Marking a new phase after almost five years of war, Russia is intensifying and widening its air war against Ukraine. Now that Ukrainian forces have stopped and partially reversed the Russian battlefield advance, the Kremlin appears to have embraced a new theory of victory. By not only increasing the number of missile and drone strikes but expanding the range of their targets, Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to paralyze Ukraine’s economy, society, and basic functioning of the state as winter approaches.
In the past few months, Russia has become more systematic, deliberate, and precise in striking civilian infrastructure. On the back of increased production of ballistic missiles and newer, faster drones, the Kremlin has widened the air campaign to target Ukrainian railways, gas stations, port infrastructure, cargo ships, shopping malls, and data centers. Russia’s plan also includes cutting Ukrainian cities off from electricity, heating, and water.
Marking a new phase after almost five years of war, Russia is intensifying and widening its air war against Ukraine. Now that Ukrainian forces have stopped and partially reversed the Russian battlefield advance, the Kremlin appears to have embraced a new theory of victory. By not only increasing the number of missile and drone strikes but expanding the range of their targets, Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to paralyze Ukraine’s economy, society, and basic functioning of the state as winter approaches.
In the past few months, Russia has become more systematic, deliberate, and precise in striking civilian infrastructure. On the back of increased production of ballistic missiles and newer, faster drones, the Kremlin has widened the air campaign to target Ukrainian railways, gas stations, port infrastructure, cargo ships, shopping malls, and data centers. Russia’s plan also includes cutting Ukrainian cities off from electricity, heating, and water.
This campaign is not merely Russia ramping up attacks against civilians and objects in the rear. It is an attempt to strangle Ukraine’s economy, disrupt supply chains, cut transport routes, and destroy public utilities. By systematically targeting the infrastructure that allows Ukraine’s society and economy to function, Russia aims to make Ukraine uninhabitable as winter approaches.
In the weeks and months ahead, we should not only expect these strikes to continue but also rise further in frequency as additional Russian weapons production comes online. Russia’s shift to a war economy is now paying dividends by delivering greater numbers of missiles and drones—at the same time that Ukraine’s air defense suffers from a severe shortage of anti-ballistic-missile interceptors.
Moscow’s air war has implications for Western support and the strategic choices facing Kyiv. Europe should understand that it needs to ramp up support—or soon face an exodus of millions of Ukrainians as the state loses much of its ability to function.
Russia gained the upper hand in its air war against Ukraine in recent months. Ukraine’s shortage of Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile interceptors has left it largely defenseless against Russia’s ballistic missiles, such as the Oreshnik and Iskander. Russia currently produces around 100 ballistic missiles per month, up from just a handful per month in 2022 and expected to rise further by next year. The United States produces only about half this number of Patriot interceptors per month. With stocks dwindling due to the war in the Middle East, Washington has been reluctant to send any more interceptors to Ukraine.
Russia’s introduction of jet-powered, domestically produced variant of the Iranian Shahed drone in 2025, has proved even more effective at terrorizing the Ukrainian population and causing major disruptions of daily life. Mass production of these drones allows Russia to attack with a steady trickle of jet-propelled drones throughout the day and night, which can mean nonstop air alerts as civilian life grinds to a halt.
These jet-powered drones are a significant improvement on the original Iranian design that Tehran transferred to Moscow early in the war. At speeds of up to 375 miles per hour, they can fly more than three times as fast as the original Iranian-supplied propeller drones, which makes them much harder to intercept. They also rely on mesh radio networks that enable Russian drone operators to circumvent Ukrainian electronic warfare and control drones in real time inside Ukraine. The always-innovative Ukrainians are developing several different types of air-defense interceptors to take down jet drones. But these weapons are still months away, and scaling up production will take time.
The big difference in Russia’s strategy, however, is not so much the types and numbers of missiles and drones. Rather, it is Russia’s systematic widening of the range of targets.
For example, Russia has been deliberately targeting gas stations as far west as the border with Poland. In the past six months, around 300 of Ukraine’s 5,500 gas stations stations have been struck. This has caused another spike in fuel prices, already pushed up by U.S. President Donald Trump’s war against Iran. The price of diesel is up around 50 percent since the start of the year.
Russia has also hit some 500 locomotives locomotives since 2022; more than half of these attacks took place this year. Trains now routinely stop and passengers evacuate if Russian drones are in the area, causing significant delays and disrupting civilian traffic. Trains are the country’s lifeline as its airspace remains closed to civilian flights. The country’s railways have been a symbol of its resilience and grit since the start of the invasion. It is this symbol that Russia is now attacking.
