Back down to earth: how Ukraine is using – and squandering – its summer window of opportunity on the battlefield
In April 2026, Ukrainska Pravda learned by chance that one of Ukraine's most capable defence forces corps, the Azov Corps, had received a batch of Hornet drones.
At the time, these drones were so new and little-known that even Google seemed to have no information about them. We cautiously asked one of our sources from the same corps to confirm the name.
He explained that they were lightweight American-made drones developed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt that would enable Ukraine's defence forces to strike Russian targets deep behind the front line. According to the source, the drones were a potential game changer for Ukraine, and Schmidt needed a real battlefield to test his new systems.
"Schmidt brought us his Hornets and Bumblebees so they could be trained [in target acquisition and so on – ed.]," a source from a unit that has been using mid-range (known as "middle-strike") drones for some time told Ukrainska Pravda.
At the time of that conversation, the "deep rear" for the Ukrainian military – or, more specifically, for regular frontline brigades and smaller drone units rather than specialised formations – meant targets 20, 30 or 40 km behind the line of contact. For many units, even those distances were beyond reach.
When footage of Hornet strikes began appearing regularly in the news, however, it became clear that these same frontline units had expanded the meaning of "deep rear" to targets that were 100-150 km away.
That's roughly the distance between Kyiv and Zhytomyr – except that it's not being covered by a car, but by a drone carrying a 3-5kg warhead.
The Azov Corps has used Hornets to strike targets in Donetsk and Mariupol. More importantly, it has reached a large part of the road network across occupied Donetsk Oblast that Russia relies on to move troops and supplies. Until recently, those routes had been almost completely safe.
At the same time, as the era of middle-strike drones dawned, a series of positive news stories began to emerge: reports that Ukraine had regained the initiative in some sectors of the front, that Russia's offensive had slowed, and, of course, Ukraine's successful long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries. The overall message was that the situation was improving and that Ukraine was finally regaining the "cards" Donald Trump had previously suggested it didn't have.
Prompted by this optimism, Ukrainska Pravda spoke to military personnel at various levels to ask how this apparent improvement looked from their perspective. The response, particularly from infantry commanders fighting on the line of contact, was that there was little sign of Ukraine seizing the initiative. Nor, they said, has the impact of middle-strikes been strongly felt there yet either.
"I don't know where we've seized the initiative," an officer from one corps deployed to Donetsk Oblast told Ukrainska Pravda. "On some fronts there's just been a lull in the f**kers' activity, but it'll pick up again sooner or later. On the Sloviansk front, the Russian offensive hasn't let up since the fall of Siversk [in December 2025]. The brigades holding the line around Kostiantynivka are exhausted. The best we can do is use drone operators to keep up the pressure on the f**kers. That's about it."
"There's no sign of us having the initiative around Huliaipole either, especially after the enemy brought in fresh forces," added another source, who operates in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Even so, a real opportunity has emerged to inflict as much damage as possible on the Russian military over the next three to four months. It's an opportunity that must be used to the fullest.
In this article, we explain how Ukraine's defence forces gained that opportunity – and why they now risk wasting it.
How the Defence Ministry encouraged the military to shift to mid-range drones
Middle-strike drones – one-way attack drones with a range of 30-200 km – are not a revolutionary capability for Ukraine's military. Ukraine's intelligence agencies, including Defence Intelligence of Ukraine and the Alpha special unit of the Security Service of Ukraine, as well as units of the Unmanned Systems Forces, have been carrying out such strikes for several years, including with Hornet drones. According to Ukrainska Pravda, there were at least 365 successful strikes in 2025 alone.
What is new is that part of this capability has been brought down from elite intelligence and specialised drone units to corps-level UAV battalions, meaning that it can be deployed on a much larger scale. In other words, manufacturers have begun rapidly scaling up their production of middle-strike drones.
The Defence Ministry told Ukrainska Pravda that between the beginning of 2026 and the end of June, there was an almost thirteenfold increase in the number of successful drone strikes at ranges of over 20 km, measured using the military's eScore performance metric. At ranges of 50 km+, the increase was 44-fold.
How did this happen? With all due respect to Eric Schmidt, he was not the key figure in this story. It was the initiative shown by Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov's team, Russia's loss of access to the Starlink system (which, among other things, enabled Ukraine to use more communication channels), and the military's demand for an affordable mid-range capability.
