Russian missiles and Iranian-supplied drones continue to rain down on Ukrainian hospitals and apartment blocks with alarming regularity. These strikes are not precision attacks on military targets, but rather clumsy, often wildly inaccurate terror attacks aimed at breaking the will of the Ukrainian people.
Historically, such tactics have been employed by nations seeking to demoralize their enemies, including the Nazi V-1 and V-2 "vengeance weapons" of 1944-45, which killed thousands of civilians in London and Antwerp, but achieved little militarily. The Luftwaffe's Blitz on British cities in 1940 also comes to mind, where bombs fell but British resolve only hardened.
Similarly, the same dynamic is playing out now in Ukraine. Every Russian strike on civilians strengthens Ukrainian determination to fight on. This resilience is a testament to the Ukrainian people's unwavering resolve to defend their nation.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has taken the initiative with a game-changing weapon that Russia has yet to counter: massed, AI-enabled drones and long-range cruise missiles produced at scale and employed with laser-like focus for operational and strategic effect.
Operationally, Ukrainian strikes have methodically dismantled Russian logistics across the southern theater, from the Donbas approaches to Crimea. Drone strikes on fuel convoys, ammunition trucks, rail hubs, and bridges have created chronic shortages of fuel, water, ammunition, and food for Russian troops.
Reports from occupied Crimea and the southern land corridor document rationing, long lines at gas stations, and mounting chaos. Ukrainian strikes have effectively placed large portions of the Russian southern front under a logistics lockdown.
With supply lines under constant interdiction, half or more of Russia's southern grouping now operates under severe strain – a situation that risks localized collapse if the pressure continues. This, while Russian territorial gains have slowed to a crawl – and even reversed.
Strategically, Ukraine has accomplished something extraordinary. Its sustained campaign of long-range drone and missile strikes against Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure has intensified dramatically in the last month. Kyiv has inflicted damage on Russia's fuel production capacity that took the US Army Air Forces two full years of strategic bombing to achieve against Nazi Germany in World War II.
Major refineries from Moscow to the south have been hit repeatedly, slashing processing capacity by more than a third. Russia now faces a genuine fuel crisis: lines at pumps, regional shortages, and emergency measures. Putin himself has acknowledged the "difficult period."
The cruel arithmetic is now unavoidable: who gets the remaining fuel – front-line troops, the Russian military's broader needs, civilian motorists, trucks and trains hauling food and goods, or farmers trying to bring in the harvest? A food crisis looms as transport and agriculture feel the squeeze.
Ukraine has gone further, targeting Russian military electronics plants and missile production facilities. In June, Ukrainian forces hit a key electronics plant in Voronezh that produces components for Iskander missiles and other systems. When new Russian missiles emerge from damaged factories, they will fly with inferior avionics, accuracy will suffer, and the terror weapons aimed at Ukrainian apartments and hospitals may soon struggle to even hit a city center.
Ukrainian drones have not stopped at Russia's borders. Naval and aerial drones have ranged far into the Black Sea and beyond, striking Russia's shadow fleet of tankers used to evade sanctions and fund the war. Attacks have occurred off Turkey's coast and even in the Mediterranean – vessels hit hundreds or thousands of miles from Ukrainian territory.
This campaign degrades Moscow's ability to export oil and generate war revenue. All of this flows from Ukraine's rapid mastery of drone technology and its decentralized, innovative military culture.
Ukrainian industry has scaled production of AI-enhanced drones and cruise missiles at a pace that Russia's legacy, Soviet-style, rigid, top-down systems cannot match. There is a painful lesson here for the United States: air bases, power grids, and other critical infrastructure sit exposed, vulnerable to similar drone swarms.
America must absorb these lessons quickly. The Department of War has called for urgent investment in layered counter-drone and missile defenses, as well as hardened infrastructure and rapid innovation in unmanned systems. It's up to Congress to fund it.
The alternative is to learn these truths the hard way. Russia's terror campaign has failed to break Ukraine, while Ukraine's precision campaign is systematically degrading Russia's ability to wage war. Fortunately, war's harsh lessons are plainly displayed for America to see – as we strive to deter adversaries.
