This week, just about the only Russian sources that weren’t warning about an impending disaster were official Kremlin spokesmen and the secret police/defense side of the national government. Everywhere else that you look – milbloggers, local officials, captured soldiers, dissidents, the Russian internet – was pretty much unanimous that not only is the war going badly, but things are getting worse.
And for good reason. This week was another week somewhere between a total stalemate and possibly even the Ukrainians retaking ground faster than the Russians can capture it. It’s obvious the Russians can’t advance, and that means their entire war strategy has failed. There was example aplenty of that this week.
Also, and this was the single most notable incident from an international news POV in weeks, the Ukrainians launched around 1,000 drones at Russia in a single night, and around 300 of them reached airspace over Moscow, and yes, mayhem and consternation ensued.
Even more, Ukraine’s drone forces are picking up the pace, the strikes are accelerating in depth, sophistication, and persistence. On Friday, just one example, the oil refinery in Yaroslavl was hit for.the.fifteenth.time.in.the.war. This is a new record. Start with the fighting line.
The front in general
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky on Tuesday graced the public with the upbeat announcement that, for the first time in the war, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is conducting more offensive and counterattack actions than the Russians.
Syrsky’s record is generally that he tells the truth, but you have to dissect his statement closely because the way he says it generally describes the situation more optimistically than probably it should be. According to the independent reports and general information flow from the front, a better description probably would be that maybe that’s the case, and maybe offensive action is pretty much on the same scale on both sides.
Syrsky said that the reason the pace of Russian ground attacks is falling off is because of accumulated losses.
Zelensky on Wednesday said that his intelligence believes the Russians have lost 135,000 men since Jan. 1, which sounds loopy if you look at the figure all by itself, but if you read the daily reports and what the Russian milbloggers have been writing recently, that kind of death toll seems at least possible.
Syrsky said Russian attacks are continuing, particularly in the traditional priority Pokrovsk and Hulyaipole sectors. In all cases, “attacks” are being reported as Russian infantry on foot trying to sneak into sector before the drones catch them.
Chernihiv – In the early part of the week, reports flashed that there was an infantry push across the international frontier in the vicinity of the villages of Senkivka, Khrinivka and Kliusy and that local defense forces were hunting them down, but that the woods are thick. Didn’t hear or see anything more about this fighting later on.
Kostiantynivka – Reports came in throughout the week that Russian forces are attacking supply into the city from the northeast and southwest and that friendly forces there are short on food and material, and that evacuation of wounded is high-risk. At the same time, infantry is pushing into the city, via forests in the north and neighborhoods of private homes in the south, and it’s pretty obvious the Ukrainians aren’t about to be overrun, but they really can’t seem to stop the infiltration.
One Ukrainian blogger pointed out that the way the Ukrainians are describing it, “situation remains stably difficult and slowly continues to worsen,” is probably the single most common double-speak term in Ukrainian military reporting. What it really means is “Our troops are still there and alive, but the handwriting is on the wall, and who knows how long they’ll hold out? Certainly not headquarters.”
Pokrovsk – On Wednesday, the office of the 7th Rapid Response Corps announced that the situation was deteriorating because troops still in the city are almost cut off, Russian forces hold high ground and tall buildings, they have deployed their surveillance and electronic warfare systems making it difficult for Ukrainian drones to operate, Russian drones “dominate the skies over the northern outskirts of Pokrovsk and northeast of Hryshyne,” etc. Logistics are minimal, and supply is only by drone drop. Rotation is impossible. The solution is, the statement said, either ordering a retreat by foot over 8 kilometers (5 miles) of ground where every square meter is watched by Russian drones and zeroed in by Russian artillery or concentrating major Ukrainian drone forces to defeat the Russian drones and regain control of the small air.
The logical author of this pretty downbeat public announcement is one of the officers on the staff of Brigadier General Yevhen Lasiychuk, commander of 7th Corps – a very young (36) paratrooper. His reputation is that he is a hard-core fighter. He commanded Ukraine’s sole paratrooper brigade, the 25th Airborne, for years before getting promoted to corps command. The 7th Corps is considered a crack organization made up of some of the AFU’s best airmobile brigades, including the 25th, 77th, 79th, and 81st Brigades and the 78th Regiment. So, this is a complaint one can’t write off as an unseasoned officer panicking. A negative public description of the situation from a corps headquarters is rare.
