In the spring of 2026, Ukrainian forces significantly stepped up strikes on Russia’s so-called “middle rear” using “mid-strikes” — drones able to hit targets dozens of kilometers from the front line. According to Ukrainska Pravda, the main tool for these attacks has been the Hornet drone, produced by a company linked to former Google chief Eric Schmidt, along with German and Ukrainian counterparts.
Early in the spring, these drones began striking targets near Donetsk. In May, as Meduza had reported earlier, the Ukrainian military also intensified attacks on the R-280 Novorossiya highway, which links Russia’s Rostov region with Crimea. The outlet said this became one of the reasons for a gasoline shortage on the annexed peninsula.
Against that backdrop, claims emerged that Ukraine was seizing the initiative and slowing the Russian offensive. Most of the people interviewed by the publication, however, offered a much more cautious view.
“I don’t know where we supposedly seized the initiative; on some fronts there was simply a wave of PR activity. In the Sloviansk direction, the Russian offensive has not stopped since the fall of Siversk in December 2025,” said an officer from one of the corps operating in the Donetsk region.
Another serviceman fighting in the Kramatorsk and Sloviansk sectors said Ukrainian forces are conducting active defense with elements of counteroffensive action, but that the enemy still decides where, when, and with what forces to attack. Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst at the Come Back Alive Foundation, also warned against using the phrase “seizing the initiative,” saying only that the frontline situation had stopped deteriorating.
The bluntest assessment came from an officer of the 19th Corps in the Kostiantynivka direction, who said he saw “no effect at all” from such strikes. The only clearly positive view came from a source in an intelligence structure that has worked with such drones for several years. He said the strikes were doing more than disrupting logistics: they had left the Russian-occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region with almost no electricity and had sharply reduced Russian troop movement on roads in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Ukrainska Pravda writes that an effect noticeable to frontline units may become clear only by the end of summer or beginning of autumn. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has already announced a tender for the production of more than 100,000 drones for strikes on the “middle rear” and has reallocated several billion hryvnias for purchases for the 20 most effective UAV units. Ukraine also expects to receive such drones through international assistance.