# OPINION: Ukraine strikes at 3,000 km — Zelensky rewrites the rules of long-range war

> On June 27, 2026, President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke words that deserve to be weighed carefully: the Ukrainian company Fire Point has developed

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Note
- Published: 2026-07-01
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/billet-l-ukraine-frappe-a-3-000-km-zelensky-change-les-regles-de-la-guerre-longu

## Introduction: when war reinvents itself from Kyiv

### June 27, 2026 — a declaration that changes everything

On **June 27, 2026**, President **Volodymyr Zelensky** spoke words that deserve to be weighed carefully: the Ukrainian company **Fire Point** has developed and successfully deployed long-range drones capable of covering more than **3,000 kilometers**. And they have been used. On the ground. Against Russian targets. This is not a laboratory announcement — it is the confirmation of an operational capability that redefines the geography of this war.

In the same address, **Zelensky** confirmed that these **FP-1** drones had struck the **Moscow refinery**, just **15 kilometers from the Kremlin**. In parallel, **Fire Point** is testing its **FP-9** ballistic missile with a range of **855 kilometers**, designed to reach **Moscow** and **Saint Petersburg**. Ukraine is no longer merely a defensive power. It is becoming a deep-strike power.

*I want to name what I feel reading these numbers: astonishment. Ukraine — invaded, bombed, exhausted — has developed in wartime a drone capable of covering 3,000 kilometers. This is an engineering achievement under conditions that most developed nations could not imagine. This is not naive admiration — it is recognition of a reality that too many Western commentators still underestimate.*

## The FP-1 drones: a weapon born of necessity

### Fire Point and Ukraine's drone revolution

**Fire Point** is one of many defense companies that have emerged in Ukraine since **2022**. The war has created an economy of technological survival: engineers, entrepreneurs and soldiers have collaborated to develop weapons systems that conventional industry would have taken decades to produce. The **FP-1** drone is the most spectacular product of this dynamic.

With a range of over **3,000 kilometers**, the **FP-1** surpasses the range of most military drones used by **NATO** armies. It can reach not only **Moscow**, but potentially targets well beyond the **Urals**. The fact that **Zelensky** confirmed its operational use means that Ukraine has solved the challenges of navigation, stealth and guidance over very long distances — a first-rate technical achievement.

### The FP-9 missile: the next frontier

Alongside the **FP-1** drones, **Fire Point** is testing the **FP-9** ballistic missile, with a declared range of **855 kilometers**. This range places **Moscow** and **Saint Petersburg** within striking distance from Ukrainian territory. A ballistic missile is a fundamentally different weapon from a drone: its trajectory, speed and precision make it a weapons system that no conventional air defense can guarantee to intercept 100% of the time.

**Russia** has been using ballistic missiles against Ukraine since the start of the conflict. The **Iskander-M**, the **Kinzhal**, the **Kh-47** missiles — these systems have struck Ukrainian cities in attacks that even the best air defenses cannot always fully neutralize. If the **FP-9** enters service, Ukraine will have an answer to each, and **Putin** will have to protect his own cities with the same dread he has inflicted on Ukrainians.

*Some will say that striking Moscow would escalate the conflict. Perhaps. But Russia has been bombing Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa for more than four years. The asymmetry was total. What Ukraine is developing now is a deterrence capability, not a strategy of blind destruction. Deterrence works when both sides know the other can inflict real pain. Until now, only Russia could.*

## The Ufa strikes: the doctrine of energy sanctions

### Bashneft and Rosneft in the crosshairs

On **June 25, 2026**, Ukrainian drones — some resembling the **Liutyi** drone, a Ukrainian AI-guided aircraft with a range of approximately **2,000 kilometers** and a warhead of **50 to 75 kilograms** — struck two of the three plants in the **Bashneft** refinery complex in **Ufa**: **Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim** and likely **Bashneft-UNPZ**. These facilities are controlled by **Rosneft**, Russia's state oil giant.