Lyman – On Friday, the AFU broke out of longstanding lines around this fortress city and grabbed a village called Stavky, pushing a good 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) eastward. This is 3rd Corps territory and my guess would be 60th Brigade “Inhulets” is the attacking unit, but logically we should expect somehow one or more of the assault infantry regiments were involved.
Stepnohirsk/Zaporizhzhia – Over the course of the week, several reports came in that Ukrainian forces had recaptured the town of Stepnohirsk, south of Zaporizhzhia on the east end of what used to be the Dnipro River reservoir, and also the neighboring village of Prymorske. Both sides acknowledge that the Russians have been forced out. Historically, this is an area where Ukraine’s 225th Assault Infantry Regiment had been operating.
Mala Tokmachka/Zaporizhzhia – Further inland, Ukrainian forces appear to have recaptured the hamlet of Mala Tokmachka, which was leveled during the 2023 offensive. Technically, this is an advance directly towards Crimea, but the gain is small, less than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). As to units involved, it’s generally known on the Ukrainian side it’s the 17th Corps, and on the Russian side it’s the 58th Army, but I don’t have any confirmations of brigades.
Ukraine bombards Moscow
The Ukrainians wound up and took a serious shot at the Russian capital, Moscow, this week, and they connected. It was a typical Ukrainian large-scale operation; they had prepared for some time, they had distraction operations to help the main effort get through, and they did real damage. This is confirmed by both the General Staff and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Overnight May 16 to 17, Ukraine launched the most massive single-night drone incursion not just of the Russo-Ukraine War, but in history. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, at least 1,030 drones were claimed to have been shot down in about six hours of night air battles; this is about twice as intense a pace of flight operations as the Russians had managed, over a 36-hour span over May 13 and 14.
There were serious, effective strikes outside Moscow, which are detailed lower down, but within greater Moscow airspace, the Russians claimed 350+ drones shot down. To give you a sense of scale, the biggest German air attack of all WWII, over Moscow, was slightly less than 200 bomber aircraft on June 22, 1941.
Again, quite literally, this was the biggest air raid on the Russian capital in history. There is hard evidence that some of the drones were jet-propelled, i.e., for the layman, it wasn’t a drone, but a cruise missile.
One quick outcome before the drones had finished hitting was that the entire Moscow air defense network appeared to have been triggered. It seems like the Russians let loose with everything they had, and thanks to satellites and spies, now there is an excellent picture of how much air defense the Russian capital really has.
Rough numbers, the count seems absurd: something like 100+ individual medium- and long-range launchers (SAM S-300, S-400 and S-500) and 50+ SAM/Cannon Pantsir-S1/S2 launchers/firing systems. One Ukrainian totaled it up and concluded the Russians launched, potentially, 700 anti-aircraft missiles in a single night. That figure is not confirmed, but “a ridiculous amount” seems very probable.
The Ukrainians claimed, and stated they have drone video confirming it, 126 hits. Three targets were struck primarily. First, the Angstrem Semiconductor Plant, which produces microelectronics for high-precision weapons – located in the Elma Technopark in Zelenograd, northwest of Moscow city. Multiple buildings were hit. Fires observed.
The second target was the Solnechnogorsk oil pumping station, which stores and ships large volumes of fuel mostly for the Russian military, near the village of Durikino, also northwest of Moscow city. A large fire was observed at the station.
The third and final target was the Moscow Oil Refinery in the Kapotnya district of the Russian capital. Geolocated and civilian dashcam footage showed a very substantial fire and at least two reservoirs burning fiercely.
Authorities acknowledged the attack but insisted all incoming drones were shot down. Diverted drones, falling debris, and anti-aircraft that missed their targets, in combination, killed three Muscovites. One drone plowing into the top floor of an apartment building – probably because of jamming – was recorded from multiple angles. Moscow’s airports were a mess for about 36 hours. Implications of this attack are in a section lower down.
