July marked a break with the pattern of Russia’s long-range strike campaign. Russia launched fewer of the massive, complex salvos that defined 2024 and 2025—yet fired more missiles than in any month in years.
The shift is not only in volume but in method—from occasional shock-and-awe raids to a sustained, high-tempo campaign built to grind down Ukraine's air defense before winter.
In the last two large attacks, Ukraine downed two of 36 ballistic missiles—roughly one in twenty—for lack of Patriot interceptors.
A shift from shock-and-awe
There were fewer massive, complex strikes than usual. Ukraine faced only three large strike packages of 250 or more missiles and drones—below the usual monthly average of nearly five. More striking was the gap between the last two: 24 days, against a typical week.
Yet despite the smaller number of massive strike packages, July was Russia's heaviest missile month in years. Monthly totals vary widely, but Russia averages about 168 ballistic and cruise missiles against Ukraine per month. In July, it launched 376. So far in 2026, monthly launches are running 58% above the January-to-July total for last year, putting 2026 on course to exceed 2025’s full-year total.
And winter is approaching.
With attacks spread across many nights, Ukraine never gets the pause it needs to repair damaged infrastructure or rest its air-defense crews, and every night burns interceptors it cannot easily replace. The campaign wears down the whole system rather than any single target.
Kyiv has increasingly become the main target, but Russian strikes hit a wide swathe of Ukraine’s deep rear, driving up civilian casualties. In its largest attacks, Russia now fires from several directions at once, with a rising share of ballistic missiles.
Ballistic missiles
The surge in ballistic missile launches was one of July’s defining features. Russia is producing far more ballistic missiles than at the start of the full-scale invasion, and output has continued to rise through 2025 and into 2026. In July, a third of all missiles—126—were ballistic.
The Patriot remains Ukraine’s principal defense against ballistic missiles, and interceptor stocks are extremely limited. Ballistic missiles give far shorter warning times than cruise missiles, and their success rate is far higher. In the last two large attacks, Russia launched 36 Iskander-M/KN-23 and S-300/400 ballistic missiles. Ukraine downed two of the 36—roughly one in twenty—for lack of Patriot interceptors.
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Ukraine is proposing an alternative to Patriot resupply, which the US war with Iran has sharply depleted. President Zelenskyy has asked Trump to secure Elon Musk’s permission for Ukraine to use Starlink to guide drone strikes against ballistic launchers on Russian territory—destroying them before they can fire.
The Atlantic quoted Denys Shtilerman, co-founder of the Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, arguing that Starlink-guided drones could neutralize Russia’s missile threat more effectively than interceptors: “Instead of shooting down the arrows, we would strike the archers.”
A policy shift is unlikely. Starlink is currently geofenced to Ukraine, including occupied Crimea and other oblasts. Musk has defended that restriction and said he will not let the network guide deep strikes into Russia, citing the risk of direct escalation.
Air-launched cruise missiles
July brought another anomaly: Kh-59/Kh-69 use jumped several-fold. In 2025, Russia fired 113 of these air-launched cruise missiles. In July alone, it launched 62—more than half of last year’s total in a single month.
The jump likely reflects several converging developments rather than a single cause. Serial production, particularly of the Kh-69, is maturing, while Russia is making wider use of tactical aircraft, including Su-34s, Su-35s, and possibly Su-57s.
The Kh-69 also offers better survivability than older tactical missiles and a more cost-effective precision weapon than strategic cruise missiles. Russia is increasingly integrating it into complex strike packages designed to saturate Ukrainian air defenses.
The Kh-69 has become Russia’s preferred tactical air-launched precision weapon—filling, in the tactical domain, the role the Kh-101 plays in the strategic one. If the trend holds, it will account for a growing share of Russia’s non-ballistic strikes through the rest of 2026.
Several recent barrages combined Iskander-M ballistic missiles, Kh-101 and Kh-59/69 cruise missiles, and Shahed drones—maximizing the complexity of the air defense problem.
Long-range drones
Long-range strike drone numbers fell. By the Ukrainian Air Force’s daily reports, Ukraine faced 4,951 strike drones—Shahed-type, Gerbera, Italmas, and “Banderol” loitering munitions. Apart from January, that is the lowest monthly figure since August 2025. Yet the interception rate was the third-lowest this year, at 86.6%.
The falling kill rate owes partly to the spread of jet-propelled drones. Russia first fielded jet-powered Shahed-type drones in early June 2025; by mid-2026, they had gone from an occasional tactic to a persistent threat, flying at 370 to more than 500 km/h—beyond the reach of many Ukrainian interceptors. Jet engines now power an estimated 15% to 20% of Russia’s active Shahed arsenal.
Russia is now losing 95% of its Shaheds to Ukrainian interception. Moscow’s response will be jet-powered variants and border-area targeting
Russia is already making up to 500 jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones a month, with mass production of the Geran-3 expected in the second half of the year. The stated goal, according to Ukrainian intelligence, is to raise jet-powered drones to half of the total Shahed fleet—a shift that could blunt Ukraine’s interceptor-drone defense and tip the balance back toward Russia.
Cheap propeller-driven Shaheds and Gerbera decoys still pound frontline positions and border-area fuel depots, while Russia conserves its jet-propelled drones for high-value targets deep in the Ukrainian rear. Russia plans to build 60,000 long-range strike drones and another 50,000 decoys this year.
Although July’s drone numbers were the lowest since August 2025, the low interception rate meant that only January and April saw more drones reach their targets.
Implications
Air-defense depletion is becoming a primary objective. Russia is exploiting both the global shortage of Patriot interceptors and the gaps in Ukraine’s drone defenses to escalate its war of attrition.
The campaign aims less at destroying individual targets than at degrading Ukraine’s integrated air defense. Every attack forces a choice: defend Kyiv, the western logistics hubs, the frontline cities, or the energy grid—or hold interceptors in reserve. That dilemma sharpens when attacks come almost nightly rather than once a week.
Taken together, July 2026 suggests Russia is shifting from episodic mass strikes to a persistent, high-tempo campaign. Its key features:
- More long-range drones and more capable missiles in production.
- Higher overall missile expenditure, despite fewer record-sized barrages.
- Greater reliance on ballistic missiles, which are hardest to intercept.
- Expanded use of Kh-59/69 tactical cruise missiles, enabled by tactical aviation.
- More diverse strike packages, complicating Ukrainian air-defense planning.
- A sustained effort to wear down Ukrainian interceptor inventories and command systems, rather than relying on spectacular one-night attacks.
If the trend continues, Russia may sustain frequent small-to-medium mixed packages through the rest of 2026, rather than returning to the fewer but exceptionally large “record” attacks of 2024 and 2025.
Russia is capitalizing on the US and Europe’s inability to produce enough interceptors for the Patriot and SAMP/T systems—a shortfall July has thrown into sharp relief.
Ukrainian destruction and suffering will mount as the war of attrition grinds on. And Europe stands badly unprepared for a military confrontation with Russia. In principle, a Patriot battery with no interceptors left to fire is scarcely better than no battery at all.
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