The head of the **Bashkortostan** region, **Radiy Khabirov**, claimed the attack had been "repelled" and that only debris from downed drones caused damage. This official Russian account is open to serious doubt: satellite imagery and independent reports have regularly contradicted Kremlin announcements about damage from Ukrainian strikes. On **July 1, 2026**, **Zelensky** confirmed a **second strike** on the same **Ufa** refinery.

### Fuel as a weapon: Ukraine's economic strategy

**Zelensky** stated it explicitly in his address of **June 29, 2026**: **"Even a petroleum-producing state, often called a 'gas station,' now faces fuel shortages."** Those shortages span **70 regions of Russia**. Long lines at gas stations, visible and documented by Russians themselves on social media before censorship removed them. This is not Ukrainian propaganda — it is a reality that **Vladimir Putin** himself acknowledged in his interview of **June 28**.

Behind the drone range figures lies a coherent strategy: deny Russian armed forces the resources needed for their offensive. A tank without fuel does not roll. A plane without kerosene does not take off. An army short on lubricants sees its armored vehicles wear out prematurely. By targeting Russian energy infrastructure, Ukraine strikes the military apparatus where it is most vulnerable over the long term.

*What I find remarkable about this strategy is its intellectual coherence. Ukraine is not bombing randomly. It is targeting the logistical nodes that feed the Russian war machine. This is economic warfare conducted with drones. And unlike Western sanctions — which have had real but limited effects — these strikes produce immediate, measurable results.*

## Moscow's response: denials and lines at the pump

### Putin between denial and admission

In a televised interview on **June 28, 2026**, **Vladimir Putin** acknowledged that Russians faced fuel shortages while dismissing Ukraine's proposal to halt long-range strikes as a "ploy" to ease military pressure on **Kyiv**. This admission is extraordinary in its scope: the Russian president is telling his own people, on camera, that the war he launched has direct consequences for their daily lives.

The Russians queuing at gas stations are the direct consequence of a military strategy that **Putin** imposed on them. **Zelensky** underscores this with surgical precision: **"Russians who are not yet subject to mobilization and who are currently waiting in line at gas stations should think carefully about what awaits them."** This is not provocation — it is an invitation to clarity.

### Moscow's mayor and the 50 drones downed

On **June 30, 2026**, Moscow mayor **Sergei Sobyanin** reported a massive drone attack that began around **4 a.m.** He claimed that air defenses had shot down around **50 UAVs**. But the sheer frequency and scale of these attacks reveal something the Kremlin can no longer conceal: **Moscow** has become a regular target, and Russian air defense systems, however capable, cannot intercept every incoming vector.

The **Dubna space communications center** in the **Moscow region** was struck the same day by what **Zelensky** calls Ukraine's **"long-range sanctions."** This facility — used for satellite reconnaissance and coordination of invasion forces — lies more than **500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border**. Its destruction or degradation deprives Russian forces of an essential command-and-intelligence tool.

*There is a striking irony in the fact that Moscow — which has bombed Kyiv hundreds of times since 2022 — is now discovering what it means to hear air raid sirens at 4 a.m. I do not rejoice at the fear of Moscow's civilians — civilian fear is never a moral victory. But I note that this new symmetry forces Putin into calculations he had not foreseen.*

## The strategic impact on the front line

### Russian advances slowed, but not stopped

Despite Ukrainian long-range strikes, **Russia** continues to advance slowly in the **Donetsk** region. Russian forces control the entire **Luhansk** region and large portions of the **Donetsk** and **Zaporizhzhia** regions. But the pace of this advance has slowed considerably over recent months, according to Ukrainian officials, as Ukraine intensifies its medium- and long-range strike campaign.

This slowdown is not accidental. Fuel shortages, logistical disruptions caused by drone strikes on fuel depots and railway infrastructure, and the need for **Russia** to reinforce air defenses around its major cities — all of this creates friction in the Russian military apparatus that translates into fewer munitions, fewer combat aircraft, and fewer resources available for the offensive.

