DECODING: Zelensky's 40-Day Operation — Striking Russia Until It Negotiates

DECODING: Zelensky's 40-Day Operation — Striking Russia Until It Negotiates

Introduction: An Announcement That Reframes the Nature of the War

June 25, 2026: Zelensky approves the unimaginable

Some military decisions redraw the map of a conflict. On June 25, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made one of them. After a working meeting with acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Major General Yevhenii Khmara, he approved a forty-day plan of deep strikes on Russian territory. The stated objective, without euphemism: influence the aggressor state to push it toward ending the conflict. This is no longer defense. This is a strategic pressure campaign built around a precise timetable.

The timing is not incidental. The announcement comes against a backdrop of stalled peace talks, Western pressure on Kyiv to demonstrate willingness to negotiate, and a Russia that continues to strike Ukrainian civilian infrastructure night after night. Zelensky responds by sending a message that Moscow understands in its own language: the costs of war are now paid on Russian soil too.

Zelensky's vocabulary: "long-range and medium-range sanctions"

In the official statement, Zelensky described the operation as a plan of "long-range and medium-range sanctions" — a deliberate semantic framing. The word "sanctions" is borrowed from the Western lexicon. It means: we are not destroying for the sake of destruction, we are striking to create the economic and logistical conditions that make continuing the war too costly for the Kremlin. This is a doctrine of strategic coercion through infrastructure, not a strategy of terror.

That distinction is essential. Ukraine does not target civilian sites. It targets oil refineries, military fuel depots, rail logistics hubs and military installations deep inside Russian territory. These infrastructures directly feed the war machine that destroys Kyiv every night. Striking them is not a choice of total war — it is an act of economic self-defense at distance.

The SBU at the Heart of the Operation: An Autonomous Strike Machine

Khmara and drones: the silent revolution of Ukrainian intelligence

What is remarkable about this 40-day operation is that it is driven primarily by the SBU, not by the conventional armed forces. The Security Service of Ukraine has built since 2022 a long-range strike capability founded on Ukrainian-made drones, capable of hitting targets at 1,500 kilometers and beyond the front lines. The SBU's elite Alpha unit is at the vanguard of these operations, specialized in the neutralization of Russian personnel and equipment deep inside enemy territory.

Zelensky said it explicitly: "Over the past several consecutive months, the SBU has demonstrated the highest performance in defending Ukrainian positions on the front lines through the use of different types of drones." This is not an intelligence agency that occasionally turns operational. It is an autonomous strike force that has developed its own doctrine, its own delivery vectors and its own targeting capability — independent of the constraints weighing on the armed forces in their use of Western-supplied weapons.

Ukrainian strategic autonomy as a response to Western restrictions

This institutional detail is loaded with meaning. The restrictions imposed by certain Western partners on the use of their weapons against Russian territory do not apply to Ukrainian-made drones. By entrusting the operation to the SBU rather than the regular armed forces, Kyiv legally circumvents these constraints without violating any agreement with its suppliers. This is doctrinal creativity under pressure — a characteristic the Ukrainian military has turned into a specialty over two years.

In 2025, Ukraine produced 100,000 interception drones. In the first quarter of 2026, that rate had doubled. These vectors, costing between $1,000 and $2,500 per unit, enable deep strikes at a marginal cost infinitesimal compared to Patriot missiles or cruise missiles. Ukraine's drone war is not only a response to weapons shortages — it is a doctrine of asymmetric efficiency that redefines the rules of the conflict.

Ufa: Striking 1,500 Kilometers From the Front

Two refineries in the capital of Bashkortostan

The most spectacular blow announced in the early hours of the 40-day operation: two oil refineries in Ufa, capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, approximately 1,500 kilometers from the front lines. This distance is strategically significant. It demonstrates that the operational reach of SBU Ukrainian drones now extends to Russian strategic depth — not merely to border areas or targets in the Moscow region.

Ufa is one of the nerve centers of Russian oil refining. The installations struck form part of the fuel supply chain that feeds both the Russian civilian economy and, indirectly, military logistical needs in the western and central regions. Every Ukrainian-struck refinery represents a reduction in fuel production capacity that Russia must compensate either by redirecting flows within its national supply chain or by accepting local shortages.

The deep-targeting strategy

The choice of Ufa is not accidental. By striking 1,500 km from the front, Ukraine sends a message to a Russia that had not yet had to defend its industrial rear at this distance. Russia's response was immediate: air defense systems previously deployed to protect the front had to be redirected toward Moscow and other strategic rear targets. Zelensky himself noted this: "These are the two areas the Russians have been ordered to defend at the cost of weakening other sectors of their territory."