Ukraine decides killing off Black Sea Fleet wasn’t enough, takes aim at Caspian
After Moscow, the most impressive Ukrainian drone strikes hit the Caspian military port Kaspiysk. The targets:
- Small missile ship (May 15) – Probably a Buyan-M-class small missile ship. Fire and explosions reported.
- Minesweeper (May 15) – Type unknown, fires and explosions reported
- Project 10410 Svetlyak-class patrol ship (May 16-17) – Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) border boat, hit by an FP-1 drone while maneuvering. Fires and explosions.
- Project 21980 Grachonok-class anti-sabotage boat (May 17-18) – harbor , 2026) Type: Small harbor protection/anti-sabotage boat designed to counter underwater drones and divers. Hit tied up at a wharf. Fires and explosions.
It’s worth mentioning that on May 17-18, drones flew to Yeysk, Krasnodar region, and among other military targets, burnt a Russian Ka-27 helicopter and a rare Be-200 seaplane.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that on May 7, the Ukrainians hit a missile boat in Kaspiysk as well; it’s not clear if that was different from any of the ones hit this week.
The Ukrainians kept going after Russian energy
In the intro, I mentioned that the Yaroslavl refinery got hit again on Friday. According to the international energy publications, all-, repeat, all- major refineries in central Russia have halted or reduced fuel production after Ukrainian drone attacks in recent days, and total Russian fuel production, nationally, is down about 20%. On Thursday, reports came in that in Crimean fuel stations were out of petrol/gasoline and diesel. Moscow has already imposed a ban on gasoline exports from April until the end of July.
In the past week, Ukrainian strikes hit and ignited several key Russian industrial targets: the Moscow refinery, two strikes on the Yaroslavl refinery, the Kstovo refinery in Nizhny Novgorod, and the Nevinnomyssk Azot chemical plant in Stavropol Krai.
When a Spetsnaz HQ gets wiped out, but it doesn’t qualify as the BIG strike this week
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the SBU’s Alpha Group struck FSB headquarters and destroyed a Pantsir-S1 in occupied territory: Russian losses – about 100 military personnel.
At least eight and easily a dozen or more strike drones. Judging by explosion size, 100-150 kilograms. Eight major buildings on site – all hit. Anyone who bothers can geo-locate this to a seaside Hotel called Passazh in Google, but according to reviews, there was a change of management just before the Russians invaded, and before it got shut down, it was called the Prestizh Hotel. Target identified as an FSB headquarters in operation since 2022.
I have zero doubt the security team decided this was an ideal place for the FSB to have a regional headquarters because it’s on a spit with the Sea of Azov on one side and a lagoon on the other, so intruders (unable to swim, I suppose) would have difficulty sneaking in. The hotel kitchen specialized in exotic salads and grilled game, the indoor swimming pool (pictured), the separate holiday homes for the big brass to live in – that was incidental, the site for sure got picked for security.
The spit is, of course, completely treeless and famous for clear skies, which perhaps was a gap had the FSB site security reviewers considered drones a possible threat, but of course, as is well known, the FSB is the agency that confirmed Ukraine would surrender in three days if Russia invaded.
Aircraft aimed at doors and windows, probably to push maximum explosion inside the building. Some drones may have carried sub-munitions, but that’s not confirmed. What is clear is that a minute or so after an initial hit, there were follow-up hits. If you watch the video, it seems like the SBU was trying to catch FSB operators trying to evacuate the building from an initial hit, with a second hit. Also shown were at least two explosions on the order of 250-500 kilograms, out in the open. No anti-aircraft, at all. You even get to see one drone whack into a building and bounce off, fuse failure probably. The tail end of the video shows ten (!) fires burning.
If there were 100+ people in the place, dozens had to have been hit; it was one of the most focused and devastating strikes I’ve seen recorded, in the entire war. Russian sources: A Russian channel affiliated with drone units operating in Kherson Oblast reports that Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on Russian drone operators, resulting in an unspecified number of casualties. Recently, Ukraine has embarked on a campaign likely aimed at pushing Russian drone operators back from Oleshky and Hola Prystan to alleviate pressure on Kherson City and surrounding settlements.
Considering how ho-hum world news agencies decided to play the Moscow attack, it will be interesting to see if this Kherson FSB-apocalypse strike reaches international news at all.
