Under attack from heavenly forces: can Russia find an answer to the asymmetrical Ukrainian counteroffensive?

Russia is today in the most difficult situation since the fall of 2022, when the Russian army in Ukraine was forced to retreat and left about 17 thousand square meters. km of occupied territory. Today, however, it is not a matter of retreat on the ground, but of the advantage in the middle skies that Ukraine has gained by developing an asymmetrical offensive against Russian rear infrastructure. Its scale allows some American officials to talk about a turning point and that Ukraine is currently winning the war.

For now, this offensive is aimed at the Russian oil refining industry and the fuel blockade of Crimea, but in the future it could paralyze logistics in the occupied territories and cut off the front line of Russian forces from the rear infrastructure. If this plan succeeds, it could lead to the collapse of certain sections of the Russian front, as happened in 2022.

In public statements, Vladimir Putin deliberately ignores the successes of the Ukrainian asymmetric offensive and continues to claim that Russian troops are dynamically advancing on the ground, despite the inconsistency of these statements with reality. This strategy for moderating failures can only temporarily reduce their effect. And the main question today remains whether—and how quickly—Russia will be able to find an answer to the Ukrainian advantage in the skies, protect vital logistics, or deliver an asymmetrical strike capable of neutralizing the image and structural losses it has suffered.

Among the possible directions of the Russian counterattack are the entry of Belarus into the war, a new “partial” mobilization, an escalation of the nuclear threat and a hybrid attack on one of the European countries. A military-technological response aimed at leveling or compensating for the Ukrainian advantage is also possible. In March–April, Russian budget expenditures jumped by 1.5–2 trillion rubles, which may be due to additional investments in military programs.

However, the effectiveness of the Russian response will depend on the extent to which it takes into account the changed paradigm of war. This new military paradigm devalues ​​the advantages that the Russian command has traditionally focused on and which were aimed primarily at advancement on the ground. The new realities of the war and the fate of the land corridor to Crimea, cut by Ukrainian drones, demonstrate that such an advance largely loses its significance against the backdrop of the enemy’s dominance in the skies.

New realities require, first of all, technological solutions - the rapid creation and scaling of anti-drone air defense or increasing the capabilities of middle strikes capable of creating symmetrical threats to the enemy. As well as the dynamic implementation and scaling of innovations that are provided today by the drone coalition of Ukraine and its European allies.

Ukrainian asymmetric counteroffensive

Vladimir Putin and Russia, together with him, are today in the most difficult situation for themselves since the fall of 2022, when the Russian army in Ukraine was forced to retreat and leave previously occupied territories. Losses then totaled about 17 thousand square meters. km - twice as much as has been re-conquered since then. Unlike 2022, the current “northern military district crisis” is not yet a crisis of the front, but a crisis of the sky. Despite this, its scale is already such that it allows senior State Department officials to talk about a “turning point” and that “at the moment... Ukraine is winning the war.”

The loss of control over the skies by the Russian side and the growing drone advantage allowed the Ukrainian Armed Forces to develop an asymmetric counter-offensive not on the line of contact on the ground, but by attacking Russian rear infrastructure in several directions. Firstly, the infrastructure of Russian oil refining in the depths of Russia and, secondly, Russian logistics in the occupied territories of Ukraine. The first direction of attack leads to a growing fuel crisis, the second leads to a partial loss by the Russian side of control over the land corridor connecting Russia and annexed Crimea, and a crisis of life on the territory of the peninsula. As a result, the task of systematically breaking the blockade of Crimea, which was one of the actual goals of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, after four and a half years of confrontation, which cost Russia one and a half million people killed and wounded, turned out to be unfulfilled (the prospect of such a development of events was predicted by Re: Russia back in mid-May → Re: Russia: Corridor of Opportunities ).

The Ukrainian asymmetrical counteroffensive at this stage is not aimed at changing the balance of forces of the warring armies on the ground, but at achieving a symbolic and at the same time systemic effect of social and economic destabilization in Russia. At the same time, the plans of the Ukrainian side involve the further development of an air offensive in the occupied territories, which, according to the plan, should paralyze Russian logistics as a whole, including the supply system for the forward positions of Russian troops ( Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov directly spoke about this task).

