COMMENTARY: Forty days of strikes — the pressure operation Zelensky launched

COMMENTARY: Forty days of strikes — the pressure operation Zelensky launched

Introduction: A campaign named, dated, and owned

What it means to announce a 40-day operation

On June 26, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly announced a 40-day pressure operation targeting Russian logistics and military infrastructure. This is not a victory declaration, nor a vague promise. It is an operationally named, dated, and owned strategy — an act of political communication as much as a military directive. And that act says a great deal about Kyiv's confidence in its own capabilities.

The decision to publicly announce a deep-strike campaign before it is complete is deliberately counterintuitive from a classic military standpoint. But Zelensky's logic differs: by making the operation public, he gives it a psychological and political dimension that multiplies its impact. Every subsequent strike is read as the execution of a plan — not an opportunistic action. This changes the perception of Ukrainian power.

The targets: logistics, infrastructure, fuel

The operation explicitly targets Russian military logistics — fuel depots, rail junctions, arms storage facilities, energy infrastructure. The strikes on the Kapotnya refineries in Moscow (June 18 and 25) and on Bashneft in Ufa (June 25) fit directly within this logic. Everything that feeds the Russian war machine — fuel, ammunition, supplies — falls within the perimeter of this operation.

The military context: why these 40 days, why now

Summer 2026 as a window of opportunity

Summer 2026 offers Ukraine several converging windows of opportunity. Ukraine's long-range drones have reached operational maturity, as the strike on Ufa at over 1,300 km demonstrated. Russia's air defense network shows persistent gaps. And the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7 and 8, 2026 is approaching, creating a diplomatic window in which every successful strike strengthens Ukraine's position with its allies.

Launching the 40-day operation on the eve of the Ankara summit is not incidental. Zelensky arrives at the NATO negotiating table from a position of strength: his country is striking the Urals, maintaining pressure on Moscow, and demonstrating that Ukraine is capable of an autonomous offensive strategy. This is a powerful argument for securing greater military and financial support.

The operational constraints to overcome

A 40-day campaign consumes resources: drones, fuel, crews, intelligence. Ukraine must balance deep strikes on Russian territory against supporting defensive operations at the front. This tension is real — the enemy is still advancing in certain sectors, and every drone sent toward Moscow or Ufa is one not available for front-line operations.

The way Kyiv manages this trade-off reflects a strategic conviction: degrading Russian logistical and production capabilities over the long term is worth the short-term cost of reduced drone availability for immediate defense. It is a bet on duration — the same bet Ukraine has consistently made since the start of the full-scale war.

Crimea in the 40-day equation

The peninsula as a secondary strategic target

Alongside strikes on Russia's continental refineries, the 40-day operation also targets occupied Crimea. The peninsula is the forward logistics base of Russian naval forces in the Black Sea and a supply hub for forces deployed in southern Ukraine. Striking its infrastructure — fuel depots, rail junctions, port installations — directly weakens the Russian posture on the southern front.

Ukraine has demonstrated since 2022 a remarkable capacity to strike high-value targets in Crimea: the Kerch Bridge, Russian warships, ammunition depots. Integrating Crimea into the 40-day campaign extends that pressure across all of Russia's southern logistics.

The effect on Russia's Black Sea Fleet

Russia's Black Sea Fleet has suffered considerable losses since 2022 — several vessels sunk or seriously damaged by Ukrainian naval drones and missiles. It has been forced to withdraw part of its units to Georgian ports or further east to shelter them. The sustained pressure on its supply bases in Crimea further limits its operational capacity.

This shrinking of the Russian fleet's freedom of action has direct consequences for operations in the Kerch Strait and for the naval blockade Moscow is attempting to maintain on Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov. Every successful strike in Crimea is a blow to the naval component of Russian strategy.

Strikes on railways: disrupting the logistics machine

Russia's rail network — the nerve of the war

Russia is a rail power: its railway network is one of the largest in the world and forms the backbone of its military logistics system. Ammunition, tanks, soldiers, fuel — almost everything travels by rail to reach the Ukrainian front. Railways are therefore, after refineries, the logical target of a deep disruption campaign.