### The war of attrition changes sides

Since **2022**, the dominant narrative had been one of attrition favoring **Russia**: a major power with superior human and industrial resources gradually exhausting a smaller adversary. That narrative is being challenged. Ukraine has demonstrated its ability to innovate faster than **Russia** can adapt, to strike deeper than **Moscow** had anticipated, and to impose real economic costs on an adversary whose economic model depends on hydrocarbon exports.

**Russia** had bet on Western exhaustion. It had bet on weariness with military aid, on political divisions in Europe and the **United States**, on Ukraine's inability to sustain its resistance over time. These bets are proving weaker by the day — and the **FP-1** drones at **3,000 kilometers** range are the most eloquent demonstration of that.

*I remember the experts who, in 2022, gave Ukraine a few weeks before collapse. In 2024, they gave Putin victory through attrition. In 2026, Ukraine strikes at 3,000 kilometers. The lesson of this war is that predictions about wars of attrition assume static adversaries. Ukraine is not static. It innovates, adapts and resists with a vitality that no one anticipated.*

## What the West must understand from this shift

### Ukraine no longer needs to be a passive protégé

For years, the Western debate over supporting Ukraine was dominated by fear of escalation. Every new weapon delivered — tanks, long-range missiles, **F-16s**, **ATACMS** — was preceded by months of deliberation over the "red lines" that **Putin** was supposedly unwilling to cross. These hesitations carry a documented human cost: each month of delay in delivering a weapons system corresponded to preventable Ukrainian casualties.

But Ukraine's drone revolution changes the nature of the debate. Ukraine is no longer only asking for Western weapons — it is developing new ones, more capable, tailored to its specific wartime context. The **FP-1** drones at **3,000 kilometers** are a Ukrainian product, born of Ukrainian ingenuity, funded by Ukrainian resistance. This is a strategic autonomy that no one in Western chancelleries had truly planned for.

### Trump, American aid and the paradox of dependence

The **Trump** administration, since returning to the **White House**, has maintained variable and sometimes unpredictable American aid to Ukraine. This context has accelerated a reality that Ukrainians have internalized: they cannot depend on a single protector, whether it is called **Washington**, **Berlin** or **Paris**. They must be capable of defending themselves, with their own means, over the long term.

The **FP-1** drones are the product of this survival logic. They are also a message to all of Ukraine's allies: we are building capability, not hoping for rescue. Western aid remains precious — every **Patriot** system, every **Gripen**, every artillery shell counts. But Ukraine is no longer passively waiting for the West to decide its fate. It is actively shaping the conditions of its own victory.

*I believe this is the deepest lesson of this sequence. Ukraine is becoming an autonomous military actor, not merely a beneficiary of Western aid. This is a transformation that Kyiv's partners would do well to celebrate rather than fear. A Ukraine capable of defending itself independently strengthens NATO — it does not weaken it.*

## The human dimension: the engineers of the shadows

### Those who build drones under air raid sirens

Behind the numbers — **3,000 kilometers**, **855 kilometers**, **50 drones downed** — are women and men working in workshops, garages and improvised laboratories, under the sound of air raid sirens, in a war economy where resources are scarce and where any day may be the last. The engineers of **Fire Point**, like those of **Bayraktar** or dozens of other Ukrainian defense technology companies, deserve recognition that goes well beyond official statements.

These Ukrainian engineers are the face of a resistance that resembles nothing that classical strategic literature anticipated. They do not operate from high-tech bunkers shielded from bombs — they create under the very conditions their enemy seeks to make unlivable. This is the determination that **Putin** had not factored into his calculations. This is the determination that explains drones at **3,000 kilometers**.

### Ukraine's industrial mobilization: a lesson for the West

In **June 2026**, **Zelensky** confirmed that Ukraine had launched a **record wave of strikes** against Russia's defense industry over the month. This coordinated campaign — long-range drones, cruise missiles, **FPV** drones on the line of contact — reflects an industrial scale-up that few analysts had anticipated. Ukraine now produces hundreds of thousands of drones per year, of different types, for different missions.

