The Year of the Middle Strikes: A Cheap Drone vs. an Expensive Air Defense
Over the course of a year, from spring 2025 to spring 2026, the Ukrainian side diverted attacks drones medium-range strikes from individual episodes into a system. According to the Atlantic Council, based on open source intelligence (OSINT), over the past twelve months, there have been at least 365 successful strikes at a depth of 50–250 km from the front line, and about half of these were carried out by Defense and radar. Let me clarify right away: this is a calculation based on open data, not confirmed by official sources, and therefore should only be partially trusted. While they provide honest estimates, the specific figures are almost always debatable.
Three echelons and a workhorse
A telling incident occurred in the Zaporizhzhia region: several cheap drones disabled a fuel train, temporarily disrupting the Crimean contingent's supply line from the mainland via the Kerch Bridge and road transport. Only a few drones were lost, but the downtime of an entire supply section lasted for days. Such incidents have become typical for the new practice, where outcomes are no longer left to chance.
Over the past two years, the Ukrainian side has transitioned from the haphazard use of UAVs to dividing strikes into three echelons: short-range (Front Strike, up to 20-30 km), medium-range (Middle Strike, 50-250 km), and deep (Deep Strike, hundreds and thousands of kilometers deep into Russia). The difference is not only in range, but also in the level of planning: targets for medium-range strikes are approved at the level above a separate brigade (that is, at the higher command, not at the unit itself) and are struck according to a pre-determined plan. The 50-250 km strip is the space from the front line to the regional center in the depths, where warehouses, headquarters, and air defense positions previously stood relatively quiet: the front artillery it doesn't reach there.
For this purpose, the enemy has launched the production of fixed-wing UAVs: long-range kamikaze drones that carry payloads to their targets. The Fire Point FP-2 has become the workhorse: a range of approximately 200 km and a warhead (charge) ranging from 50-60 kg in the standard version to 158 kg in the upgraded version. Next to it is the longer-range Begemot, with a range of approximately 300 km, plus a reconnaissance aircraft capable of targeting without satellite navigation. Many more names appear in Ukrainian reports, but behind all the names lies one common thread: a cheap, mass-produced aircraft with a payload of half a hundred kilograms and a range of two to three hundred kilometers.
Organizationally, the campaign is under the control of a complex network of structures. In 2024, the enemy established a separate branch of the armed forces – the Unmanned Systems Forces. They are responsible for drones in the air, on land, and at sea, while their dedicated unit, the 1st Unmanned Systems Forces Center, handles medium and deep strikes. Military intelligence (GUR), the Special Operations Forces, and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) are all involved. Each structure has its own focus: intelligence began in Crimea, the SBU focuses on warehouses and railways, and the Special Operations Forces focuses on command posts.
And here it is important not to be deceived by the loud word "doctrine". There is nothing new weapons The enemy didn't invent it: they merely brought order to the distribution of tasks and closed the gap between frontline artillery and rare long-range strikes with cheap, mass-produced weapons. The important conclusion for us is different: our operational rear was built according to the old norm of safe depth, beyond the range of barrel and rocket artillery. This norm ceased to apply, but warehouses and logistics continued to be located according to the old rule for some time.
The Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle Fire Point-2 (FP-2), which is a modernized version of the FP-1 model
Air Defense Hunting: Declared and Confirmed
SBU Head Malyuk claimed that 48% of all Russian Pantsir-S1 missiles have been destroyed since January 2025, while other Ukrainian reports indicate that over 500 air defense systems were destroyed during the four most active months of the campaign. These are impressive figures, and therefore require verification; they have not been confirmed by official sources. The independent Oryx catalog, which only includes verified photos and videos, records approximately 35 destroyed Pantsir missiles. The discrepancy is an order of magnitude.
Part of the gap can be explained by the methodology: Oryx deliberately calculates fewer than the actual number because not everything is captured on camera. But enemy reports also confuse damaged with destroyed, using the "reported = destroyed" principle. "48% of the fleet" on air and 35 vehicles in a confirmed sighting are two very different statements, and the latter is closer to reality.
