Russians used this tactic in Syria and are increasing the number of these strikes exponentially in Ukraine. What changes in Russia have led to the more frequent use of double-tapping tactics on civilian targets in Ukraine? How did emergency workers in Syria attempt to cope with a similar challenge?

And why are such strikes becoming increasingly common? Find out in this article by Ukrainska Pravda.

Waiting for the second strike

Fifty-three-year-old Volodymyr Nikulin has seen a lot in his life. He witnessed banditry in Donetsk, where he lived until 2014.

He saw Russia's destruction of Mariupol, where he worked for the next 10 years. During the globally infamous Russian attack on the maternity hospital in March 2022, he met Oscar-winning reporter Mstyslav Chernov and later helped evacuate the journalist's team from the besieged city. During his 32 years as a police officer, Volodymyr encountered every possible aspect of life.

But he will never forget the double-tap strike on Pokrovsk, even if everything else fades from his memory. That Monday evening, he had just finished work and was getting into his car when he heard a sound all too familiar to him from the bombardment of Mariupol - an incoming missile. Then there was an explosion, and a thin plume of black smoke rose above the city.

Volodymyr started the engine and, guided by the smoke, he raced towards the centre of town to the site of the strike. Five minutes later he was there. Leaving his car behind, he ran to the epicentre of the explosion.

Many of his colleagues were already there. "I saw people dying before my eyes," Volodymyr recalls. "The first missile hit a residential building, and fragments of it fell on people nearby. There was a cafe called Corleone in Pokrovsk, and the manager had been just outside the building.

Large chunks of bricks fell on him from the fifth floor. One of the staff was trying to remove the heavy bricks from his chest. But I realised that the man was dying - he was in agony.

As a police officer, you see a lot during your life and service, but when someone dies right in front of you..." But Volodymyr had not come just to watch. He had to refer people to hospital, bandage up the injured, and keep residents of neighbouring buildings away from the scene of the attack.

He was well aware that a second missile strike might occur. But all he could do with that knowledge was try to work faster.

Volodymyr Nikulin: Even though you realise there may be a double-tap strike, you still try to help as many people as possiblePhoto from Volodymyr Nikulin's personal archive

The last person he managed to help was a civilian with concussion. Volodymyr handed him over to his colleagues, and a few seconds later he heard a whistling sound like the tyre of a car speeding along at high speed.

A missile! Volodymyr tried to do the impossible - to run and fall at the same time. Then came the explosion.

Everything around was covered in a black haze, the dust from the bricks and concrete was so thick. Although Volodymyr was injured, he got to his feet and, despite almost zero visibility, managed to walk to the next street, where he met a colleague who had a car. He made it to the emergency room.

Volodymyr kept one of the two large shrapnel fragments that the doctors extracted from him. He regards his injury (in the back) as symbolic, given that the second missile was like a "stab in the back" to first responders. "The Russians need double-tap strikes, first of all, to cover up the aftermath of the first strike," Volodymyr reflects. "Secondly, the police forces and the State Emergency Service are vital for the city, and when they are attacked, the city is left without help.

Plus equipment that is needed to rescue civilians is destroyed. The third factor is intimidation. Because if the population thinks no one is going to help them after the first strike, that is a very significant factor."

The Syrian experience of the "White Helmets"

Double-tap strikes are not a new strategy in 21st-century warfare.

They became common practice during the Syrian civil war, for example. The Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) counted 58 cases of double-tap strikes in eight years, from 2013 to 2021. A report by the SJAC showed that the number and intensity of double-tap strikes increased significantly after Russia entered the conflict in 2015.

The White Helmets NGO was formed in Syria in 2014. Its volunteers were often the first rescue workers to appear at the scene of the attack. Two hundred and thirty-eight White Helmets volunteers were killed during this time as a result of military attacks, mainly by the Assad and Russian regimes.