For **NATO** members still struggling to increase artillery production, this Ukrainian reality is a lesson in wartime industrial mobilization. What **Kyiv** has accomplished in two years — moving from near-total dependence on outside aid to world-class domestic drone production — should inspire defense strategists from **Berlin** to **Paris** to **Washington**.

*I think often of the engineers working through the night in Kyiv, Kharkiv or Lviv, designing the drones that will tomorrow strike a refinery 1,300 kilometers away. They do not do this for glory or headlines. They do it because their country needs them. I do not know their names. I simply want to note that they exist — and that their existence is changing the course of this war.*

## Moscow's air security under growing pressure

### Air defenses saturated by drone swarms

On **June 30, 2026**, Moscow mayor **Sergei Sobyanin** announced the interception of roughly **50 drones** in a single night. This figure reveals the Ukrainian strategy: do not send a single costly drone that can be intercepted, but swarms that saturate air defense systems. Even if **80%** are shot down, the remaining **20%** reach their targets. This is the logic of low-cost munitions used in large numbers.

**Russia** has deployed around **Moscow** some of its most sophisticated air defense systems — **S-400, Pantsir, Buk**. These systems are effective against conventional missiles. But against hundreds of small AI-guided drones flying at low altitude on variable trajectories, even the best air defenses show their limits. Every intercepted drone consumes air defense munitions that **Russia** cannot replace indefinitely.

### The paradox of Russian air defenses

**Russia** faces a growing dilemma: to protect **Moscow** and its major cities, it must withdraw air defense systems from the Ukrainian front. But pulling **S-400** systems from the front exposes its own forces to Ukrainian aircraft and **ATACMS** missiles. This is an impossible balance that Ukraine's drone campaigns force Russia to adjudicate — and every choice is a bad one for **Moscow**.

This strategic dilemma is one reason why Ukraine's long-range drone campaign is more effective than its immediate destructive value suggests. It forces **Russia** to disperse its defensive resources, to protect the home front instead of concentrating forces on the front line, and to explain to its own population why the capital is regularly under air raid alerts despite official assurances of imminent victory.

*There is something politically significant in the fact that Moscow residents hear air raid sirens. Russian propaganda has presented this war as a distant conflict, far from the everyday concerns of Russians. Ukrainian drones are pulling back that curtain. They remind people that the war Putin chose has real consequences — including for those who did not choose to wage it.*

## The economic cost to Russia: the numbers behind the strikes

### Refineries, fuel and war economy

Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure carry a measurable economic impact. The **Bashneft** refineries in **Ufa**, the plants in **Krasnodar Krai**, fuel depots in the **Saratov** region and beyond — each facility hit reduces Russian production capacity. In a war economy context where **Moscow** is simultaneously trying to fund a large-scale military offensive and sustain a civilian economy under sanctions, every refinery knocked offline creates additional strain.

Fuel shortages affecting **70 regions of Russia** — as reported by **Zelensky** in his **June 29, 2026** address — are not only a military logistical problem. They generate social tensions in a country where the war economy has already produced significant inflation. Lines at gas stations are visible, documented by Russians themselves on social media. They are difficult to hide, even for a regime that controls the major media outlets.

### The sanctions war: two strategies that complement each other

Western economic sanctions have imposed real costs on the Russian economy since **2022**. But they have also shown their limits: **Russia** has redirected part of its trade toward **China, India and other non-aligned partners**, partially circumventing Western restrictions. Ukrainian drone strikes on energy infrastructure complement this sanctions strategy: they target production at the source, where no geographical workaround is possible.

This is why **Zelensky** speaks of **"Ukrainian sanctions"** — a term deliberately chosen to signal that Ukraine is conducting its own economic pressure campaign against **Russia**, independently of Western government decisions. A politically astute formulation that positions Ukraine as a sovereign actor in the economic war, not only on the military battlefield.