This is the classic logic of defensive dilution: force the adversary to stretch its protective capabilities over a wider perimeter, thereby weakening coverage at critical points. Every Ukrainian drone that forces Russia to deploy an air defense system far from the front potentially opens a window of action in another area of the battlefield.

Norsi at Nizhny Novgorod: Russia's Fourth-Largest Refinery Halts

A production halt confirmed by the governor

On Wednesday, June 25, 2026, the Norsi refinery in Nizhny Novgorod suspended operations after a Ukrainian drone strike. Confirmation came from the region's governor himself. This is not information slipped into a Ukrainian report — it is an official Russian acknowledgment. Norsi is considered Russia's fourth-largest refinery and one of the country's main gasoline producers. Its shutdown, even temporary, represents a significant production shock for the Russian economy.

Nizhny Novgorod is more than 800 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. This is not a border zone. It is the industrial heartland of European Russia. Reaching it with a Ukrainian-made drone, in the middle of a 40-day operation announcement, is not a stroke of luck. It is the result of rigorous intelligence planning, precise target selection and operational coordination that the SBU has perfected over months.

The Russian fuel chain under systemic pressure

Ukraine does not strike randomly. It targets the critical nodes of the logistics chain that fuels Russia's war capacity. Refineries convert Russian crude into fuel for aircraft, tanks, military trucks and generators powering forward positions. Every refinery out of service for a week means tens of thousands of tonnes of fuel that cannot be distributed westward — toward the front.

Before Norsi, the Moscow refinery had already been struck in previous attacks, to the point that industrial sources indicated it would not resume production this year. Repeated strikes on Russian energy installations have created a fuel crisis that now extends beyond the battlefield itself: Crimea is experiencing widespread fuel shortages, and gas station queues have been reported in several Russian regions bordering the front.

Krasnodar and the Caucasus Logistics

The Poltavskaya fuel depot

On the night of June 25 to 26, a fuel depot at Poltavskaya, in Krasnodar Krai, was targeted. Aleksandr Kharitonov, head of the Krasnodar Krai administration, confirmed the attack. This region in southwestern Russia is strategically vital: it serves as a logistics hub for supplying Russian forces in southern Ukraine and in the occupied territories, as well as for operations toward Crimea.

A fuel depot in Krasnodar Krai potentially supplies deployed forces along the southern front line — Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, the Donetsk region. Striking this logistics node creates friction in the fuel supply chain for the units holding these lines. Not necessarily bringing them to their knees — but forcing them to manage more complex logistics with reduced stocks.

Pressure on Crimea: bridge, fuel, electricity

The Crimean Peninsula is now under multidimensional pressure. Ukrainian strikes on the North Crimean railway bridge, on fuel installations and on military infrastructure plunged approximately half the peninsula into darkness during the latest wave of attacks. The occupation authorities installed by Moscow declared a regional state of emergency. Widespread fuel shortages are among the direct consequences of the 40-day operation announced by Zelensky.

Crimea is both a military and symbolic target. Military because it serves as a rear logistics base for Russian operations in southern Ukraine. Symbolic because its illegal annexation in 2014 is the starting point of the degradation of the international legal framework that Putin provoked. Making life in occupied Crimea progressively harder as a consequence of the war is a coherent strategy of long-term coercion.

Belarusian Relay Stations Taken Offline

Zelensky had warned Lukashenko

The week before the 40-day operation was announced, Zelensky addressed an explicit warning to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko: relay stations in Belarus used for assaults against Ukraine had to be dismantled, "or we will take the necessary measures." A few days later, on June 26, Ukrainian intelligence confirmed these repeaters were inactive.

This is no coincidence. Ukraine either conducted targeted strikes on these installations or their shutdown was the result of a coordinated information or cyberwarfare operation. Either way, the message sent to Minsk is clear: Belarus's participation in the Russian war infrastructure against Ukraine is no longer without cost. Lukashenko, who plays a fragile balance between his total dependence on Moscow and his personal interest in remaining politically alive, will have to weigh this new parameter.

The Belarusian border: a threat under construction

Zelensky also warned about what he describes as the "near-complete construction" of military infrastructure along the Belarus-Ukraine border. Roads, ammunition storage facilities, fuel depots. "These installations have no purpose other than military," he said. The shutdown of the relay stations is a warning. If Belarus continues building this infrastructure in support of a potential expansion of the aggression, Ukraine reserves the right to act preemptively.

This tension with Minsk fits into a broader geopolitical picture. Belarus has become since 2020 a de facto Russian protectorate. Lukashenko allowed his territory to serve as a launch base for the 2022 invasion. He continues to logistically support Russia. But he has so far refused to directly engage Belarusian forces alongside Russian troops — an unstable balance that Ukrainian pressure risks making increasingly untenable.