Last week’s big essay was on Ukrainian long-range drones breaking supply to Crimea
On Friday, the Kherson occupation authority – perhaps after reading last week’s review – banned the movement of trucks along the R-280 “Novorossiya” through the Kherson region to the checkpoint “Dzhankoy.” I am seeing mixed reports on whether or not the ban extends to the M04, or as some of us know it, the Melitopol-Mariupol-Rostov highway. Reason given for the “temporary” shutdown: Ukrainian drones are orbiting over the highway looking for targets.
Per the order, military-purpose cargo, special cargo, medicine, equipment for infrastructure restoration, fuel, perishable products, and certain socially significant food products of first necessity may be carried by truck.
The Russian milblogger crowd lost no time in pointing out that the order would seriously ease Ukrainian targeting along the road by de facto making any truck actually using the road a high-priority target.
As noted above, spot fuel shortages in Crimea were reported this week. I have seen a single report, unconfirmed, that Sevastopol has imposed – like they did the last time – maximum purchase limits of 20 liters of fuel per person at the gas stations. This supposedly affects both the TES and ATAN networks, in other words, pretty much all of Crimea’s fuel retail.
Russia bombards Ukraine
Russia’s big strike this week hit Dnipro, on the night of May 18. The short version is that there was serious damage because Dnipro’s air defenses either have no Patriot systems or no ammunition for Patriot systems, so all ballistic missiles fired on the night got through, and a lot of them hit Dnipro. The main target seems to have been the Yuzhmash missile factory, whose production facilities are in bunkers designed – not making this up, I’ve been to the plant – to resist nuclear strikes.
By the numbers, the Ukrainians shot down, nationwide, 503 of 524 Shaheds or Shahed decoy drones, zero of 14 ballistic missiles (Iskander-M + possibly KN-23 or S-400), and four of eight Iskander-K cruise missiles, which is lower performance than usual. The missiles came in right as people were going to work at about 8 a.m. Aside from Dnipro, Russian forces struck Odesa City, including a Chinese-owned ship that was approaching the port.
No one died. Most of the casualties, all civilians, were in Dnipro: 18-23 people, including a 5-month-old baby, a 2-year-old girl, and a 10-year-old boy. Fires were reported in residential areas. Warehouses and other civilian infrastructure were damaged. Some buildings collapsed, but it seems like no one was caught inside. In Odesa, Russian weapons and falling anti-aircraft weapons damaged four apartment buildings, 22 private houses, a school, and a kindergarten. I read that a 1-year-old boy and a 59-year-old man were injured.
Ukrainian mil-tech news
This was a crazy week for new tech announcements and field spotting of previously unspotted weaponry. I can’t remember a week when there was more news about more new military kit, in the Russo-Ukraine War, ever. I assume this is half because the spring-summer fighting season is now in full swing, and simultaneously Ukrainian manufacturers (and indeed Western manufacturers wanting to parasitize off of the Ukrainians) want to get their stuff off the shelf and into the news feeds before it gets advanced enough in the season for the heat to mess with electronics. There was so much that you will have to do without analysis.
Drones using AI targeting are operating In the mid-range envelope – This week, the 20th brigade of the unmanned systems forces (SBS), “K-2,” published video of its drones using AI-targeting hitting Russian supply trucks in the Donetsk sector, something like 40-60 kilometers (25-37 miles) from probable launch sites.
They said it was a new drone called Darts, and they claimed it’s in serial production and that it has already destroyed “dozens” of Russian logistics vehicles and equipment in the rear areas of Donbas along the Lyman-Kostyantynivka line. K-2 is a combat unit that normally backs frontline units.
If they are telling the truth, then this is one of the very first times serial-produced drones using AI have been directed against Russian logistics.
Dutch-German Cruise Missile for Ukraine – The Dutch company Destinus announced it was going to, along with Germany’s Rheinmetall, develop a 2,000-kilometer (1,243-mile) cruise missile for national use and for Ukraine.
The weapon is called the RUTA Block 3 cruise missile, and its testing will take place in Ukraine in 2027. In peacetime, who would care about a deadline like that? But this is war, and sometimes weapons get developed faster than planned.
This is a state-of-the-art deal with a 250 kg warhead, terrain following, multiple launch platforms, and independence from the US’s GPS if needed.