Strikes on Russian rail nodes — marshaling yards, railway bridges, maintenance depots — are more complex to execute and confirm than strikes on refineries, whose fires are visible from commercial satellites. But they are part of the 40-day operation according to Kyiv's declarations, and their cumulative effect on the flow of Russian military convoys is real.

Russian logistical resilience and its limits

Russia has non-negligible logistical resilience. Its rail network is vast, with numerous alternative routes. It can reroute convoys, repair damaged tracks, use secondary roads. But every repair costs time and money. Every detour extends delivery schedules. And in a war of this intensity, logistical delays are paid for in men and ammunition.

Ukraine's strategy of continuous disruption — strike, allow partial repair, strike again — is designed to keep that logistical friction above the threshold of operational tolerance. It is not spectacular. But it is effective over time — and Ukraine is betting on time.

The psychological dimension: when pressure becomes communication strategy

The narrative war around the operation

The public announcement of the 40-day operation creates a narrative dynamic that operates on several levels. For Western allies, it demonstrates that Ukraine has a coherent strategy and can execute it — a decisive argument ahead of discussions on military and financial support at Ankara. For Russians, it creates a climate of anxious anticipation: the next strike is announced, but no one knows where or when.

For Ukrainians themselves, this campaign of visible and documented strikes has an important moral effect. After months of losses and difficult defensive fighting, watching images of Russian refineries in flames — in Moscow, in the Urals — sustains resistance and the conviction that the war can be won. The morale of a nation at war is as real a military resource as tanks and ammunition.

Zelensky, architect of an integrated strategy

Volodymyr Zelensky has often been described as an exceptional communicator. That reputation, earned since 2022, allows him to integrate communication into his military strategy in a way that few heads of state master. The 40-day operation is a perfect illustration of this integration: every strike is simultaneously a military act, a political message to allies, and a communication blow directed at Western public opinion.

In a world where support for Ukraine depends in part on Kyiv's ability to show that it uses resources effectively and can win, this mastery of the narrative is a front-rank strategic asset. Zelensky has understood, better than most, that modern wars are also won on screens.

What the 40 days reveal about Kyiv's long-term strategy

A doctrine of victory through adversary exhaustion

The 40-day operation is not a one-off move. It is part of a Ukrainian doctrine of victory through adversary exhaustion — a doctrine that acknowledges the raw power imbalance between Ukraine and Russia and responds to it with a strategy of systematic degradation of Russian capabilities. Weakening the oil network, saturating defensive capacities, depleting economic reserves: these are the pillars of an approach that aims for duration rather than quick decision.

This doctrine is uncomfortable for Western allies who would prefer rapid, visible victories. It demands patience, resources sustained over the long term, and a tolerance for escalation risk that some capitals manage poorly. But it is the only realistic strategy for a country of Ukraine's size facing Russia.

The 40 days as a dress rehearsal for a longer strategy

Beyond its immediate effects, the 40-day operation is also a demonstration of capability for the allies: it proves that Ukraine can plan and execute a coherent strategic campaign over time. This is an important signal ahead of the Ankara summit, where decisions on the future level of support for Ukraine will be made.

If NATO allies increase their commitments — as Mark Rutte, Secretary General, has prepared by announcing "tens of billions" in defense contracts — Ukraine could extend this strategy beyond the 40 days. What we are seeing in June 2026 may be the beginning of a prolonged campaign of degradation of Russian military infrastructure.

The moral dimension: why Ukraine must win

The legitimacy of Ukrainian resistance

Beyond strategic analyses and budget calculations, there is a fundamental moral question in this war: Ukraine was attacked. Its territory was invaded. Its cities were bombed. Its population suffered deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure. Faced with this reality, Zelensky's 40-day operation is not a provocative escalation — it is a proportionate response to an ongoing aggression.

International law recognizes the right of states to defend themselves against armed aggression — including by carrying the conflict onto the aggressor's territory. Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, military logistics nodes, and war-support infrastructure: all of this is legally and morally justifiable under the framework of collective self-defense against an unprovoked invasion.

