08/05/2026

The war in Ukraine has de facto turned into a “war of cities” and a “war of warehouses”, given the targets at which strikes are being carried out. The targeted destruction of the enemy’s resources continues. But given that both Ukraine and Russia have enough resources, 
the confrontation in this format can last quite a long time.

How to speed up this process? How to force the aggressor to make peace and sit down at the negotiating table? Ukrainian ballistics will play a big role in this. If, in response to attacks on Kyiv, ballistic missiles fly to Moscow and turn it into an “island”, cutting it off from all communications, this could lead to a repeat of the February Revolution in Russia in 1917. In addition, the coming winter could be much harder for Russians than for Ukrainians, for the same reason: due to successful strikes by Ukraine, Russia could plunge into “dark times.”

This forecast was voiced by military expert Vladislav Seleznyov in an exclusive interview with OBOZ.UA.

– Recent events indicate that the main goal of both the aggressor country and Ukraine has become the task of inflicting as much material damage as possible on the enemy, destroying its resources, which journalist Vitaly Portnikov also drew attention to. Do you see a fundamental difference between how the war looked a few months ago and how it looks now?

– A number of military experts call the current situation on the battlefield a “war of cities.” After all, the battlefield is not only a line of combat contact. In fact, the entire territory of Ukraine is a battlefield, and the entire European part of the Russian Federation is also a battlefield.

The Ukrainian army implements the concept of “middle strikes” and “deep strikes”, attacking enemy military facilities, military infrastructure, and the fuel and energy complex. Recently, marketplaces have been added to the list of these targets.

The Russian Federation, trying to destroy our military facilities, as well as infrastructure and military-industrial complex facilities of Ukraine, often misses and hits residential buildings, destroying our social infrastructure and killing civilians of our country. But, strictly speaking, this is not news, no matter how cynical it may sound. Putin is absolutely indifferent to the so-called collateral damage. For him, it is extremely important to achieve any result on the battlefield, in particular, through massive bombing of the territory of Ukraine using missiles and drones.

Has this helped Putin in four and a half years of full-scale war? The answer is obvious – no. The resilience of the Ukrainian army has not disappeared. We are demonstrating incredible results on the battlefield within the framework of strategic defense, literally grinding the enemy’s manpower, equipment and weapons.

Accordingly, if we analyze this situation and answer the question of whether the Russian military-political leadership will be able to radically change its approaches to war, if we continue to implement the concept of deep strikes and middle strikes, the answer will be negative. The Russian Federation has the resources, and the adaptability of the Russian population to difficulties allows Putin to conduct active combat operations for a fairly long time, even despite the serious deterioration of the situation, the situation of the majority of the Russian population.

In this sense, a completely logical question arises – does it make sense to use our rather limited resources to destroy the same Wildberries? Or, perhaps, to direct these funds to the destruction of the Russian defense-industrial complex, in particular those of its components on which the production of ballistic missiles or military facilities depends?

A year and a half ago, I was a supporter of the concept of destroying the military resources of the Russian Federation. But, as we can see, this element of strikes on enterprises – both the Russian defense-industrial complex, and oil refining, and oil storage, and logistics hubs – is yielding results, because all these processes directly affect the provision of resources to the units of the Russian army. We have repeatedly concluded that the enemy does not have enough resources, and the results of the actions of the occupation army on the battlefield are not as satisfactory as the Russian military-political leadership would like to see.

Therefore, the war of cities or the struggle to destroy the resources of the two opposing sides will continue, but it will not lead to cardinal changes on a strategic scale, because the resilience of the two countries that have faced each other in this confrontation is quite high .

We are supported by the civilized world, and the Russians, in addition to domestic reserves, also have serious logistical support from Tehran and Pyongyang. China is also looming on the horizon with its actions, ensuring the supply of dual-use products to Russia.

Therefore, I believe that this is definitely for a long time. Combat operations in the format of long-range strikes on both the territory of Ukraine and the territory of the Russian Federation will continue, and in this sense Vitaly Portnikov is absolutely right. Destruction that will not lead to large-scale changes directly on the battlefield, but will lead to the death of civilians, to the destruction of infrastructure, to the creation of quite serious problems, in particular, on the eve of the autumn-winter period, the heating season.