*The term "Ukrainian sanctions" is a masterful rhetorical move by Zelensky. He places his drone strikes in the same category as Western economic sanctions — legitimate, targeted, proportionate. And he is right on substance: striking a refinery that fuels a war machine is more precise and less destructive to civilians than many conventional artillery strikes.*

## The diplomatic stakes: strikes that weigh on negotiations

### Russia's rejection of every peace proposal

In his **June 29, 2026** address, **Zelensky** recalled that Ukraine had advanced proposals to move toward an end to the war — **"and Russia rejects them every time."** This is documented: since the **2022** invasion, **Moscow** has rejected every ceasefire or negotiation proposal that did not entail territorial surrenders unacceptable to **Kyiv**.

Long-range Ukrainian strikes are not a response to the failure of diplomacy — they are what remains when diplomacy has been unilaterally blocked by **Russia**. **Zelensky** states it explicitly: **"If Russia does not end the war, it will have to postpone that deadline once again."** The drones at **3,000 kilometers** are the argument that completes that sentence.

### Fifteen deadlines for the Donbas — all missed

In his **June 29** address, **Zelensky** also counted: **Russia** has set itself **15 successive deadlines** to capture the four eastern Ukrainian regions — **Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson** — over more than **four years** of war. All have been missed. This count is not bluster — it is a factual observation that the Russian general staff cannot contest. The war **Putin** planned to last three days is now in its fifth year, without the promised victory.

In this context, the **FP-1** drones at **3,000 kilometers** are far more than a technical achievement. They are proof that Ukraine has not merely resisted — it has transformed. It entered this war with a Soviet-era army and equipment dating from the 1980s. It is emerging — if it emerges — with a high-technology defense industry, a deep-strike doctrine, and operational experience unmatched anywhere in **Europe**.

*Fifteen deadlines, all missed. That is Putin's military balance sheet in Ukraine. This figure should appear in every Western speech that still hesitates to give Kyiv what it needs. Russia is not winning. It is enduring. Those are not the same thing. And while it endures, Ukraine builds drones with a 3,000-kilometer range.*

## European partners facing the reality of Ukrainian strikes

### France, Germany and the red line of deep strikes

Several European allies long hesitated to authorize Ukraine to use their weapons for deep strikes inside Russian territory. **France** and **Germany** imposed restrictions on the use of their weapons systems against targets on Russian soil, seeking to avoid direct escalation between **NATO** and **Russia**. These restrictions were intended to manage risk — but they also slowed Ukraine's ability to strike Russian logistics in depth.

The autonomous development of **FP-1** drones with a **3,000-kilometer** range changes this calculation permanently. Ukraine no longer needs Western permission to strike deep inside Russian territory — it uses its own weapons, developed by its own engineers. This strategic shift should prompt European partners to reconsider the relevance of their restrictions on weapons use, which no longer carry the deterrent effect they were designed to produce.

### The United Kingdom and the deep-strike doctrine

Among Western allies, the **United Kingdom** has been among the most supportive of a deep-strike doctrine for Ukraine. The delivery of **Storm Shadow** missiles in **2023**, followed by authorization for use on Russian territory, set a precedent that other allies followed slowly. Ukraine's drone revolution extends this logic: Ukraine now develops its own Storm Shadows — cheaper and more numerous — without depending on British stocks.

The question for **London, Paris** and **Berlin** has now shifted: no longer "should we allow Ukraine to strike far?" but "how do we support a Ukraine that is already striking far with its own means?" This evolution will be central to discussions at the **NATO** summit in **Ankara** on **July 7-8, 2026**.

*Some European allies imposed restrictions on the use of their weapons in Russia out of fear of escalation — a legitimate fear. But now that Ukraine strikes at 3,000 kilometers with its own drones, those restrictions look more like political symbols than genuine military guardrails. It is time to reconsider them honestly.*

## The geopolitical context: China, Iran and North Korea in the equation

### Moscow's support axis in the face of Russian setbacks

Ukraine's long-range strike capability has geopolitical implications that extend well beyond the Russia-Ukraine conflict. **China**, **Iran** and **North Korea** have provided **Russia** with material support since the start of the conflict: North Korean artillery shells, Iranian **Shahed** drones, Chinese technology components. This support has allowed **Moscow** to sustain its war despite Western sanctions.

