Ukraine doubles medium-range drone strikes, targets deeper Russian lines
Ukraine’s mid-range drone campaign has surged, with April strikes topping 160 and reaching targets as far as 1,500 kilometers inside Russia.
Ukraine has sharply expanded its medium-range drone campaign, striking logistics hubs, ammunition depots, troop concentrations and air-defense systems farther behind Russian lines as Volodymyr Zelenskiy presses for deeper attacks. Ukrainian strikes at ranges above 20 kilometers have doubled since March and quadrupled since February, underscoring how quickly Kyiv has scaled a campaign that is meant to disrupt Russian operations without depending only on first-person-view drones.
Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said forces carried out more than 160 middle-range strikes in April, most of them at distances of roughly 120 to 150 kilometers. Those attacks hit more than 65 logistics and ammunition depots, 33 drone-control points and workshops, and 17 troop command posts in occupied Ukraine and Russian border regions. The ministry said the goal was to reduce shelling intensity and limit troop mobility, a sign that the campaign is aimed at degrading the machinery of war rather than only scoring symbolic blows. Zelenskiy said on April 29 that Ukraine would continue extending the range of its strikes on Russia.
The April tally fits a broader climb in mid-range operations. The Institute for the Study of War said it observed 41 mid-range strikes in January 2026, 61 in February and 115 in March, showing a steady increase before April’s sharper jump. Ukraine also widened its reach against energy and military-industrial targets inside Russia. On April 29, Ukrainian forces struck an oil pumping station about 1,500 kilometers inside Russia near the Ural Mountains. Two days later, Ukrainian drones hit the Tuapse oil refinery for the fourth time in a month, sparking a fire at the Black Sea port and prompting local concern over environmental damage.
The campaign also highlights Ukraine’s push to build domestic strike capacity as the war grinds on. On May 5, Zelenskiy confirmed that Ukrainian-made Flamingo cruise missiles were used in a strike on a military production facility in Cheboksary. Ukrainian media said the plant supplied navigation components for Russia’s Navy, missile industry, aviation and armored vehicles. Taken together, the strikes point to a strategy built around long-range pressure, industrial attrition and the stretching of Russian air defenses, even as Russia intensifies offensives in eastern Ukraine, especially around the heavily fortified Donetsk region.
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