Russia will be forced to stop when people in Moscow truly feel their country is at war

Alyona Getmanchuk

Alyona Getmanchuk is the Ukrainian ambassador to Nato

Published 20 May 2026

For some time, Ukraine has been trying to return the war to where it came from – back to Russia. But Ukraine’s recent successful strikes on Moscow demonstrate something even more important: Ukraine is mature enough to return the war to where it was planned and where it could be stopped. There is no sense of war in Russia until it is felt in Moscow.

The importance of these strikes should not be overlooked. In fact, if there is something that has the potential to become one of the most important game-changers in the war at its current stage, it is Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign in Russia, especially against Moscow.

What does Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign tell the world, and why is it so important to strengthen Ukrainian deep-strike capabilities?

First, nothing reveals Russian vulnerability more vividly than the inability to protect even what is allegedly the most protected place in the country – its capital. If someone had said a couple of years ago that Vladimir Putin would not be able to conduct his flagship parade on Red Square without de facto permission from Ukraine, it would probably have been perceived as a bad joke. Today, it is a reality that many people across the globe still have yet to fully grasp. And in fact, it is a humiliation for Putin.

Yes, Russian vulnerability should have been exposed much earlier, and Putin is not being humiliated for the first time. The very fact that Putin has failed to militarily occupy the Donbas region of Ukraine for more than 12 years – not 4 – and is now asking Donald Trump to hand it over through a diplomatic process should already be humiliating. But somehow Russia is still perceived as invincible, while in fact it is a fake superpower, and Ukraine’s involuntary mission is to finally show this to the world.

Second, for years Russia has been trying to convince everyone that the war is unwinnable for Ukraine. What Ukraine is doing through its deep strikes is making the war unwinnable for Russia. Ukraine is depriving Russia of the oil resources critical for sustaining the war by targeting oil refineries. Almost no major oil refinery in the European part of Russia has remained untouched by Ukrainian long-range drones and missiles. The plan is simple: to trigger a decline in oil refining capacity and limit Russia’s oil exports that fuel the Russian war machine. According to Bloomberg, oil refining in Russia fell to 4.69 million barrels/day – the lowest level since 2009. Ukraine is also preventing Russia from ramping up weapons production through successful strikes on its military-industrial complex and chemical plants. All these things should have been achieved through Western sanctions, but Ukrainian “long-range sanctions”, as President Zelensky rightly pointed out, have in many cases proven to be quicker and more effective.

Third, Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign should also be seen as part of Ukraine’s air defence efforts. Since last winter, Russia has significantly increased its use of drones and ballistic missiles. While Ukraine has become highly skilled at coping with drone threats – intercepting up to 90 per cent of them – when it comes to anti-ballistic protection, we rely entirely on our partners, first and foremost the United States. More than 90 per cent of all PAC-3 Patriot missiles currently reaching Ukraine are supplied through the PURL initiative. That is why we continue asking our European partners and Canada to increase their contributions to the initiative, because right now the main challenge is funding for weaponry, not the availability of weaponry for Ukraine. Ukraine has also started developing its own anti-ballistic interceptors and is inviting European partners to establish a European anti-ballistic coalition at the level of companies that already have relevant expertise in this field. But we should never forget that all air defence assets are merely painkillers, while we must strike the source of the pain itself. That is why it is always better to destroy a missile at the production plant than to intercept it over Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.

Fourth, Ukraine’s deep strikes say a great deal about Ukrainian defence technologies, innovation, and increasing self-sufficiency in long-range capabilities. The range of our deep strikes is increasing – up to 2,000 km now – and their efficiency is rising as well. The list of domestically produced systems is becoming sufficient for conducting the vast majority of deep and medium-range strikes using our own assets. But this is not only about the assets themselves. It is also about invaluable knowledge and expertise in how to make these strikes more effective – something that comes only through experience and through the scale of the challenges a country faces in modern warfare.

So if we are talking about Ukraine’s unique lessons learned that could be shared with our Nato partners, deep strikes should definitely be among them. And this is not only about the use of Ukrainian-made assets. It is also about the more effective use of the Western systems we received earlier, but in such limited quantities that we had to ensure every strike would be successful.

We will always be grateful to the UK and France for providing us with our first long-range capabilities, which proved highly effective – Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles. We will always be grateful to the United States for ATACMS missiles. As someone who advocated for them in Washington under the previous US administration, I know how difficult it was to secure that decision, even when it involved a limited number of systems and clear coordination on targeting. The unique knowledge and expertise Ukraine possesses today in this sphere, combined with increasingly cost-effective assets, places Ukraine in a position to significantly strengthen the deep-strike capabilities of more European Nato members and, in the future, potentially even replace some existing systems.

Fifth, there is probably nothing in Ukraine today that can more rapidly elevate public morale and help sustain it amid Russia’s continuous campaign of massive attacks than successful Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. Because people understand that Russia will be forced to stop the war and begin meaningful negotiations only when it is deprived of the resources necessary to continue it – and when people in Moscow truly feel that their country is at war, rather than conducting a localised “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Alyona Getmanchuk is the head of the Mission of Ukraine to Nato

Original article, complete with videos and copious illustrations here :

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/05/20/ukraine-our-plan-to-make-putins-war-unwinnable/

Comment from :

Malcolm Cleall-Hill

Ukraine is proof that self reliance is far more beneficial than relying of the likes of Europe or the USA. Britain and Starmer, should take note.

Paul Morley

Absolutely right. This war will not end until the Russian elite / middle class turn against Putin. They have been sheltered from the horrors conducted in their name for 12 years. It’s time they were awoken from their ignorance, painful as the consequences will be.