The Geopolitical Logic of the 40-Day Operation

Striking to force negotiations

The 40-day operation is not designed to win the war in 40 days. It is designed to alter the Kremlin's cost-benefit calculation at a precise moment in the conflict. Putin has always bet that time works in his favor: that the West will tire, that Ukraine will exhaust itself, that compromises will eventually seem reasonable to fatigued partners. By launching a 40-day operation that strikes deep into the Russian economy, Zelensky says exactly the opposite: time can also work against Russia.

Every refinery out of service means less revenue for a state where 60 to 70% of budgetary revenue depends on hydrocarbons. Every destroyed fuel depot is an additional logistical constraint for armed forces already under pressure. And every failure of Russian air defenses against Ukrainian drones erodes the credibility of Moscow's military discourse before its own citizens and its partners.

The operation as a signal to Western partners

The public announcement of the 40-day operation is also a message addressed to the West. It says: Ukraine does not only ask for weapons and money — it produces tangible results and demonstrates its capacity to put pressure on Russia with its own means. In a context where some Western partners are beginning to push for compromises, this demonstration of autonomous capacity is strategically essential. If Ukraine can force Moscow to defend its industrial rear, it strengthens its position in any future negotiation.

The G7 in France the preceding week had shown that Zelensky knew how to play on both levels: securing massive financial commitments (the $45.5 billion in loans backed by frozen Russian assets) while simultaneously demonstrating an offensive military capability that makes any Ukrainian capitulation politically and strategically untenable for its allies. The 40-day operation fits into this dual logic.

The Flaws of Russian Air Defense

Thirty-nine drones intercepted over Moscow — and how many got through?

Russia announced the interception of 39 Ukrainian drones over the capital on June 26. Moscow's air defense is, in theory, the most sophisticated in the country. And yet the Moscow refinery was taken out of service in prior strikes, to the point that its operations are not expected to resume this year. The question is not how many drones are intercepted — it is how many are not.

The saturation strategy through drones implemented by the SBU is directly inspired by Russian doctrine: launch enough vectors so that the opposing defense cannot intercept everything. Moscow has used this strategy against Ukraine for two years. Ukraine is now applying it against Russia with its own drones, at a fraction of the cost of Russian missiles. This is a doctrinal reversal with profound implications for the medium-term course of the conflict.

The dilution of Russian defenses: a Ukrainian operational advantage

Zelensky explicitly pointed to the phenomenon of defensive dilution: "These are the two areas the Russians have been ordered to defend at the cost of weakening other sectors of their territory." By forcing Russia to protect Moscow, the Ural energy infrastructure and the southern logistics hubs, Ukraine creates gaps in the air defense coverage of lower-priority areas — including, potentially, certain front-line sectors.

This is elementary military strategy applied through asymmetric means. Russia has a finite number of air defense systems. Every system relocated rearward is one that no longer covers the front. The 40-day operation exploits this arithmetic constraint with a tactical clarity that reflects the operational maturity Ukrainian forces have reached after more than two years of intensive war.

Deep Military Targets: Titan-Barrikady and Beyond

Volgograd in the crosshairs

Among the targets reported as part of the extended operation, the Titan-Barrikady installation in Volgograd appears in analyses from the Institute for the Study of War and Ukrainian defense sources. Volgograd — formerly Stalingrad — is a center of military production and a node of the Russian defense industry. Installations producing artillery equipment and rocket systems are concentrated there. Striking them, even if damage is partial, signals the vulnerability of Russia's defense industry inside its own borders.

Ukraine does not systematically announce every deep strike. Operational discretion is an elementary security rule. But as confirmed sources report damage to Russian military-industrial installations, the overall picture emerging is that of a systematic targeting campaign against Russian war industrial capacity — not just refineries but also weapons factories, ammunition depots and military R&D installations.

The doctrine of the "factory of aggression"

Zelensky used the phrase "factory of aggression" to designate Russian installations that produce the weapons used against Ukraine. By targeting these installations, Ukraine applies a doctrine with a historical precedent in industrial bombing strategies: if you cannot stop the shells falling on your cities, you can try to stop the factories that make them. With low-cost drones that can reach Ufa and Nizhny Novgorod, this doctrine is now within Kyiv's reach.

The question is one of persistence. A drone destroys an installation — but Russia can rebuild. The strategy of repeated strikes on the same critical nodes aims to impose permanent reconstruction costs, keep repair crews permanently mobilized, and create an insecurity across Russia's entire strategic depth that Kremlin decision-makers must factor into their calculations.