If successful, this strategy could lead to the collapse of sections of the Russian front, even though the Ukrainian side has virtually no ground offensive forces. At the moment, we can talk about this as a threat: there is no actual evidence of a systemic disruption of supply to the front, although individual reports document a shortage of “everything” on the front line - “people, shells, birds” (drones) and food. The threat of a logistics blockade of the front looks increasingly real, which is reflected, among other things, in the narratives of Russian z-bloggers, who quite subtly capture and broadcast changes in the military situation. According to some of them , such a development of events will become inevitable if the Russian side does not find an adequate response to Ukrainian domination in the “small sky,” that is, in the coverage area of ​​the middle strikes. The scale of the Ukrainian infrastructure offensive in this case will nullify the effect of the limited ground success that Russia hopes to achieve as a result of the capture of Konstantinovka in the coming weeks.

The main question today, therefore, is a question of time - how quickly Russia will be able to find an answer to the Ukrainian advantage in the sky and protect its vital logistics or deliver an asymmetrical strike that will neutralize and balance the not territorial, but image and structural losses suffered by the Russian side.

Poker face and buy-in: how will Putin respond?

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin plays military poker. Throughout June, against the backdrop of a sharp deterioration in the situation, he demonstrates deliberate calm and self-confidence, which is typical of him in some crisis situations, when there is no immediate response to a challenge or requires additional time and regrouping of forces.

Putin holds meetings devoted to minor social and economic issues and designed to demonstrate the stability of social and economic dynamics, as well as meetings with “soldiers of the Northern Military District” and ordinary military personnel, in which he invariably asserts that the Russian army is moving forward “in all directions” and is systematically approaching the achievement of its goals. Which is obviously not true.

This strategy of ignoring reality and moderating its information trail is certainly deliberate. On June 18, Putin completely ignored the largest air attack on Moscow and the oil refinery in Kapotnya, which demonstrated the dysfunction of the capital's air defense ring, and limited himself to protocol statements on the agenda of the ASEAN summit in Kazan . However, the next day , a meeting of the Security Council was held in a narrow format , which may have been devoted to the current situation, but about which it was only reported that “Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a report on one of the areas of foreign policy.” On June 23, Putin held a meeting with members of the government dedicated to the “start of a mentoring program for graduates of medical schools,” the transition to electronic transportation documents and the employment program for university graduates. At the end of this production, which promoted the paternalistic ideal of an effective social state, the participants moved on to discuss the situation with fuel in Russia and the supply of Crimea, which also continued after the end of the broadcast. Apparently, in this closed part, the final decision was made to immediately expand gasoline imports to reduce the deficit in the domestic market.

However, at the beginning of the meeting, Putin mentioned the Ukrainian drone attacks to formulate the official framework for their interpretation, which he repeated later in the day during a meeting with “graduates of military universities.” In Putin’s interpretation, “the Kiev regime, as the situation for it at the front is rapidly deteriorating,” “has adopted the tactic of striking our civilian targets,” which are aimed at “rocking society” and the consequences of which for the fuel market are not so significant and will be reduced by the government to a minimum or even to zero in the near future.

However, such moderation of image damage can only temporarily reduce its negative consequences and certainly cannot change the situation in the sky. Therefore, the main question is what Russia can do to stop or compensate for the Ukrainian infrastructure offensive and regain its advantage in one direction or another and the image of a party approaching victory. There are several discussed counterattack formats on the agenda, including the entry of Belarus into the war, a new “partial” mobilization, and an escalation of the nuclear threat. Finally, a hybrid attack against one of the European countries, which, having put Europe on the brink of a large-scale missile and drone war with the prospect of subsequent nuclear escalation, will force it to negotiate on the Ukrainian issue and discuss the “mutual security” agenda in its Kremlin understanding.

