Ukraine triples deep strikes inside Russia, shifts Trump dynamic
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- Ukraine launched three times as many longer-range strikes in July as in January, per ACLED data, targeting four broad categories: oil infrastructure, defence manufacturing, air defences/radar, and retail warehouses
- AP analysis found Ukraine struck Russia's largest oil refinery, more than 2,500 km from Kyiv, and hit a navigation-systems factory multiple times with its Flamingo missile
- Trump said at the July NATO summit that Zelenskyy had "been very effective" and that they had "developed a good relationship," months after the February 2025 Oval Office rebuke that led to intelligence sharing being briefly suspended
- RUSI's Jack Watling said only 5% to 9% of what Ukraine fires gets past Russian air defences, with Kyiv often firing hundreds of drones to overwhelm them so a single missile can break through
- Ukraine shortened weapons development cycles from decades to months after the Oval Office clash, which a European military official called a "real wake-up call" that US support could stop overnight
- Elon Musk's Starlink gives Ukraine an operational edge for real-time drone control in Russian-held territory — a service Russia is blocked from using and is racing to replace with its own version
Why it matters: Ukraine has moved the fight from a stalled battlefield to the sky, and the visible Russian fuel crisis plus scaled-down May 9 parade show the strikes are biting — but Watling's 5-9% penetration rate, Patriot shortages, and the UN's tally of 1,396 Ukrainian civilians killed in the first six months of the year show the campaign must scale much further to compel Putin toward talks.
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