Extract from ABC News
A satellite image shows damage at the Omsk oil refinery following a drone attack on Russia. (Reuters: Vantor/Handout)
On June 26, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced he was ordering a 40-day strike campaign to take the war to the heart of Russia and "press for an end to the war" in Ukraine.
Since then, Kyiv has sharply escalated attacks on Russia in a series of high-profile, long-range missile attacks, striking key supply lines and triggering a fuel crisis with sustained hits on oil and gas infrastructure, deep in the heart of enemy territory.
Analysts say these intensified attacks are increasing the strain on Russian businesses, people, and air defences.
During the 40 days, Ukraine reached further into Russia than ever before, striking an oil refinery in Omsk around 2,700 kilometres from Ukraine-held territory.
"Now, no Russian oil refinery is beyond the reach of Ukrainian weapons," Mr Zelenskyy said after the attack on July 6.
Over the 40-day campaign, which ended this week, Ukraine's Security Service said it conducted at least 100 successful strikes against Russia.
A fuel storage lid flies off after a Ukrainian drone strike on a Moscow refinery.
Defence expert Jennifer Parker said the war had evolved after four years, from a stalemate on the frontline in eastern Ukraine, to a duelling battle of long-range strikes.
"I think that has wider implications. When you take that and also add the lessons from the Middle East conflict, it has wider implications on the character of warfare and how modern warfare will now be fought," she said.
Ukraine's precise attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure
At the start of the war, Ukraine did not have weapons capable of reaching the Russian capital.
But with improved, locally made long-range drones, it is now striking deeper inside Russia, expanding strikes on economic and energy targets.
In August last year, a Ukrainian war drone flew more than 1,800 kilometres and set a record for the longest one-way strike in the world, according to the government-owned website United 24.
Nearly a year later, Ukraine topped its own record, using upgraded FP-1 drones to strike the Omsk oil refinery, located more than 2,500 kilometres from Ukraine-held territory, close to Russia's border with Kazakhstan.
Reuters reported that Omsk, Russia's largest refinery, situated in south-western Siberia, sustained so much damage that it has halted operations.
Oleksandra Molloy, a drone warfare expert from the University of New South Wales, said Ukraine had improved tactically, operationally and strategically, as Kyiv developed capabilities at scale to "show no distance is safe".
"They … have changed the defence equation overall,"Ms Molloy said.
"In the past, there were roughly thousands of drones developed a year. Now we can see the numbers [predicting] 10 million drones a year," she said.
Thick plumes of smoke with flames rise from an oil refinery following what the authorities say was a Ukrainian drone strike. (Reuters: social media)
Ukraine has dramatically ramped up its attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure, according to CNN analysis of information from Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), a non-profit organisation that specialises in mapping political violence.
It found oil facilities were hit three times in the first year of the war and 13 times in the second, with that number rising to more than 130 in the fourth.
"It really shows that relatively inexpensive long-range drones are … becoming increasingly accessible," Ms Molloy said.
"Increasing the endurance and range [and] also increasing the payload, which means the strikes that are delivered can be more powerful."
War is 'coming back to Moscow'
Ms Molloy said Ukraine's attacks were having a severe impact on Russia's domestic political situation, as the cost of fuel soared and the government put in place restrictions on the sale of petrol to combat widespread shortages in some areas.
In July, Russian oil refining fell to its lowest level in more than two decades, Bloomberg reported.
Petrol is becoming very difficult to find in Crimea. (Reuters: Alexey Pavlishak)
Russia has even turned to importing from Kazakhstan, India, Japan and Morocco, according to Reuters, as sustained attacks force refineries and processing plants to cut back or cease production.
Ms Molloy pointed to the Moscow Refinery in the Kapotnya District, which had been hit multiple times.
"The war started from Russia, but it's coming back to Moscow," she said.
"It actually supplies 40 per cent of Moscow's total fuel market, including 70 per cent of the gasoline consumed in the capital and surrounding regions.
"[For] the first time in the war, we can see that effect on the Russian side and on their real everyday lives."
Ukraine has been targeting facilities operated by Wildberries in recent weeks. (Social media via Reuters)
Ukraine strikes consumer icon
It is not just oil infrastructure that has been targeted with surgical precision by Ukraine.
Towering columns of smoke have erupted from inside Russia, including from around 20 facilities belonging to Russian online retailer Wildberries, a linchpin of the consumer economy often described as the country's answer to Amazon.
"By bringing [Wildberries] down, it just really brings that economic pressure and really shows Russia that … they are capable of not only now defending themselves, [but also] offensive, long-range capabilities," Ms Molloy said.
Ms Parker, an adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia's Defence and Security Institute, said the strikes showed not just Ukraine's range but also their increasingly accurate intelligence.
Ukraine's hammering of Wildberries' warehouses prompted the e-commerce giant to ban staff from bringing in mobile phones with cameras, Russian Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti posted.
The concern, according to the post, was that bystander video of attacks uploaded to social media could be used by Ukrainian forces to learn more about Russia's air defence systems.
Ms Parker said the company was not only being targeted because of its role in the consumer economy, but also because it supplied equipment to the Russian army.
"Everyone's talked about them being the equivalent of Amazon, but they do also supply military capability," she said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has refuted accusations that Wildberries warehouses are used for Russian army supplies, according to state-owned Russian news agency TASS.
He said the series of attacks on the company "confirms the terrorist essence of the Kyiv regime".
Key Russian military supply line targeted
At the end of its 40-day campaign, Ukraine's Security Service also highlighted its attacks on Russia's defence infrastructure, air bases, warships, tankers and logistics hubs.
It said it destroyed a Tu-95MS strategic bomber, two Su-35 fighter jets, and two L-39 combat training aircraft.
In a Telegram post last month, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces said they had increased successful strikes deep inside Russian-held territory by 1,150 per cent since the beginning of 2026.
Ms Parker said the saturation of Ukrainian attacks during its deep strike campaign was compounding the challenge for Russia's air defence systems, but also showed the Kremlin's protections were not as effective as many thought they would be.
"If there is one takeaway, it very clearly is that Russia's air defence capabilities are not as capable as many had predicted prior to this conflict," she said.
"Ukraine's ability to develop intelligence around where that stuff may be stationed and develop flight plans that avoid that is pretty accurate."
Kyiv has also been hammering Russia's military logistics in occupied southern Ukraine, continuing to target a 700-kilometre coastal road that acts as a key supply line for Russia.
A report last week from ACLED affirmed that Ukraine's campaign was a "drone war of attrition", with strikes against the road network carried out nearly every day since April.
"The continuation of this campaign is possible because Ukrainian forces have continuously degraded Russia's air defenses in the south," the report read.
Ms Molloy said four years into the war, Ukraine was also using technology innovations and creativity in its tactical approach.
"We see long-range capability [with drones] that traditionally could be achieved only with missiles and very expensive systems or aircraft and other weapons," she said.
"[It's] really provided the strategic edge to Ukrainian forces."
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