The reason why this number is so large is the double-tapping strategy. Abdulrahman Almawwas, Evidence Collection and Archive Manager at the White Helmets, told Ukrainska Pravda how volunteers learned how to work under double-tap strikes. "When there is an attack, a first response team consisting of two or four well-trained rescue workers arrives at the scene. They use a 4x4 pickup truck or a light vehicle.

These rescue workers have Urban Search and Rescue, fire containment and first aid skills. Their main tasks are assessing the extent of the damage and providing emergency care to victims. At the same time, they communicate with the rest of the team via walkie-talkies to pass on information about the situation and determine what vehicles or equipment are needed - for example, fire engines, water carriers, fast or light and heavy search and rescue equipment.

They also decide whether additional support is needed from the nearest centre." While the first group assesses the scale of the work, observers record whether drones or planes are heard nearby. Only if the skies are clear after a certain period of time is a second group of rescue workers sent to help the victims.

Almawwas, a mechanical engineer, has been with the White Helmets since its foundation. He says the organisation has rescued approximately 128,000 people over ten years.

Russia's double-tap strikes in Ukraine

The White Helmets are mentioned in this article for a reason. The organisation collaborated with the Truth Hounds researchers who set out to analyse Russia's use of the double-tapping strategy during its war against Ukraine.

Their research covers the period from February 2022 to 31 August 2024. During this time, Truth Hounds verified 36 cases of double-tap strikes in Ukraine. The first confirmed double-tap missile strike was carried out on 1 March 2022 at the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration building.

The first missile landed on the square in front of the building at 08:01, followed by a second one which struck the roof 12 minutes later. According to official data, 44 people were killed in the attack.

A man who directed Russian missiles towards the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration building in March 2022 was sentenced to life imprisonment in November 2023Photo: Oleh Syniehubov's Telegram channel

Truth Hounds report that Russia carried out at least six double-tap strikes on military and civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Vinnytsia oblasts in 2022. Missiles, artillery and Shahed-type drones were used for the attacks.

At least ten such strikes occurred in 2023, and their frequency and geography of application increased significantly in 2024. The team verified at least 20 such strikes from 1 January to 31 August 2024. The researchers took two criteria into account in their methodology: confirmation of the exact location of both strikes, and an interval of at least five minutes between the first and second strikes on the same area.

"An important sign for verification was the arrival of first responders at the scene," Roman Koval, Head of Research at Truth Hounds, told Ukrainska Pravda. In their work, the team conducted daily monitoring of open sources, documenting incidents that bore the hallmarks of double-tap strikes. Researchers then verified cases by studying the circumstances in detail, including carrying out investigations directly at the scene.

Koval says another factor that Truth Hounds considered was the reaction within Russia itself. For a long time the Russians avoided discussing double-tap strikes and specifying their methods of attack. However, starting in 2024, there has been a noticeable rise in the number of instances of well-known Russian milbloggers openly describing the nature of such attacks on their Telegram channels.

Verified Russian double-tap strikes on Ukraine (February 2022-31 August 2024)

"Their most prominent military Telegram channel, Rybar, commented on an attack on an oil depot in Vinnytsia Oblast in one of its posts," Koval recounts. "The channel admitted that Russian forces now calculate the arrival time of emergency workers and launch a second strike based on those calculations.

The post even boasted that 'such precision was something we could only dream of before'." Voennyy Osvyedomitel (Military Informant), another popular Russian Telegram channel, reported on 13 July 2024 about a strike on Budy, a village in Kharkiv Oblast, which killed the head of the Kharkiv District Department of Ukraine's State Emergency Service and several police officers. "After the enemy [i.e. the Ukrainians] had started responding to the aftermath of the initial strike, a second strike targeted employees of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Emergency Service," the Russian post stated.

The channel's authors had admitted that the strike was targeted at civilians. But they didn't stop there: they added that the incident was "not the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of double-tap strikes on locations dealing with the aftermath of primary hits".

