17.08.2026
Over the past year, Ukraine has significantly scaled up its strikes on Russia, reaching completely new levels not only in quantity but also in quality. Oil refineries, enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, logistics, etc. are under attack literally every day. The geography of strikes is rapidly expanding, and the once rear Russian hinterland is no longer safe.
More details about this, as well as what the Russian Federation can expect in the near future, can be found in the new material of the joint project OBOZ.UA and the group “Information Resistance”.
Ukraine began launching its first strikes on Russian territory with a small number of drones back in 2022. But then these were isolated strikes at the tactical level and in the near rear area. The real breakthrough at that time was the strike on the Engels airfield, when a Tu-22M3 was hit 650 km from the border.
However, the first few raids over time not only created parity with Russian strikes in terms of quantity, but also significantly expanded the range of targets and increased their effectiveness.
Quantitative changes
Ukraine has never officially reported how many strike drones are launched per month or during a single operation – all information about this comes exclusively from the enemy. Of course, it is unwise to fully trust the published figures, because all Russian statistics are false, which has been confirmed repeatedly, but with their help, at least it is possible to correlate the data.
So, if in August 2024 the mark of a thousand raids was reached for the first time, then in July 2025 it was already about 3,000 raids per month.
In May 2026, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that 8,973 Ukrainian drones were shot down in a month, which, even for Russian statistics, was an absolute record for airstrikes. And given that the aggressor country’s Defense Ministry only indicates intercepted targets, it can be safely stated that in their information paradigm, there were over 9,000 airstrikes.
That is, from the summer of 2024 to the summer of 2026, the total increase in raids will be 9 times, without specifying a verified, reliable figure. It is already obvious that, in terms of quantitative scaling of the use of strike drones in the deep rear area, Ukraine is ahead of Russia.
But what about the effectiveness of the strikes? What targets can they hit, and how much has the pattern of strikes changed recently, as well as how the depth and geography of strikes have changed?
Hit range
Today, Ukrainian strike drones have a significantly longer range than the Iranian Shahed-136 and Shahed-238, which are produced in Russia. While Ukraine has significantly improved the range characteristics of its drones, the Russian ones have remained virtually unchanged: up to 2,200 km for the piston version and up to 1,000 km for the jet version.
But, as I described above, Ukrainian drone operators started with tactical-level strikes, and only in December 2022 did the Engels raid cover 650 km. However, at that time, not exclusively Ukrainian development was used, but the old Soviet Tu-141 “Strizh” UAV.
A real breakthrough can be considered 2025, when a Ukrainian drone first covered 2,000 km, reaching Ukhta (Komi Republic). In April 2026, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine began to indicate a flight range of 1,750 km for Ukrainian drones as standard when carrying out strikes.
In June 2026, Ukrainian drones regularly flew deeper than 2,000 km, and in July the 2,700 km mark was exceeded during a raid on Omsk.
A year ago, the Volga region was considered the deep Russian rear, but today, for Ukrainian drones, the concept of the deep Russian rear is more like Western Siberia. Although this phenomenon is also temporary. In addition, in August, a strike was already carried out on a facility in Tobolsk .
Given the rapid expansion of the capabilities of strike drones, it will not be a surprise if Ukrainian weapons of mass destruction by the end of 2026 will not only cover a distance of 3,000-3,500 km, but will also be able to reach remote regions at a distance of 4,000 km.
Targets of strikes
One of the first facilities to be subjected to massive, systemic attacks was oil refineries.
According to verified data, in the first half of 2026 alone, Russian refineries suffered at least 194 successful strikes/damages. Compared to the first half of 2025, this figure has increased 11 times!
The attacks on refineries have grown from isolated sabotage operations into a systemic and large-scale campaign against the entire Russian fuel system, which has already led to a fuel crisis within the country.
Russia’s oil exports are also suffering. In particular, exports of Russian petroleum products in July 2026 fell by 33.3% compared to June, and if compared to July 2025, the collapse was 54.7%!
The second most frequent and intense attacks in the summer of 2026 were the Wildberries hubs, which have been methodically destroyed since mid-July, causing multi-billion dollar losses not only to small, medium and large businesses in the Russian Federation, but also creating internal economic tension in the country, depriving the budget of revenues, and critically disrupting logistics, warehousing and supply of goods, including those intended for the Russian army.
https://t.me/uaobozrevatel/238256
By the end of July, Wildberries had lost over 10% of its warehouse capacity, and the same amount was damaged, but not completely destroyed. By the second half of August, the destroyed area of the company’s warehouse infrastructure already exceeded 30%, and the possible economic loss, according to a number of the most pessimistic estimates, could exceed 1 trillion rubles.
In parallel with the pressure on Russia’s energy, logistics, and economy, Ukrainian drones, as the geography of strikes expands, are also destroying the military-industrial complex of the aggressor country, striking military facilities. Moreover, there is a striking difference from previous years, because strikes are now not being carried out on individual manufacturing plants, but are gradually breaking up chains that supply the appropriate products for the final assembly of the product.
The effectiveness of strikes has increased not only due to quantitative and qualitative scaling, but also due to new tactics of influence that knock out of the overall production chain not the enterprise itself, but energy supply, fuel supplies, raw materials, logistics, warehouse infrastructure, and smaller enterprises that produce the necessary products for final assembly.
In addition to the military-industrial complex, regular strikes are carried out on airfields, port infrastructure, ammunition and fuel depots, and unique facilities such as space communication centers.
In total, over 32 effective strikes on military facilities and military-industrial complex enterprises in Russia were recorded in the first half of 2026. Among the most significant strikes: Alabuga, Tatarstan – the main manufacturer of Shahed-136, Tambov Gunpowder Plant, Ya. M. Sverdlov Plant, Krasnozavodsk Chemical Plant, “Energy” in Yeltsin, etc.
Conclusions
When Russia began its terror against Ukraine, it initially used missile weapons, which quickly began to wear out and were quite expensive and time-consuming to produce – compared to the terrorist needs of the ROV. This circumstance forced Russia to organize first the procurement and then the localization of the production of Iranian kamikaze drones.
But the aggressor country thus found itself limited in the technologies of the nomenclature used, and also gave Ukraine free rein to create its own swarm of drones – of various modifications, for various purposes, and with unlimited possibilities for improving characteristics.
Ukraine, which was not previously a leading country in the world in terms of designing and producing strike drones, has become the absolute leader and has even surpassed Russia, posing a serious threat to it not at the level of tactics of small cuts, but of painful, deep blows.
Scaling – quantitative and qualitative – does not stand still. The Russian command did not think that this game could be played by two people. This once again indicates the extremely low level of their planning for potential threats emanating from Ukraine.
Every act of terror, every action against Ukraine simply unties the Ukrainian side and gives it the full moral and legal right to inflict similar strikes in return. And judging by the dynamics of technological development, there is no limit to the expansion of these strikes in return.
Will Vladivostok ever see Ukrainian drones? It’s quite possible.
The mission of the Joint Operations Command is obvious: at some point, there should be no safe places on Russian territory that are inaccessible to Ukrainian strikes.
Two are dancing this tango.