What Europe's future depends on the outcome of this war

If Russia wins — or even if it obtains a ceasefire that consecrates its conquests — the message sent to the rest of the world is devastating: armed aggression pays. Internationally recognized borders can be erased by force. Security guarantees are not worth the paper they are written on. This precedent would make Europe — and the world — structurally less safe for decades.

Conversely, if Ukraine resists, preserves its territorial integrity, and forces Russia to pay a price sufficient to deter future aggression: the precedent is reversed. And Zelensky's 40 days directly contribute to building that positive precedent, strike by strike, refinery by refinery.

Operational lessons for future wars

What the strike campaign teaches military doctrine

Ukraine's deep-strike campaign is writing a new chapter in contemporary military doctrine. It demonstrates that a strategy targeting the adversary's economic and logistical infrastructure can produce significant strategic effects at relatively modest cost. It also reveals the limits of air defense systems when confronted with multiple, distributed, low-altitude threats.

These lessons will be integrated into the defense plans of NATO members — notably in thinking about how to protect their own critical infrastructure against potential adversaries who might adopt similar tactics. The Ankara summit will be an opportunity to initiate these doctrinal adaptations at the collective level.

Ukraine as a global military laboratory

Never in recent history has a war been so extensively observed, analyzed, and documented in real time by so many military actors. Western armies, research institutes, defense industry actors: all are watching the war in Ukraine as the most advanced laboratory of modern conflicts. And the lessons drawn — on drones, artillery, electronic warfare, precision strikes — are already transforming doctrines and equipment.

In this sense, Ukrainian resistance contributes to Western collective security well beyond its own borders. It generates irreplaceable experiential data on the nature of modern warfare. And this contribution, often forgotten in debates about the costs of supporting Ukraine, has considerable strategic value for the alliance as a whole.

Conclusion: Forty days that could count in the history of this war

A strategic turning point in progress

We are in the middle of this 40-day operation as I write. I do not yet know how it will end, or what final tally it will produce. What I do know is that it has already changed something: it has made a coherent Ukrainian strategy visible, it has struck targets whose damage will be lasting, and it has altered the perception of Ukrainian power among allies and adversaries alike.

Zelensky's forty days are a Ukrainian answer to the Russian war of attrition: if you want to play the long game, I will play it too — but on my terms. And my terms include drones at 1,300 km, burning refineries, and pressure you cannot fully absorb.

The future after the 40 days

What will happen after the 40 days? Zelensky has a prepared answer: a longer campaign, with more resources if the allies follow. The Ankara summit will create the conditions — or not — for intensification. What we already know is that Ukraine has demonstrated its capacity to design and execute a systematic pressure strategy. That is irreversible. And Putin will have to learn to live with this new fact.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Uncertainties and limits of my analysis

I am writing in the middle of the operation: I cannot assess the final tally of the 40 days, nor the medium-term effects of this campaign. Information about the precise targets struck and their damage is partial — Russia censors this data and Ukraine does not disclose everything for reasons of operational security. My analysis is based on what is available in open sources as of June 26–27, 2026.

My editorial commitment

I support Ukraine. I believe Zelensky's strategy is the right one. This commentary reflects those convictions, while striving to ground them in verifiable facts. I distinguish between what I know and what I think. Both have their place in a commentary — as long as they are clearly identified.

Sources

Primary sources

RBC-Ukraine — Zelensky announces 40-day pressure operation — June 26, 2026

Euromaidan Press — Drones struck Bashneft refineries in Ufa — June 25, 2026

Newsweek — Kapotnya struck, operation context — June 25, 2026

Militarnyi/Reuters — Moscow refinery offline — June 24, 2026

Secondary sources

NATO/Rutte — Tens of billions in defense contracts announced for Ankara — June 25, 2026

Brookings — A rebalancing NATO gathers in Ankara — June 24, 2026

United24 Media — Russia's budget deficit tops $80 billion — June 23, 2026