"For a long time we tried to prove that we lacked powerful tactical-level strike capabilities," Perun, commander of the 1st Separate Assault Regiment, told Ukrainska Pravda. "The Russians, for example, have guided aerial bombs. We argued that drones such as Fire Points and Behemoths should be deployed at the tactical level. In the first two weeks of operating these middle-strike drones, we destroyed more than 100 pieces of equipment at distances of 60-150 km."
A year ago, when Fedorov was still Minister of Digital Transformation, his team presented the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with a proposal to introduce a new class of inexpensive drones capable of striking targets more than 30 km behind the line of contact.
At the time, Russian troops operating at that sort of distance from the front line could feel almost completely safe – as Ukrainian soldiers put it, they could "step outside for a cigarette". A sustained wave of Ukrainian drone strikes would at least force them to stay alert, and at best would reduce the pressure on Ukrainian infantry positions at the front.
The presentation was titled "Tactical Edge", and Ukrainska Pravda understands that it was well received by the General Staff. But the idea got bogged down in bureaucracy. It was seen as something new, unfamiliar and unstable that required further consideration before any decisions could be made.
Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, an adviser to the defence minister, explained to Ukrainska Pravda: "Middle-strike drones weren't a priority before. We were totally focused on long-range ('deep-strike') drones because we needed an answer to Russia's Shaheds. Now we can pay attention to middle-strike drones as well."
"We definitely had other priorities before," added another source whose unit has been operating middle-strike drones for several years.
The idea of widely available mid-range drones was finally approved only in January 2026, after Fedorov became defence minister. It was about then that the Ministry of Defence began placing its first orders for Darts – Ukrainian-made lightweight drones with a range of 50-70 km that carry a 4kg warhead.
Sources familiar with cooperation between the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff told Ukrainska Pravda that the military's decision-making cycle is too slow. This doesn't just apply to drones, but also to procurement of ground robotic systems, the transition to longer-range artillery ammunition as engagement zones expand, and other issues.
Decisions that could reasonably be taken within a month or two often take the commander-in-chief and the General Staff nearly a year.
That's far too long. Ukraine cannot afford such delays.
The technological dimension of the war is built around a constant race: one side develops a new capability and exploits it for as long as possible before the other side devises an effective countermeasure. The period up until that response emerges has to be exploited to maximum advantage.
After moving to the Defence Ministry, Fedorov's team made affordable mid-range drones one of its top priorities. Its goal is to dominate the "lower airspace" at depths of 50-70 km and disrupt Russian logistics as much as possible within that zone.
It's an ambitious objective, but also a necessary one. As President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly argued, the Russia-Ukraine war has increasingly moved from the ground to the skies, and this phase of the war may prove decisive.
Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst at the Come Back Alive Foundation, describes Ukraine's effort to seize the initiative in this lower airspace – through middle-strike drones, interceptor drones and other systems – as an "intuitive response" to Russia's military strategy, which relies heavily on manpower.
To put that strategy into practice, the Ministry of Defence has taken three steps.
1. Ukrainska Pravda understands that the Ministry has launched a competitive tender to procure over 100,000 middle-strike drones by the end of this year.
The aim is not only to supply the armed forces with these drones, but also to speed up the expansion of Ukraine's domestic drone industry. At present, the defence forces are constrained primarily by limited production capacity. As noted above, this process could have been started a year earlier.
"What we lack most now are manufacturers," one officer responsible for purchasing middle-strike drones for his unit told Ukrainska Pravda.
Most of the planned procurement – more than 100,000 drones – will consist of relatively inexpensive systems costing up to a few thousand US dollars, with ranges of 50-70 km. Their primary mission will be to destroy Russian logistics, including vehicles and fuel tankers. That means strikes on roads throughout the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as well as Crimea, are expected to become significantly more frequent in the coming months.
Another portion of the order will be for heavier drones with ranges exceeding 200 km that are intended to strike Russian air defence systems, fortified positions and other high-value targets, including in occupied Crimea.
The final category will include lightweight bomber drones designed to maintain constant pressure on Russian forces close to the front line.
The five most widely used and relatively inexpensive middle-strike drones currently operating at ranges of 20, 50 and 70 km are Darts, Baton, Blyskavka, Hornet and Vendetta.