Ukraine in the Global War Economy

Forty days in a conflict now 860 days long

The 40-day operation fits into a conflict that, at the time of announcement, had lasted more than 1,584 days. Forty days is approximately 2.5% of the war's total duration. This is not a final sprint. It is a calibrated escalation phase in a long conflict, with a precise objective: create the conditions for sufficient economic and military pressure to shift Moscow's attitude toward talks.

In this logic, the consistency of Western support remains the most decisive parameter. Forty days of Ukrainian deep operations can create diplomatic opportunities — but only if the West uses them to apply coordinated pressure on Moscow rather than letting each Ukrainian drone strike be presented by Putin as justification for continuing the war. The synchronization between battlefield strikes and international diplomacy is one of the most complex challenges of this phase of the conflict.

The human cost of the 40-day decision

No military operation is free of lives. By choosing to strike deep inside Russian territory, Ukraine accepts the escalation of Russian reprisals on its own territory. Moscow responded to previous strikes with massive waves of drones and missiles. The 40-day operation is a conscious decision to maintain offensive pressure at the cost of increased exposure to retaliatory strikes. Zelensky clearly weighed this calculation — and judged that pressure on Russian infrastructure was worth the risk.

This judgment is not that of a man seeking escalation for escalation's sake. It is that of a head of state who watched his capital get struck night after night for four years, and who decided that the only way to change this reality was to make the war costly for those who started it. On both moral and strategic grounds, this logic is difficult to refute.

International Reactions and Moscow's Silence

Russia caught between denial and reality

Facing Ukrainian strikes, official Russian communication oscillates between two contradictory registers. On one side, the Russian Ministry of Defense announces massive interceptions: dozens, sometimes hundreds of drones shot down every night. On the other, regional governors confirm damage to energy and industrial infrastructure. These two narratives cannot coexist without one of them being partially false.

Russia cannot admit that its refineries are burning without undermining the credibility of its air defense forces. But it also cannot indefinitely conceal power outages, fuel shortages and population evacuations. The governor of Bashkortostan who confirms the Ufa strikes has no choice: the fire is visible, residents are living it. Reality resists propaganda, even in an authoritarian state.

Axis partners as powerless spectators

The 40-day operation also unfolds before the eyes of China, Iran and North Korea. These three countries have provided Russia with weapons, drones, ammunition and, in the North Korean case, soldiers. They now watch the infrastructure their contributions have defended being methodically dismantled by Ukrainian drones. If Zelensky's strategy succeeds in forcing Moscow toward the negotiating table, this will send a message to these regimes about the limits of investment in a Russia waging a long war.

For Beijing in particular, the Ukrainian demonstration is uncomfortable. China has invested its diplomatic reputation in a "no-limits" relationship with Moscow. If this relationship cannot prevent Russia from watching its refineries burn and its war economy weaken, Beijing will need to recalibrate its calculations. A weakened and dependent Putin is one thing. A Putin compelled to negotiate under Ukrainian military pressure is another — and it complicates Chinese medium-term strategies.

Forty Days Later: What the Sequel Might Look Like

If the operation achieves its objectives

If the 40-day operation achieves its goals — significantly reducing Russian fuel production capacity, forcing a massive reallocation of air defense systems, creating visible economic pressure on the Russian population — the most likely scenario is not an immediate Kremlin collapse. It is a gradual weakening of Russia's negotiating position that creates conditions for more serious discussions in the late summer or fall of 2026.

Zelensky does not present this operation as a final solution. He presents it as a pressure mechanism within a diplomatic process. The distinction matters: it means Ukraine is prepared to stop the strikes in exchange for serious guarantees — not capitulations disguised as compromises. The clarity of this objective is one of the most sophisticated elements of current Ukrainian strategy.

The risks of uncontrolled escalation

Every calibrated escalation scenario carries a risk of unintended spillover. If a Ukrainian strike hits an installation that Moscow considers as crossing an unacceptable threshold — a civilian nuclear facility, a dual-use military installation or a symbolic location whose political value is disproportionate — the Russian response could exceed the parameters of conventional retaliation. This risk is real, even though Ukrainian targeting decisions appear subject to rigorous operational discipline.

NATO is watching these developments with particular attention. The line between an operation that weakens Russian war capacity and one that provokes a response drawing Alliance partners in is thin. Zelensky knows this. That is why the 40-day operation was designed around energy and logistics targets — not military-nuclear ones — and why official Ukrainian communication consistently emphasizes the legal and defensive character of these strikes under international law.