The press release said Block 1 and 2 are “already mass-produced and undergoing tests in Ukraine” (!).
Prior to the announcement this week, the RUTA missile had been a rumor in Ukraine. So now the question is how many and when.
Ukraine Develops Its Own Smart Bomb – Defense Minister Mykhailo Federov this week announced Ukraine was testing a guided glide bomb with a range of “dozens of kilometers,” weighing 250 kilograms, and designed to be launched from Su-24M tactical bombers.
Right now, the bomb is in the experimental stage, while Ukraine’s air force runs precision strikes using small numbers of US JDAM-ER and the more accurate GBU-39, and French AASM Hammer bombs. Increasingly, a guided glide bomb for both sides has become the preferred way to eliminate the suspected hide of a drone flight team, by leveling the building they might be hiding in.
Ukrainian Drones Spotted Firing Rockets – The SBS on Sunday, in video of the swarm attack on the FSB hotel on the Kerch seaside, showed images of a drone firing unguided rockets, accurately, into the hotel premises. This was probably another first-time-ever-in-history that an unguided rocket was fired from a drone in actual combat. Aside from the record books, this is another step in drone sophistication.
Ukraine unveils its own Shahed – It’s called the Begemot (Hippo), manufactured by Culver Aerospace, and it’s a pretty good copy of the Russian version, which is a copy of the Iranian version. The range is relatively short, 300 kilometers (186 miles), while the warhead is relatively beefy at 75 kilograms. The manufacturers say it can fly at very low level, communicates by Starlink, and the warhead can be armor-piercing or incendiary. A deep-strike version exists. Logically, once Hippos get into production (isolated aircraft were spotted over Russia earlier this year), the Ukrainians will use them the same way the Russians do, as a cheap weapon designed to flood the enemy’s air defense network with targets, and to locate air defense systems for follow-up strikes.
Bigger, Badder Ukrainian Robot Boat – The company MAC HUB unveiled its upgraded Katran Venom V2 sea drone, which, according to the designers “armed to the teeth.” All in all, it’s a 21st century PT boat the Iranians probably would love to have, and that the Americans would really, really not want the Ukrainians selling internationally.
The test copy carries, get ready, six first-person-view (FPV) drones, four “unknown” small torpedoes, a turret with a 12.7mm Browning machine gun, two anti-aircraft missile launchers, a 7.62mm Minigun machine gun, and another two aircraft-type FPV strike drones. The tricky bit is that it supposedly requires a nine-man crew, including a pilot, a navigator, four UAV pilots, a gunner, and a torpedo operator. As with the Dutch-German cruise missile, in peacetime this would just be laughed at. But this is war and Ukraine just got more than €90 billion ($105 billion) cleared for defense spending for the next two years.
Extending the Range of Interceptor Drones – This week the American company Perennial Autonomy (previously known as Swift Beat), which manufactures the Hornet one-way attack/kamikaze drone, announced they had figured out a way to extend the range of the drone, basically by putting an aerostat helium balloon high up in the sky, hanging the drone from the balloon, and then when needed dropping the drone at great height. Without having to use lots of energy to gain altitude and being able to use gravity as it would fly downward to the target, this would increase the operational circle of the drone from around 10 kilometers (6 miles) to around 40 kilometers (25 miles). Supposedly, the US military is “interested.”
Me, I have to wonder how survivable an aerostat would be against a well-organized drone attack, but maybe I’m just being skeptical.
In any case, not to be outdone, this week a Ukrainian company announced, and demonstrated video of a test, of its probably-cheaper approach: tack the interceptor drone (in this case a Sting) on top of a small rocket, launch the rocket, at apogee, separate the drone, and then go merrily on the interception mission from there.
Why the Moscow strikes were bad for Russia, besides the actual damage done
This is another essay that is not news, but rather analysis and perhaps a reading of tea leaves. The starting point is, again, the strike on Moscow was the biggest air raid to hit the Russian capital in history.