2. To bridge the gap until the procurement tender is completed – and to avoid wasting the current period in which Ukraine enjoys an advantage in middle-strike drones – the Ministry of Defence has reallocated several billion hryvnias within its existing budget and distributed the funds among 20 of the military's most effective UAV units. These units have been tasked with purchasing drones themselves and using them in combat over the coming months.
Ten of the units were selected by the Ministry of Defence and ten by the General Staff. They include regiments from the Drone Line programme, UAV battalions within the 3rd and 7th Corps, and the 1st and 475th Separate Assault Regiments.
"Each unit received a few hundred million hryvnias," a source in the 7th Air Assault Corps participating in the programme told Ukrainska Pravda. "Our battalion, for example, is buying drones with various types of warheads that can strike targets up to 150 km away. Everything has to be done over the summer.
The Defence Ministry has put its money where its mouth is. It didn't just tell us to destroy 30,000 or 40,000 enemy targets [in fact the figure is 50,000 – ed.], but gave corps, battalions and regiments the resources to buy the systems we need. If everyone approaches this properly, we can impose a logistics lockdown on them [the Russians]," the serviceman added.
The Ministry is also relying heavily on Ukraine receiving a European loan that will reimburse this advance expenditure. If not, some previously planned budget items will have to be cut.
That makes the decision a risky one.
The leaders in terms of the number of successful mid-range strikes remain specialised units such as the SSU's Alpha unit, Nemesis, K-2, Lazar's Group and Magyar's Birds.
3. Alongside its domestic procurement programme, the Ministry of Defence also plans to contract over 100,000 additional drones through international military aid programmes. Combined with those procured from Ukrainian manufacturers, the total number of contracted drones is expected to exceed 200,000 by the end of 2026.
When the impact of middle-strike drones is expected to be felt on the battlefield
Since early May, units that have begun actively using mid-range strike drones have posted nearly a hundred videos of successful strikes. Pick-up trucks, fuel tankers, the Chonhar Bridge and Russian command posts in Donetsk Oblast have all been set ablaze or destroyed by Ukrainian drone attacks.
Yet when we ask "Can you feel the impact of middle-strike operations on the battlefield?", most of Ukrainska Pravda's sources – commanders and servicemen from the Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Oleksandrivka and Pokrovsk fronts – simply shrug.
"No effect at all. None," an officer from the 19th Corps operating near Kostiantynivka told Ukrainska Pravda.
"What middle-strikes? We're airborne troops. The only things we feel are Russian Molniya drones and FPVs," replied a reconnaissance serviceman from an Air Assault Forces brigade currently fighting on the Oleksandrivka front.
For now, the impact of mid-range strike operations is probably only noticeable to the units using them directly. As noted earlier, at the moment that means just 20 military units, not including the intelligence services.
One of those units, the 1st Separate Assault Regiment, says mid-range strike drones have finally enabled it to hit targets that its cyber intelligence teams had been tracking for a long time – from the vehicle used by a particular Russian commander to the apartment where he stays.
The regiment operates its middle-strike capability together with another assault regiment, the 475th Separate Assault Regiment, Code 9.2. In Ukraine's south, the two regiments have established a joint intelligence and decision-making centre responsible for cyber operations, the air domain, ground operations and maritime routes.
"For example, we know that two [Russian] fuel trucks or twelve soldiers in a Ural truck are heading to the brigade we're fighting against, so we send three Darts after them. They reach the target in a matter of minutes. In the end, only four of those twelve soldiers make it to their destination," Perun explained. "Or a drone operator is leaving his position to go on leave and messages his brothers-in-arms asking them to send him the location. We read those messages and strike that location."
Another source, from the 7th Air Assault Corps, which is taking part in the pilot programme, says that even for his unit the overall effect remains limited for now. It will be some time before Russian forces are unable to reach their positions or resupply them with ammunition and food.
"We can strike targets 100 km from our launch point, so we can hit Russian logistics heading towards Pokrovsk. But we still haven't managed to create shortages for the grouping stationed there," the serviceman told Ukrainska Pravda. "They've stockpiled plenty of supplies inside the city. If we keep working, though, shortages will eventually appear. The logic is simple: if they can't bring in generators, drones or ground robotic systems, it becomes harder for them to operate, and they'll stop wasting drones on routine missions."