But a **Russia** whose refineries are burning, whose fuel depots are exploding and whose space communications centers are being neutralized is a less attractive **Russia** as a strategic partner. **Beijing** is constantly calculating the balance between the benefits of supporting **Moscow** and the cost to its relations with the West. A **Russia** in growing military difficulty is a **Russia** whose value as a potential ally diminishes in the calculations of Chinese leadership.

### Iranian Shahed drones versus Ukrainian innovation

**Iran** supplied hundreds of **Shahed-136** drones to **Russia**, used massively against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. These low-cost drones caused immense destruction. But Ukraine has studied their design, trajectories and weaknesses, developing its own electronic countermeasures while building far more capable drones of its own.

Ukraine's trajectory — from receiving allied drones to autonomously producing superior systems — is a lesson for all **NATO** members. If **China** were ever to deploy drones against a Western adversary, the techniques Ukraine has developed to detect, neutralize and counter them would be of inestimable strategic value to the entire **Atlantic Alliance**.

*China is watching what happens in Ukraine very carefully. It is studying Ukrainian countermeasures, air defense tactics, the effectiveness of Western missiles. This war is a laboratory. The West should ensure that laboratory stays open — for Ukraine first, for collective security thereafter.*

## The future: toward an autonomous Ukrainian deterrence doctrine

### A strike capability that redefines the security equation

If the **FP-1** drones at **3,000 kilometers** and the **FP-9** missiles at **855 kilometers** enter operational service at scale, Ukraine will hold a significant asymmetric deterrence capability. This is not nuclear deterrence — but it is the ability to impose real costs on any potential aggressor across its entire territory. For a nation whose security depends on deterring a repeat of the **2022** invasion, this is a fundamental transformation of its defensive posture.

The emerging doctrine is one of deterrence through the threat of precision strikes on an adversary's strategic infrastructure. Not a threat of mass destruction — but the guaranteed ability to strike refineries, command centers, railway infrastructure and military installations at any depth in enemy territory. This is a doctrine consistent with Ukraine's tradition of asymmetric warfare developed since **2014**.

### Integration into NATO's security architecture

The question that will arise in future negotiations on Ukraine's **NATO** membership — or within the framework of bilateral security guarantees in the interim — is the integration of these capabilities into the collective security architecture. A Ukraine equipped with long-range drones and its own ballistic missiles, integrated into **NATO** planning structures, would be a considerable defensive asset for the entire **Atlantic Alliance**.

This prospect worries some allies who fear being drawn into conflict by Ukrainian decisions. But it reassures those who understand that the security of **Eastern Europe** depends on a strong Ukraine capable of defending itself and deterring another Russian act of aggression. The **FP-1** drones at **3,000 kilometers** are not only a Ukrainian weapon — they are the foundation of a security architecture that **Europe** had not anticipated but urgently needs.

*I believe Ukraine will, in time, become one of NATO's most valuable members — not despite its experience of war, but because of it. Its soldiers have fought the Russian army for years. Its engineers have developed drones no one else had conceived. This expertise is a treasure for the Alliance. You have to earn the right to belong — and Ukraine has paid that entry price in blood.*

## Putin's paradox: a promised victory that never arrives

### Fifteen deadlines for the Donbas — all missed

In his **June 29, 2026** address, **Zelensky** counted with chilling precision: **Russia** has set itself **15 successive deadlines** to capture the four eastern Ukrainian regions — **Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson** — over more than **four years** of total war. All have been missed. This is not Ukrainian bluster — it is a factual observation the Russian general staff cannot contest. The war **Putin** planned to last **three days** is now in its fifth year, without the promised or declared victory.