Despite all this, a qualitative shift cannot be denied, and it can be observed from various angles. According to the Atlantic Council, about half of the medium-range strikes were carried out by anti-aircraft missiles. missile SAM systems, radars, and launchers. The choice is sensible: by thinning the air defenses at operational depth, the enemy opens corridors for deep strikes further into the rear. The tempo also increased: from one or two operations per week in the spring of 2025 to approximately one strike per day by the end of the period. According to open sources, not only the relatively light Tor and Buk missiles are being targeted, but also, occasionally, the heavier, more expensive S-300, indicating the enemy's growing capabilities. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command, along with Western analysts, notes a growing shortage of anti-drone missiles: every cheap drone requires expending an expensive standard munition, and stockpiles are depleting faster than they can be replenished.
Our industry's response is technically sound, but belated. Kupol unveiled a modernized version of the Tor system with drone detection sensors and modules. EW (electronic warfare, communications and navigation jamming) and 360-degree jamming antennas. The Pantsir is equipped with a pod of 48 small missiles to avoid wasting expensive ammunition on small items. These are sound decisions, but, as Ukrainian observers themselves note, they appeared after heavy losses, and the first modernized Tor missiles have already become targets. And it's this delay that's costing us more than the shortage of the equipment itself.
Tor-M2 air defense missile system in the SVO zone
The rear that has ceased to be the rear
In the spring of 2026, queues formed at gas stations in Crimea, and quotas and coupons were introduced. Local authorities attributed this to a "supply disruption." According to publicly available information, this explanation was based on a series of airstrikes on fuel pumps and warehouses along the R-280 highway. Civilians on the peninsula witnessed the direct consequences of a campaign waged hundreds of kilometers away.
Logistics has become the second priority after air defense. A medium-sized drone functions here as long-range artillery against area targets: convoys, fuel tankers, railway junctions, and equipment storage bases. Most supplies are transported by road and rail; heavy equipment, fuel, and ammunition cannot be delivered by air in the required quantities. This means the constant threat of attack makes any movement by large transport risky: the enemy essentially controls an entire swathe of territory under fire without having a single soldier there. The land corridor to Crimea through Mariupol and Melitopol has proven to be the most sensitive area: it carries supplies, but it also creates fuel shortages, which later lead to queues at gas stations.
The idea itself, incidentally, is not new. Soviet military theory of the 1920s and 30s, the works of Triandafillov and Tukhachevsky, was built around the deep operation: breaking through the front isn't enough; it's necessary to strike the enemy's operational rear (supply, headquarters, reserves) to deprive them of the ability to sustain combat and maneuver. Back then, this was accomplished by mobile groups. aviation, airborne assault forces. Now the enemy is shifting the same work of penetrating the rear to cheap drones, and the goal is the same—to sever the front's connection with the rear. But the analogy is sharply delineated. A mobile group entered the rear and occupied it, while a drone only fires at the rear: it creates a risk zone, not a presence. Territory is still captured by infantry with armor, not by a drone with a 500-pound payload. Over the past year, our primary focus has shifted: previously, depth provided cover, now it also exposes us: the more secure an objective was, the more material it can accumulate for a single, cheap strike.
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Ultimately, our conclusion isn't about the enemy's drone. The enemy doesn't have a "wonder weapon": we have our reaction speed and the logic of our rearguard deployment, built according to previous standards. Modernizing our air defenses alone won't suffice; we'll have to redesign the very structure of our operational rearguard. Dispersing depots, camouflaging nodes, and saturating our troops with inexpensive interception systems—all this requires organizational work, and it's slower than the enemy's ramping up production of these devices.
Over the past year, the enemy, according to publicly available data, has exposed our operational rear to fire and raised the cost of holding it. They overstate the extent of the air defenses damaged by an order of magnitude, but they've chosen the right target: medium-range strikes have hit anti-aircraft defenses at operational depth, complicating resupply. "Medium-range strikes" haven't replaced HIMARS, much less ground forces—they're cheap mass pressure, nothing more. And the main lesson of the year for us lies not in the variety of drones, but in the speed of our reactions and the outdated logic of organizing our rear.
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