All of these scenarios, as well as their combination, look more or less likely. Although Russian media sources report discussions about the possibility of mobilizing in Russia this fall, after the Duma elections, the Ukrainian military leadership claims that it does not consider such a scenario as a critical factor that could change the operational situation. Having reached the line of Russian losses of 200 people per square kilometer with the help of a wall of drones, Ukraine will be able to “grind” the mobilization resource, losing no more than one and a half thousand square kilometers, while the political damage of forced mobilization will be very significant for the Kremlin. Especially if it does not lead to an obvious fracture. Belarus' entry into the war looks unlikely and is unlikely to be effective enough even if it does happen. So far, according to Zelensky , Minsk has turned off the repeaters that helped guide Russian weapons of destruction in Ukraine.

Escalating tensions in relations with European countries and a hybrid conflict in the Baltic remain a likely threat, for which states bordering Russia are preparing more and more seriously (→ Re: Russia: Fox in the Baltic ). The plot of such a conflict may, to a certain extent, repeat the successful scenario of Iran’s confrontation with the United States. By exploiting Europe's vulnerability to missile and drone attacks, Russia could try to “test” Europe's commitment to collective security obligations and force it to negotiate amid the threat of large-scale conflict, as well as economic and political destabilization. This will be a serious test for the political unity of Europe (→ Re: Russia: A semi-existential threat ).

“Window of opportunity”, a new paradigm of war and a winning formula

The head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Fedorov, says that Ukraine has a “window” of approximately six months, during which it must fully realize the advantage achieved today. The minister means that during this time Russia will adapt to the situation, as has happened more than once in the past, and will find means of countering the Ukrainian air offensive.

Indeed, the most logical and safest would be a purely technological response, which involves either the creation and scaling of anti-drone air defense systems by the Russian side, or the increase in the capabilities of Russian middle strikes, which create symmetrical threats and losses for Ukraine (on June 24, Russia launched a massive “mirror” strike with “shaheeds” on Naftogaz facilities in four regions of Ukraine). However, this will require extraordinary solutions due to the lack of Russian military communications systems similar to Starlink, and the contours of such a strategy are not yet visible.

At the same time, it is noteworthy that against the backdrop of restrained Russian budget expenditures in January–February 2026, in March they immediately exceeded the March expenditures of the previous year by 1.5 trillion rubles, that is, almost one and a half times. Such a jump can hardly be explained by the inertial growth of military spending; the assumption of emergency investments in new military programs related to the production of missiles, drones, or means of combating them seems more likely. In this case, we can see the return on these investments in the fall.

Monthly federal budget expenditures in nominal terms in 2025 and 2026, billion rubles

At the same time, the new stage of the technological drone race may turn out to be more difficult for Russia in the context of the well-coordinated functioning of the “drone coalition” of Ukraine and its Western partners, which ensures the coupling of technical innovations and investments in their rapid scaling (→ Re: Russia: Offensive lockdown ).

In a broader perspective, the success of the Ukrainian asymmetric offensive raises the question of rethinking the “paradigm of war” and the conditions for achieving “military victory,” for which Moscow is probably not ready. Russian military doctrine places the idea of ​​victory at the center of advancing on the ground and capturing enemy territory. Until recently, this understanding seemed immutable. And Vladimir Putin’s statements in recent days demonstrate the Russian leadership’s continued commitment to him. Advancement on the battlefield (albeit imaginary) is the main plot of military confrontation, Putin argues, while attacks on infrastructure are a diversionary maneuver and an accompanying effort. In accordance with this understanding, the prioritization of advantages and investments in these advantages is formed. This is manpower, heavy equipment (in the early stages), the intensity of artillery shelling and the use of planning bombs - everything that should ensure the advancement of troops on the ground.

However, within the framework of the new, drone paradigm of war, advancement on the ground becomes not only extremely expensive in terms of losses, but also insufficiently effective in conditions when, as one of the Russian z-military correspondents put it , “there is no longer a rear.” In other words, moving the front line forward does not mean establishing reliable control over the territory, as the fate of the Crimean land corridor shows. The issue of control over territory is now being decided not only on the ground, but also in the air. The saturation of the skies with drones turns ground control into a fiction. And in this context, the idea of ​​a fixed Russian military campaign - reaching the borders of the Donetsk region - as an isolated goal completely loses its meaning.