In the Black Sea port of Odesa and nearby, Russia hit around 50 civilian cargo ships over the summer, effectively shutting down Ukraine’s maritime egress. Port infrastructure, including loading facilities and warehouses, has also been targeted. Ukrainian grain is no longer able to reach the global market via the Black Sea, which is severely impacting Ukraine’s economy.
Strikes against Ukrainian manufacturing, including steel plants, in recent weeks have added to the strains. By August, steel production was down nearly 60 percent year-over-year. By late September, three plants accounting for 90 percent of Ukraine’s total of Ukraine’s total steel production stopped operations because of Russian strikes.
Over the past few days, there have been increasing reports of strikes on data centers, causing intermittent internet outages. As Ukraine heads into winter, Russia will likely intensify attacks against electricity, heating, and water infrastructure as well.
The key to countering Russia’s new air campaign is to be found in additional military and economic support from the West.
First, Europe and the United States need to help Ukraine fill the air defense gap. In the short term, Germany could leverage its licensed production of Patriot PAC-2 interceptors to negotiate swap arrangements, by which the United States and other countries with interceptor stocks, such as the Gulf states, could ship some of their missiles to Ukraine now in return for German production later. The challenge is that these countries are loath to give up their interceptors given the threat of Iranian missiles.
At most, a swap arrangement would be a temporary stopgap. The fundamental problem is that there are not enough Patriot interceptors in the world to counter the number of ballistic missiles Russia is firing at Ukraine each month.
More than anything, Ukraine needs to produce anti-ballistic missile defense domestically. Together with nine European states, Kyiv is developing its own such systems as part of the Freyja initiative. But this could take years, even when one accounts for Ukrainian ingenuity and capacity for innovation.
Trump has been reluctant to license Patriot missile production to Ukraine. Should the White House remain unwilling, a workaround could involve a trilateral agreement in which a third country—perhaps Poland or Sweden—is given a license to produce the more advanced PAC-3 interceptors for onward shipment to Ukraine.
Ultimately, given the worldwide shortage of interceptors and long lead time for producing such weapons, Ukraine’s biggest priority should be to degrade Russian missile production and launch infrastructure: If you can’t intercept the arrow, hit the archer instead. Europe and the United States have an essential role to play in providing Ukraine with intelligence and deep-strike capabilities for this task. Part of this Western effort should also be expanding and enforcing sanctions on critical missile components that are still reaching Russia.
Second, Russia’s new strategy by which it hopes to defeat Ukraine requires not just a military response but also an economic one. The air war is bleeding Ukraine’s economy. The Black Sea corridor is closed, and Ukraine’s steel industry is on the verge of collapse. Economic collapse, in turn, drains the government’s tax revenues. Ukraine can plug some of its projected 2026 budget deficit of $27 billion with fresh money from the European Union as part of the EU’s Ukraine Plan, which requires the adoption of key reforms and legislation to unlock additional funds as part of the EU accession process.
Even as it funds Ukraine’s budget deficit, the EU has been damaging Ukraine’s economy. In January, the EU imposed carbon tariffs on certain industrial imports, including from Ukraine. Most of Ukraine’s exports thus affected are iron and steel, putting the country at risk of losing $4.7 billion in exports between 2026 and 2030. At the very least, the EU should provide a waiver to Ukraine for a transition period given the economic pressures from the ongoing war.
Third, the EU should treat a potential mass exodus of refugees from Ukraine this winter as a deliberate Russian strategy to undermine European unity and political stability, not a humanitarian crisis to deal with if and when it happens. This means acting now in anticipation of such a scenario. The EU needs to increase its support to rebuild Ukraine’s energy infrastructure—with 70 percent of prewar generation capacity destroyed. The EU should also store Ukrainian gas ahead of the winter with a view of transferring it back to Ukraine if Russia destroys storage depots or other infrastructure.
The Kremlin’s air war has put Ukraine under tremendous pressure. The winter will be dire for Ukrainians. But the West has the ability to at least alleviate some of the pain. This requires, however, a ramping up of military and economic support. Ukraine must be enabled to inflict much greater cost on Russia while neutering its ability to destroy Ukraine’s economy. Otherwise, Putin will believe he has gained the upper hand, destroying the possibility of a cease-fire any time soon.