Although authorities said there was no damage, it seems like fuel/crude transport capacity was damaged, as was military electronics manufacturing. The important question here is how much these facilities were prepared for drone strikes; there is a big difference between a refinery out in the open and a refinery with drone nets, protective walls, and anti-drone scaffolding. The best guess is that, being Moscow institutions protected by the world’s densest air-defense network, the facility managers did not particularly prepare for this attack, at least, from open source images, no protective structures on the things the Ukrainians hit are visible. It would be in character for Moscow energy and military manufacturing facilities not to take the Ukrainian drone threat seriously, not least because it would look like defeatism. But at the end of the day, we don’t know how much damage was done, physically.
But mentally, on the hybrid war side, in things like morale and public resilience, the damage was obvious and on multiple levels. There is zero chance that the Ukrainians did not calculate this ahead of time. Here is a partial – I say again, partial – list of what conducting the biggest air strike in Moscow’s history achieved:
- Credibility of Russian Official Statements Undermined – Russian law is very strict that government officials can’t confirm the location of “secret” facilities or the success of a Ukrainian strike. As a result, right up until now, official statements about what Ukraine did overnight Saturday-Sunday are almost farcical; the worst air attack in Moscow’s history, and the authorities are providing the public information almost as if it were some irresponsible kids playing around with some model aircraft. A major highway runs straight past the Moscow oil refinery; probably, millions of motorists saw it burning. Yet officially, it never happened. State media was the same way.
- Thousands and Maybe Hundreds of Thousands of Muscovites Just Did Practical Hands-On Training on Bypassing Government Censorship – Moscow is Russia’s most internet-connected city, meaning that in the absence of official information, people sought information elsewhere. And there was plenty of it; first and foremost, out of Ukraine, and to a lesser extent by platforms in the West, and probably equal with that in volume was personal chat groups that started out closed, but once a video of something burning got to the chat group, it leaked out. So, outcome number two, there are 13 million people living in Moscow, and a lot of them got real, hands-on practice evading state controls on information flows, because they wanted to know if a friend or relative had been hit, etc. Some of these Muscovites probably weren’t inclined to seek “alternate” information. Unwanted for the Kremlin result: the Ukrainian strike expanded the base of Muscovites now willing and able to bypass government censorship.
- The Social Contract in Russia is Citizens Trade Freedom for Stability, and Drones Attacking the Capital Is the Opposite of Stability – Muscovites are pretty politically aware in the sense that if some process appears to be developing so that there might be unrest or chaos in the capital, they learn about it fast, they pass what they know to others quickly, and they don’t wait for the authorities or particularly trust them. Based on what I have seen, the Ukrainian drone raid roughly triggered a wave of worry and concern on the level of the Prigozhin/Wagner advance on Moscow in 2023. Remember that? Nervousness and lack of faith in a stable future, among the populace of a capital, is a ticking time bomb in an authoritarian state.
- You Know the Term “Money Pit”? Here’s a New One for You: “Missile Pit” –
Moscow may not realize it yet, but the West – led by the US – seems slow to grasp a basic principle of modern air warfare: forcing your adversary to burn through air defense munitions is standard practice. The assumption that ‘We’re big enough to always have enough missiles’ isn’t just bad strategy – it’s dangerous.”
Ukrainian drones are waltzing almost freely over Krasnodar and Crimea, specifically because Ukraine worked for months to hit air defense systems in those places and run them out of missiles. Remember the 700+ missiles? That was one night. Just in terms of emptying Russian air defense stocks, the attack was a very serious success for the Ukrainians. And it really does seem like they could repeat it, and if they do it often enough, they don’t even need to destroy much in Moscow, they can just use the Russian capital as a place Russian throws away its ability to supply anti-aircraft missiles anywhere else in Russia.
- Also, Anti-Aircaft Missile Pit – Parallel with that, possibly, the failure of the air defenses as they exist, based on past Russian behavior, would logically force a Kremlin decision to concentrate even more air defenses around Moscow. This doesn’t make sense in rational war-fighting logic, but the Russian war-fighting internal logic is that Moscow is untouchable and Russia is unbeatable in a face-off against Ukraine, which builds in a heavy bias to reinforcing those narratives, even at the expense of other priorities. Already, Russian air defenses in the south are tattered. They could get thinned out even more, to help defend Moscow better.
Reprinted from Kyiv Post’s Special Military Correspondent Stefan Korshak’s blog. You can read his blog here.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.