The full impact of middle-strike operations by frontline units and the Unmanned Systems Forces is therefore likely to become apparent only towards late summer to early autumn.
Until then, Ukraine must continue strengthening its armed forces – from corps and brigade commanders to infantry, drone operators, electronic warfare specialists and logisticians. This applies to both equipment (particularly ground robotic systems) and manpower, as well as appointing capable and effective commanders to leadership positions.
The only source who immediately gave an unequivocally positive assessment of the impact of mid-range strikes serves in an intelligence agency that has been operating drones of this class for several years.
"We're not just disrupting logistics – we're doing much more than that," the source said. "In [the Russian-occupied part of] Zaporizhzhia Oblast, for example, there is now very little electricity because Ukraine's defence forces have destroyed a large number of transformers. Russian drone operators still need to charge their equipment, which means they need generators, and generators need fuel.
First of all, they already have fuel shortages because of the strikes on Russian oil refineries. Secondly, our attacks on logistics prevent fuel tankers from reaching them. So what happens? Some f**ker [Russian soldier] in Vasylivka is ordered to drive all the way to Rostov-on-Don, fill some jerrycans with fuel and bring them back in a civilian car so we won't strike it. But you can only fit so many jerrycans into a civilian vehicle."
According to this intelligence source, there has been noticeably less traffic on the roads in the Russian-occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts since Ukraine ramped up both its strikes on oil refineries and its use of middle-strike drones.
That is the relatively brighter future that Ukraine's defence forces are now aiming to achieve.
What's happening on the ground?
As Ukraine's defence forces try to create a window of opportunity using mid-range strike drones and long-range attacks inside Russia, the situation along the line of contact remains largely unchanged.
Statements suggesting that Ukraine has regained the initiative in some sectors of the front – or more accurately interpretations of statements by military commanders and politicians – are probably premature and over-egged. Seizing the strategic initiative implies launching sustained offensive operations, liberating territory, and forcing the Russians to fight on your terms.
That is not what is happening at present.
When Ukrainska Pravda asked Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst at the Come Back Alive Foundation, whether Ukraine had regained the initiative, he answered: "I would say that at present we are attempting to halt the deterioration on the battlefield that has continued since autumn 2023, when Russia seized the initiative. I wouldn't use phrases like 'seizing the initiative' or 'turning the tide' just yet. I'd put it more moderately: the situation has stopped getting worse.
We are trying to seize the initiative. There have been some counterattacks in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, further south, and in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast [referring to the Oleksandrivka front, which in practice mostly affects Donetsk Oblast]. But having said that, Russia is continuing its offensive in the east and is advancing in Donetsk Oblast, which means we do not fully control the initiative. Once again, our objectives are more modest for now: stabilising the front line and ensuring that Russia can't continue to advance, thereby strengthening Ukraine's negotiating position," Bielieskov added.
According to information obtained by Ukrainska Pravda from the Kramatorsk and Sloviansk fronts, between April and June Ukraine's defence forces were responding to Russian assaults rather than launching offensive operations of their own. And the number of daily Russian assaults has continued to rise.
"We're conducting an active defence with elements of counteroffensive action, but we have not seized the initiative," an Ukrainska Pravda source on the Kramatorsk and Sloviansk fronts said. "May was a month in which the Russians built up pressure, and early June was when they put that pressure into action. The enemy still decides where and when to attack, and with what forces."
In addition, Ukrainska Pravda understands that the commander-in-chief's claims that Ukraine's defence forces have "liberated more territory than they had lost" do not account for the grey zone – the contested area between the two sides, which is extremely difficult to measure accurately. Given the constant infiltration of Russian troops, these grey zones are extensive.
As far as Ukrainska Pravda is aware, there are only two fronts where Ukraine's defence forces are conducting offensive operations (with varying levels of intensity): Oleksandrivka and Lyman.
Everywhere else – from Sumy Oblast to Kherson Oblast – Ukrainian forces remain on the defensive, carrying out local counterattacks and deploying assault regiments to contain Russian breakthroughs, such as the recent cross-border incursion into Kharkiv Oblast and the Russian entry into Kozacha Lopan previously reported by Ukrainska Pravda.
