For those casually observing the war in Ukraine, the failure of Kyiv’s recent strikes on Russian territory to impact the battlefield might be disappointing, even inexplicable. For those who have paid close attention to the war, it is just the latest demonstration that there is no feasible military solution to the conflict.
Earlier this summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a 40-day campaign of deep strikes in Russia, with the stated goal of pressuring Russian leadership to end the war. Mainstream media wrote triumphantly about the pain Ukraine was inflicting with its U.S.-assisted drone attacks inside Russia, claiming that Ukraine was “now turning the tide,” had a “decisive upper hand,” and was even “winning the war.”
But detailed analyses of the actual battle lines showed that, when the 40-day clock expired earlier this month, little had actually changed on the ground. In fact, Russia had made some minor territorial advances, while Ukraine’s severe manpower, demographic and economic crises continued to deepen.
Worse, the drone attacks have elicited the most severe Russian retaliation yet. Moscow has markedly stepped up its strikes on Ukraine, including one of the largest ballistic missile attacks of the entire war, at the precise time the United States and Europe are running low on interceptors to defend it. With Russia now attacking Ukraine’s port facilities and commercial vessels in the Black Sea, the country is being starved of billions of dollars of revenue, and its GDP could drop by as much as 1.5%.
In other words, the ultimately unsuccessful Ukrainian drone assault is something we have now seen over and over again: Kyiv embarks on an audacious, headline-grabbing military gambit; Western media and officials seize on it to claim the tide is turning; and then when the smoke clears, it turns out nothing has been achieved but an escalation of the war. Ukraine winds up battered even worse, and with less favorable negotiating terms on the table.
Also Ukraine lack of air defense missiles means Ukraine’s air defense has collapsed. Meaning more success of Russian drone & missile attacks upon Ukraine infrastructure.