But Ukrainians already have a certain resilience – we have survived four very difficult winters, especially the winter of 2025-2026, while the Russians do not have such experience. With the exception of Belgorod, where there were local blockades. But who knows what unpleasant surprises await the residents of the European part of the Russian Federation in winter, because we have the resources, we have certain experiences in using various drone systems.

Fire Point claims that we will have our own ballistics any day now. But I have no illusions here. I believe that we should express our gratitude to Fire Point for the ballistics when these ballistics will be directly operational and will bring the results we are counting on, namely: the destruction of enemy military structures and military facilities.

– Thus, there is an escalation on both sides, the strike zone is expanding, now not only cities, but also warehouses are being chosen as targets. In fact, now this can be called a “warehouse war”. You predict that the war in this form can last a long time. How do you see the scenario of ending the war in the shortest possible time?

– Listening to your question, it occurred to me that it is quite possible that the Ukrainian side is thus demonstrating, first of all, its growing capabilities in delivering long-range and high-precision strikes, because we were not the first to start hitting marketplaces, key civilian logistics hubs and arteries of Russia. It was the Russians who first began to destroy our civilian infrastructure. Remember the strikes on the terminals of Novaya Poshta, on Rozetka, on large warehouses where food products and consumer goods were stored. Therefore, as they say, it was a mirror response – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In this regard, this scheme works very clearly.

This is quite painful for ordinary Russians, because they are used to reading and learning about the war from Internet forums or from TV screens. But when the war is here, outside the windows of their apartments, when a paid order is not delivered because the terminal through which the order is received simply burned down along with the order itself, it causes a certain tension. This will definitely not lead to any fatal consequences.

On the other hand, let’s recall the history of the Russian Empire. Problems with the supply of grain products to St. Petersburg in January-February 1917 led to large-scale social upheavals and protests, which later turned into the so-called bourgeois or February revolution, which, unfortunately, in turn, led to the October coup. That is, practically hunger riots, caused by serious discontent among the inhabitants of the then capital of the Russian Empire, led to such fatal changes that overthrew the power of the Romanov dynasty.

Will it be possible to overthrow Putin’s government this time as a result of certain negative social processes affecting the Russian people and population? I think it’s too early to talk about this yet, but here I want to draw attention to Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement – the war will end when we turn Moscow into “Moscow Island”. It is quite likely that the processes associated with the destruction of civilian logistics, fuel logistics, and commodity logistics around the Russian capital could lead to serious social upheavals that would sweep away Putin’s government. I would not completely reject this option.

Using the forces and means that we have, we have the ability to disperse them to a certain extent in such a way that the enemy does not have the opportunity to concentrate air defense assets in those areas that are of utmost priority to us.

Yes, the enemy can create serious multi-level air defense systems around important facilities of the Russian defense industry, but is it capable of protecting all key marketplaces, oil refineries, logistics hubs, and arteries? The question, as they say, remains open, because the enemy does not have so many air defense resources and systems – less than is needed to protect all important facilities in the European part of the Russian Federation.

Our designers are increasingly saying that in the near future we will receive weapons that can cover not 2-3 thousand, but more than 5-7 thousand, up to 10 thousand kilometers – President Zelenskyy also spoke about this – so I have bad news for the Russians. On the eve of the coming winter, pinpoint strikes that will create problems with stable energy supply, heat supply, communications, in particular, Internet connection, can plunge the Russians into very dark times if they are not ready for certain processes related to the peaceful track.

I think it is not for nothing that from time to time we hear from key participants in the negotiation process, both from the Ukrainian and American sides, that a window of opportunity for entering the negotiation process will appear from the end of November this year . It is quite possible that by this time Ukraine will inflict a number of large-scale and very painful blows for the Russian Federation in order to make it absolutely clear: if Moscow is not ready to advance the peace process, the Russians will have a difficult winter.