The Operation in the Context of Ukrainian Doctrine

From defense to coercion: a doctrinal evolution over four years

In February 2022, Ukraine was fighting for its immediate survival, hour by hour, twenty kilometers from Kyiv. In June 2026, it is conducting a planned 40-day offensive operation targeting refineries 1,500 kilometers inside Russian territory. This doctrinal evolution is one of the fastest and most complete military transformations a nation has achieved in wartime since World War II.

The pillars of this transformation are well identified: large-scale domestic drone production, the development of an intelligence-based deep-targeting doctrine, restructuring of the SBU as an autonomous strike force and integration of Western technologies into weapons systems remaining under Ukrainian operational control. This last point is crucial: Ukrainian strategic autonomy is not rhetoric — it is a real military capability, demonstrated by strikes on Ufa, Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar and Volgograd.

What the 40-day doctrine says about Ukraine in 2026

The Ukraine of 2026 is no longer the country calling for help to avoid destruction. It is a country striking Russia's industrial bowels with its own weapons, according to its own doctrine, within a coherent strategy of economic coercion. It is a country that produces 200,000 drones per quarter, trains pilots and electronic warfare specialists at an industrial pace, and has turned adversity into systematic military innovation.

This transformation must not be romanticized — it was born of suffering, blood and the destruction of an entire generation. But it exists, it is real, and it produces measurable strategic effects. The 40-day operation is its most explicit demonstration to date: Ukraine no longer asks for permission to defend itself. It defends itself, and it strikes, with the sovereignty of a state that has chosen to survive.

Conclusion: 40 Days to Change Putin's Calculation

Pressure as diplomatic language

The 40-day operation approved by Zelensky on June 25, 2026 is an act of foreign policy as much as a military operation. It tells Putin: we can strike you long enough and deep enough to make the war untenable on your own soil. It tells the West: you do not need to rescue us every time — we can ourselves create the conditions for pressure. And it tells Ukrainians: their resistance, their innovation, their four years of suffering are now producing real strategic effects.

The question that will remain after 40 days

Forty days of strikes will not suffice to end this war. The history of modern conflicts teaches that economic bombing campaigns, even effective ones, do not break the will of an authoritarian state on their own. But they can create the conditions that make a political exit more acceptable to both parties. If the 40-day operation forces Russia to defend its industrial rear while absorbing growing international pressures, it will have achieved its minimal objective: proving that Ukraine can impose real, durable and growing costs on a state that believed it could strike without being struck.

Strategic Epilogue: Beyond the Operation

The war after the 40 days

Beyond the operation itself, what is at stake is a lasting redefinition of the nature of this conflict. Russia can no longer ignore that its energy infrastructure is vulnerable. Belarus can no longer maintain its relay stations without risk. Axis partners — China, Iran, North Korea — see that their investments in the Russian war machine do not protect it from the consequences of its own aggressions. And Ukraine has demonstrated that it can conduct a coherent strategic campaign without depending entirely on its allies' permission for each operational decision.

What Zelensky put on the line

In approving this operation, Zelensky put his credibility, his people's security and the coherence of his diplomatic doctrine on the line. If the operation produces the expected effects, he will have demonstrated that pressure is a better strategy than supplication. If it fails to move Moscow within the targeted timeframe, he will have to justify the escalation to partners already under pressure. This is the bet of a wartime head of state: act with what you have, to create what does not yet exist. Forty days. History will judge.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Sources, method and limits

This decoding rests on primary direct sources: official statement by President Zelensky on June 25, 2026; Guardian account of June 26, 2026; Euronews analysis of June 26, 2026; and Institute for the Study of War data. Confirmations of damage to specific targets come from Russian regional governors who officially acknowledged the strikes. Data on Ukrainian drone production and unit costs come from open-source defense reporting.

What this text does not know

The full results of the 40-day operation were unknown at the time of writing. Exact damage to struck installations cannot all be independently verified. The question of Ukrainian casualties in deep drone operations is not documented publicly. The columnist has no access to classified SBU or Ukrainian armed forces information — this text is based solely on publicly available sources.

Sources

Primary sources

The Guardian — Zelenskyy declares 40-day Russia blitz to 'influence the aggressor state' — June 26, 2026

Euronews — Ukraine launches 40-day operation to pressure Russia to end the war — June 26, 2026

Institute for the Study of War — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment — June 26, 2026

Secondary sources

Kyiv Independent — Zelensky approves 40-day SBU operation targeting Russian infrastructure — June 25, 2026

Defence Ukraine — Ukraine's 40-day deep strike campaign: targets and doctrine — June 2026

Ukrainska Pravda — Norsi refinery in Nizhny Novgorod halted after drone strike — June 26, 2026