As for Ukraine's offensive operations, the second phase of the Oleksandrivka offensive has so far failed to achieve the desired results, Ukrainska Pravda understands. After advancing roughly 10 km into Russian positions, airborne and assault troops encountered heavy resistance and their advance slowed significantly. That's why Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi announced following one of his recent visits to the area that he has "adjusted the plans" for Ukrainian operations there.
Despite Ukraine's significant progress in expanding its drone capabilities – including the use of non-standard radio frequencies and an increase in the number of drone crews – Russia still has a numerical advantage in terms of fibre-optic FPV drones and Molniya drones.
One Ukrainian assault group that had been mopping up infiltrating Russian troops from the Oleksandrivka front told Ukrainska Pravda that it came under attack from 12 Molniya drones in just 30 minutes.
Ukrainska Pravda understands that the hottest sectors of the front are currently Sloviansk, Kostiantynivka, Pokrovsk – or, more precisely, the Dobropillia front – and Huliaipole. Given the similarities with last summer's events, Kostiantynivka deserves particular attention.
Despite the challenging situation and Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin's claims that the city has been captured, Ukrainska Pravda sources say Kostiantynivka is not encircled. One officer from the 19th Corps responsible for the city's defence even admitted to Ukrainska Pravda that he had "bet a case of cognac" on the outcome. In his view, Ukraine will retain control of Kostiantynivka all through 2026 because Russia simply lacks the forces required to capture it.
However, by early July, according to Ukrainska Pravda's information, up to 130 Russian soldiers had infiltrated the city. The main entry points are Illinivka from the west and the forest belts near Novodmytrivka and Stupochky from the east. Russian soldiers infiltrate residential areas, change into civilian clothing and, after capturing radios from Ukrainian positions, relay information on the locations of Ukrainian pick-up trucks, armoured vehicles, generators and drone launch sites.
Their primary objective is to provide as much targeting information as possible to Russian forces in order to drive out the Ukrainian drone operators. Without drone crews – their "eyes" on the battlefield – infantry cannot survive.
"Everything happening in Kostiantynivka now is exactly what happened in Pokrovsk a year ago. My drone team stayed in the Shakhtarskyi district until the very end. We were told that mop-up operations were underway, but we could see how [ineffective] they were," a serviceman from the 5th Assault Brigade recalled.
"They're hunting our drone pilots. We can't even move them into the city because they simply can't work there. We value our infantry and we've increased their pay, but infantry without drone operators is nothing. Do you know how many pilots we've already lost in Kostiantynivka?" he added.
For the second time since Pokrovsk, Ukraine's defence forces appear to be facing the same problem. The Russians exploit the gaps between the positions of exhausted Ukrainian brigades, infiltrate cities (in this case Kostiantynivka), disperse through urban areas and wait for reinforcements.
As Ukrainska Pravda has previously reported, in the case of Pokrovsk, Russian forces did not need to launch a full-scale assault on the city or become bogged down in months of urban fighting, which would have required considerable resources. All they had to do was eliminate the Ukrainian drone teams' positions, move into the city, and wait.
"The same thing could happen here," the 5th Assault Brigade source warned.
According to an officer from the 19th Corps, Ukraine must seal off the Russian infiltration routes into Kostiantynivka and conduct a large-scale mop-up operation. That will require fresh forces.
In addition to the repetition of last year's mistakes, frontline brigades on the ground continue to face the same structural problems that existed at the beginning of the year.
There aren't enough new recruits, and the experienced soldiers are exhausted. There is an acute shortage of ground robotic systems, with long production queues. The ever-expanding kill zone means many soldiers now remain in frontline positions for 100-200 days. Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi's order to rotate infantry after 60 days appears to have been carried out inconsistently, if at all. Logistics routes remain limited, with few alternatives being developed. Senior positions are still occupied by officers who struggle to adapt and are reluctant to report the true situation to their superiors.
The growing number of workers exempted from mobilisation and the poor "quality" of many newly mobilised recruits are also placing additional strain on the armed forces.
None of these issues – particularly mobilisation and the return of AWOL soldiers – can be addressed by the Ministry of Defence alone. The commander-in-chief, General Staff, president, parliament and government must all work together to ensure Ukraine does not lose.
And above all, that it does not squander another really very brief window of opportunity.
Olha Kyrylenko, Ukrainska Pravda
Translated by Myroslava Zavadska
Edited by Teresa Pearce