Europe

Ukraine Vows to Bring the War to Moscow in 40-Day Blitz

What Happened

President Zelenskyy announced a 40-day operation intended to force Russia to the negotiating table via long-range drone strikes targeting energy infrastructure.

Why It Matters

The new operation leverages one of Ukraine’s military advantages in its mature deep-strike capability to target pressure points, namely the Russian energy economy, a logistically isolated Crimean Peninsula, and urban populations in Moscow and St. Petersburg who have hitherto been insulated from the worst effects of the war. The blitz holds out the prospect of seizing the short-term initiative when the long-term arc of attrition continues to favor Russia.

Though the operation now has a name, the trend of mounting Ukrainian long-range strikes is not new. Examples over the past two months include:

  • The Syrzan oil refinery was struck on May 21, marking the 11th drone attack on Russian oil refineries through to that point in May.
  • The Rosneft-owned Kuibyshev refinery was hit in a drone attack on June 10.
  • The Taneft-owned TANECO refinery along with a rubbers and plastics facility in the same industrial zone in Tatarstan were hit on June 12.
  • Multiple oil refineries were struck in Moscow from June 16-18. The attack involved 200 drones and unleashed billowing toxic clouds and oil rain across the capital.
  • The Lukoil-owned NORSI refinery, Russia’s fourth largest, was struck on June 25.
  • The Titan-Barricade artillery and missile plant in Volgograd was struck on June 27.
  • A month of drone strikes on critical energy infrastructure prompted authorities in the Crimean Peninsula to declare a state of emergency on June 26.

The 40-day blitz is new evidence of a profound and ongoing evolution in military affairs: quantity over quality, offense over defense. Ukraine’s R&D efforts have been laser focused on the drone frontier, such that Kyiv is now regarded as a potential critical defense partner for Europe. The FP-5 Flamingo is one of the fruits of these efforts; the missile is, in effect, a cost-efficient and scalable version of the US Tomahawk missile. The second part of the puzzle is Ukraine’s expanded industrial capacity for drone and missile production. Taken together, Kyiv gains the ability to strike at undefended soft targets deep in Russia and/or overwhelm the defenses of lightly protected ones.