This balance sheet is not only humiliating for **Moscow**. It reveals something deeper: **Russia** is engaged in a war it cannot win quickly and refuses to admit it cannot finish. **Putin** remains obsessed with the **Donbas**, in **Zelensky**'s own words. This obsession carries a human and economic cost that Russian society is beginning to feel in its gas station queues.

### A war Russia prolongs without an exit strategy

**Zelensky** put it with a clarity that should resonate in every Western capital: **"Russia rejects our proposals every time."** This is not rhetoric — it is the description of a documented reality since **2022**. **Moscow** refuses any negotiation that does not guarantee it territorial gains unacceptable to Ukraine. In this context, Ukrainian drone strikes are not a provocation — they are the only available response to an adversary that refuses to talk and continues to bomb.

Ukraine's doctrine of **"long-range sanctions"** is precisely calibrated to make this refusal to negotiate increasingly costly for **Russia**. Every refinery struck, every fuel depot ablaze, every space communications center neutralized tells **Putin**: prolonging this war carries a price your economy and your army pay every day. The drones at **3,000 kilometers** are the most compelling argument for a just peace that Ukraine has yet produced.

*Fifteen deadlines, all missed. If that number is not enough to convince Western skeptics that Russia is not winning this war, I do not know what will be. Ukraine holds. It innovates. It strikes. And Putin postpones his deadline yet again. Ukrainian resistance is the most important political fact of our time — and we have not yet fully grasped its historical weight.*

## Conclusion: an opinion for the record — the Ukraine that strikes first

### The moment when the geography of war shifted

**June 27, 2026** will perhaps stand as a turning point in this conflict's history: the day the world learned that a democracy invaded, bombed and exhausted by more than **four years** of total war had secretly developed a drone capable of striking at **3,000 kilometers**. This is not victory in itself — the war continues, the destruction continues, the deaths continue. But it is proof that Ukraine is not losing. It is mutating.

### What this says about Ukrainian determination

**Putin** had bet on exhaustion, resignation and surrender. He was wrong on all three counts. Ukraine resists, innovates and strikes ever farther. The **FP-1s** at **3,000 kilometers**, the **FP-9s** at **855 kilometers**, the refineries burning in **Ufa** and **Krasnodar** — all of this draws the portrait of a country that has decided not to die. A country with the ingenuity, the determination and the engineers to keep that promise. This opinion is for them.

*The war is not over. Ukrainians will still die tomorrow, the day after, in weeks and months ahead, if Putin refuses to negotiate seriously. That fact does not disappear behind drone range records. But I know this: the Ukraine that strikes at 3,000 kilometers in 2026 is the Ukraine that decided to survive. And that decision deserves the complete respect of every democracy on earth.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Ukrainian Pravda — Zelenskyy: Ukrainian weapons strike Ufa oil refinery again and hit Russian military-industrial complex in Penza — July 1, 2026](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/07/01/8041879/)

- [Euromaidanpress — Drones flew 1,300 km to Russia's Ufa, then struck Bashneft refineries — June 25, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/25/drones-flew-1300-km-to-russias-ufa-then-struck-bashneft-refineries/)

- [Reuters — Ukraine's Zelenskiy mocks Russian military drive, says Moscow rejects all peace proposals — June 29, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraines-zelenskiy-mocks-russian-military-drive-says-moscow-rejects-all-peace-2026-06-29/)

### Secondary sources

- [Militarnyi — Liutyi drones strike oil refinery in Ufa — June 2026](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/liutyi-drones-strike-oil-refinery-in-ufa/)

- [United24 Media — Ukraine launches record wave of strikes on Russia's defense industry in June — June 2026](https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-launches-record-wave-of-strikes-on-russias-defense-industry-in-june-20234)

- [Charter97 — Zelenskyy announced the destruction of a specific target in the Moscow Region — June 30, 2026](https://charter97.org/en/news/2026/6/30/689570/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/billet-l-ukraine-frappe-a-3-000-km-zelensky-change-les-regles-de-la-guerre-longu