At the turn of 2026, Russia appeared to pose the greater mid-range threat. Its forces were striking Ukraine’s rear with drones at will, using satellite links, including Starlink, to bypass electronic warfare.
It had also increased its use of cheap Molniya medium-range strike drones, with varied control frequencies making them harder to jam and forcing Ukraine to look for new defenses.
Moscow’s advantage was disrupted after restrictions limited its use of satellite systems, but while that helped, it wasn’t enough. There remained a clear need for Ukraine to close the gap in mid-range capacity.
Since January, Kyiv has scaled up its mid-range strikes, with its drones now hitting Russian logistics nodes, supply routes, command posts, and units behind the frontline.
“One of our priorities for the coming months is middle strikes, that is, targeting the enemy at a depth of up to 120–150 km [about 75-90 miles],” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in April.
One strike in occupied Donetsk was reported to have used eight FP-2 drones against an FSB special forces command post, with Kyiv claiming significant enemy losses.
As both armies become more dependent on unmanned systems, drone crews are holding the front, a role traditionally associated with infantry, and the effort to supply and protect them is central to the fight. One Russian pro-war blogger warned Ukraine was pushing toward a “robot war.”
General Vasyl Syrotenko, commander of Ukraine’s army engineering units, says old distinctions between the line of contact, rear, and safe zones have largely disappeared because unmanned systems can reach them all. Mid-range capacity is part of a wider battlefield system in which life, death, movement, and logistics are all shaped by drones.
“The Ukrainian drone program is at an advanced stage, enabling thousands of daily strikes against Russian personnel and an increasing number of strikes against logistics behind the lines,” said Clément Molin, an independent open-source analyst. “This is obviously slowing the Russian advance.”
One reason for Kyiv’s success is accumulation. Ukrainian units have built up a wide range of loitering munition systems for the current campaign, said Dimko Zhluktenko, a surveillance drone team leader in 413 Unmanned Systems Regiment.
Connectivity is also a key enabler. Many Ukrainian drones now use satellite links, including Starlink, as either a primary or backup communication channel, allowing operators to assess strikes in real time, Zhluktenko said. Even the cheaper Ukrainian drones are fielding the technology.
“It allows a stable link to pilot directly into the target and obtain objective battle damage assessments,” he said. Relying on GPS alone, even with advanced antennas, is often ineffective where electronic interference is present.
Ukraine’s advantage in rapid adaptation is also vital, Zhluktenko added. Domestic manufacturers are closely tied to frontline units, enabling a fast cycle of measures and countermeasures while keeping costs low and scaling production.
Automated targeting is becoming more common, with Ukrainian systems such as the Hornet reportedly locking onto vehicles in the final phase of flight, helping them strike trucks and logistics targets even under intense jamming.
Russian military bloggers are taking notice. One wrote that Ukraine’s newer drones are creating serious logistical problems by operating day and night, resisting electronic warfare, and striking with little warning.
“If decisive action isn’t taken to counter the Hornets, in the next six months to a year, nearly all rear-line routes around major cities in the new territories, such as Donetsk and Luhansk, will be paralyzed,” another blogger wrote. “The cities will effectively be under siege.” As if to ram home the message, Ukraine released footage in May showing its drones “patrolling” over occupied Mariupol, more than 100 km behind Russian lines.
Ukrainian forces have been intensifying their mid-range strike campaign against Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) and military assets in occupied Ukraine since late December and have markedly increased the intensity and frequency of such strikes since March, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on May 9. A day earlier, Ukraine struck an air traffic control center in Southern Russia, causing widespread disruption.
Alongside the Hornet, a growing range of mid-range systems, including the Bulava, FP-2, RAM-2X, SETH, Darts, among others, are playing a decisive role.
Ukraine’s intermediate-range strikes are degrading Russia’s ability to mass forces and support frontline operations, said George Barros, Director of Innovation and Open Source Tradecraft at the ISW.
And expanding the drone “kill zone” deeper into the rear could make it far more difficult for Russian forces to sustain their current infiltration tactics, he added.
“There is no safe rear area for the occupiers,” Ukraine’s First Corps Azov said in a post on social media. “There is nowhere to hide and no way to protect themselves.”
The scale is also growing. According to Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, the country’s defense industry has the capacity to produce more than 8 million FPV drones a year. And Brigadier General Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, said in April that Ukrainian forces were using 30% more frontline strike drones than Russia.
“There are now twice as many strikes at distances of 20-plus km compared with March, and four times as many compared with February,” said Zelenskyy. “And there will be even more. This is a priority area.”
Russia entered the war heavily invested in offensive drones, but underdeveloped in interceptor systems — leaving it short as Ukraine scaled up production. Another big problem for Moscow is geography. Russia is vast and has been forced to spread its air defenses ever thinner as Ukraine’s concentration on destroying them bears fruit.
In 2024, Ukraine built its so-called drone wall as a defensive shield. In 2025, long-range strikes brought the war home to Russia and helped turn attacks on Russian oil infrastructure into a form of kinetic sanctions. This year, mid-range strikes are extending that drone wall into the offensive space, hitting Russia’s rear and enabling drone-led counterattacks.
“Ukraine is improving how it is doing strikes both in terms of quantity, and a qualitative change in how they are organized,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
And Ukraine’s technological edge continues to grow as it works to paralyze Moscow’s ability to mass forces, sustain logistics, and go back on the offensive.
No wonder Putin downscaled his victory parade.
David Kirichenko is a Ukrainian-American freelance journalist and a regular contributor to Europe’s Edge at CEPA. He is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