"This is a marker of 'effectiveness' for them, which says a lot," Koval emphasises. "They equate the killing of emergency workers or police officers to that of soldiers, despite the fact that both emergency workers and police are protected civilians under international law." Under international law, State Emergency Service personnel are among the most vulnerable categories of civilians, alongside local residents and police officers.

Svitlana Vodolaha, head of the SES press service, told Ukrainska Pravda that since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, 99 first responders have been killed and approximately 400 injured. In particular, double-tap strikes claimed the lives of 10 first responders in 2022, 15 in 2023 and 9 so far in 2024. "The death toll is lower this year, but not because Russia is conducting fewer double-tap strikes - in fact, their frequency has significantly increased.

It's because we've implemented new safety protocols," Vodolaha explained to Ukrainska Pravda. She noted that Russian double-tap strikes have become far more ruthless and deliberate. "For instance, during firefighting operations, they use drones to identify the commanding officer and try to kill them with a second strike," Vodolaha said.

She stressed that the increase in double-tap strikes became apparent towards the end of 2024. As an example, Vodolaha cited a recent combined missile and drone attack that Russia conducted on 28 November. According to SES information, up to 80% of the targets struck by Russia that day were subjected to double-tap strikes.

Russian forces launched a double-tap strike on Cherkaska Lozova, a village in Kharkiv Oblast, on 19 May 2024.

Thirty people died either at the scene or later from their injuriesPhoto: National Police of Ukraine

Specific perpetrators and weapons used

Russia employs a wide range of weapons to execute double-tap strikes in Ukraine. As documented by Truth Hounds, these include Kalibr cruise missiles, Iskander cruise and ballistic missiles, artillery shells, multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), Shahed and FPV drones, S-300 air defence missiles and cluster munitions. Some of the perpetrators of these strikes are known by name.

Truth Hounds noted a surge in double-tap strikes coinciding with the appointment of Lieutenant General Dmitry Klimenko as the new commander of Russia's Missile Troops and Artillery in November 2023. Klimenko's military career spans both Chechen wars, and he was awarded the title of Hero of Russia in 2002. He is notably linked to the artillery shelling of Mariupol in January 2015, which claimed 29 lives.

"He also served as commander of Missile Troops and Artillery within the Euphrates group operating in Syria," explained Truth Hounds expert Roman Koval. Changes within the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Russian Defence Ministry also contributed to the rise in double-tap strikes. Major General Alexey Volkov was appointed as the new chief in January 2024.

Volkov was recently spotted as part of a Russian delegation led by the defence minister on a visit to North Korea, likely discussing the provision of new North Korean ballistic missiles for use in strikes on Ukraine. It is worth emphasising that since the end of 2022, decisions on, for instance, Iskander-K cruise missile launches have been made exclusively by the headquarters of the United Group of Russian Forces in Ukraine. This group includes the Zapad, Tsentr, Yug, Vostok and Dnepr (West, Centre, South, East and Dnipro) formations operating within Ukrainian territory.

The commander of the United Group of Russian Forces in Ukraine is Russian Army General Valery Gerasimov. *** Despite the statistics presented in the report, Roman Koval noted that not all the strikes that Truth Hounds investigated were included due to a lack of documentary evidence, particularly during the 2022-2023 period.

Around 70 cases that researchers were unable to verify also exhibit most of the characteristics of double-tap strikes, he said. Through their joint efforts, Truth Hounds and the White Helmets aim to draw the international community's attention to Russia's actions and to encourage Ukrainian law enforcement agencies to meticulously document these crimes. The organisations emphasise that the similarity of Russia's actions in Syria and Ukraine demonstrates that impunity for international crimes encourages Russia to repeat them, exposing civilians to increasing danger.

Read the full research on double-tap strikes here Yevhen Buderatskyi and Rustem Khalilov for Ukrainska Pravda Translation: Violetta Yurkiv, Yuliia Kravchenko and Tetiana Buchkovska

Edited by Teresa Pearce