DECODING: The «Ukrainian sanctions»: the drones that outperform Brussels

An unprecedented retaliation strategy

Since 2024, Ukraine has developed a response to Russian bombing that was never envisioned in the traditional diplomacy handbooks. Ironically called «Ukrainian sanctions» by Ukrainian military officers themselves, these deep strikes against Russian military and economic infrastructure have become one of the most formidable weapons of the conflict. From oil refineries in Saratov to ammunition depots in Siberia, Ukrainian drones strike where it hurts — in Putin's wallet.

What began as isolated operations has become a coordinated campaign, managed by specialized teams whose identities and methods Ukraine jealously guards. Open-source reporting documents strikes at 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 kilometers from the front line. This deep strike capability did not exist at the start of the Russian invasion in 2022 — it was built under pressure, with ingenuity, often from modified civilian components.

Why «outperform Brussels»?

The expression «outperform Brussels» refers to the cumulative economic impact of these strikes compared to the billions of euros of European sanctions imposed on Russia. Economic and military analyses suggest that the damage inflicted on Russian oil infrastructure, arms factories, and logistical depots represents billions of dollars in direct and indirect losses for Moscow's war economy.

A refinery offline means weeks of lost production, millions in fuel revenues gone, export contracts compromised. A destroyed ammunition depot means thousands of shells that will never reach Ukrainian positions. This war accounting gives the «Ukrainian sanctions» an economic dimension that complements conventional Western sanctions — and sometimes surpasses them in direct effectiveness.

There is something deeply right about this concept of «Ukrainian sanctions». While European diplomats debate the twelfth round of economic sanctions, Ukraine's drone engineers are striking directly at the Russian war machine. It is a brutally efficient economy of resistance.

A secret team at the heart of the operation

According to reports from Business Insider and several American media outlets, Ukraine has assembled a specialized deep strike team — a unit whose members, command structure, and operations remain confidential for obvious operational security reasons. What is known is that this team coordinates dozens of simultaneous missions, selects targets based on their strategic and economic value, and manages the entire strike cycle.

Target selection is sophisticated: it integrates human intelligence data, commercial satellite imagery, economic analyses of the value of targeted infrastructure, and assessments of potential impact on Russian war-fighting capacity. This is not blind terrorism — it is military precision applied to the adversary's war economy.

Drones: from craft production to industry

The development of Ukrainian drones is one of the most remarkable industrial stories of this conflict. In 2022, Ukraine relied on modified commercial drones and foreign systems. By 2026, it produces long-range drones of national design — capable of reaching Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Volgograd, and even targets in Siberia. Models like the Liutyi, the Palianytsia, and the FP-5 Flamingo illustrate this buildup.

The Ukrainian drone industry now employs thousands of engineers, technicians, and workers. Private companies, backed by Ukrainian and foreign investors, are mass-producing craft whose unit cost is a fraction of that of conventional missiles. This democratization of long-range weaponry is transforming Ukrainian military doctrine.

Ukraine's innovation in drones is probably one of the greatest military-industrial revolutions of our era. A mid-sized country, under invasion, has managed to create a cutting-edge defense industry in under four years. That is necessity — the mother of all inventions — taken to its absolute extreme.

The oil sector: Putin's jugular

Oil refineries and export infrastructure have become the priority targets of Ukrainian drones. Russia draws a considerable share of its revenues — estimated in the tens of billions of dollars per year — from hydrocarbon exports. These revenues directly fund Putin's war machine. Striking refineries means attacking the war budget at its source.

According to The Moscow Times, Russian oil production recorded a sixth consecutive monthly decline in June 2026, partly because of drone attacks on infrastructure. Refineries in Saratov, Ryazan, and Volgograd suffered significant damage. These Soviet-era facilities are difficult to repair quickly, and reconstruction requires equipment that sanctions make difficult to import.

Ammunition depots and arms factories

The second priority target category: ammunition depots and arms factories. Every depot destroyed represents weeks of shell accumulation that vanishes — resources the Russian army had patiently built up for its offensives. The destruction of depots also forces Russia to disperse its reserves, complicating logistics and lengthening supply chains.

Factories like the Volgograd plant — a strategic military production site targeted in June 2026 by Flamingo missiles — represent critical nodes in the Russian defense production network. Putting them out of action, even temporarily, has cascading effects on equipment and ammunition availability at the front.

Striking Russian arms factories 1,500 kilometers from the front line is doing exactly what the World War II Allies did when they bombed the German Ruhr. It is pure strategy: reduce the enemy's industrial capacity to exhaust its ability to wage war. And it works.

Billions in documented damages

Precisely quantifying the economic impact of Ukrainian deep strikes is difficult — Russia does not publish detailed data on damage sustained, and Western estimates vary. But several indicators converge: Russian oil production has declined, fuel prices inside Russia have risen, and entire industries have had to redirect resources toward repairing damaged infrastructure.

Analyses published by specialized institutions estimate that cumulative damage to oil and gas infrastructure alone amounts to several billion dollars in losses. Added to Western sanctions, these losses weigh on Russia's foreign exchange reserves, budget balance, and its capacity to simultaneously finance the war and maintain its population's standard of living.

The limits of the deep strike strategy

But this strategy has its limits. Russia has adapted: it has dispersed its ammunition stockpiles, reinforced air defenses around strategic sites, developed rapid repair capabilities, and relocated some industrial production. The resilience of Russia's war economy — inherited from a Soviet culture of industrial mobilization — should not be underestimated.

Moreover, North Korea and Iran continue to feed the Russian war machine with ammunition and drones, partially offsetting losses. The «Ukrainian sanctions» are effective, but they have not yet reached the threshold of impact that would force Moscow to reconsider its strategy. That threshold remains the objective — not yet the reality.

Russia is more resilient than the West often believes. Its history is marked by catastrophic economic crises it overcame at the price of immense suffering. Putin's machine is hurting — but it is not yet broken. Vigilance is required before any triumphalism.

Are strikes on Russian territory legal?

The legal question is delicate but important. Under international humanitarian law, a state victim of aggression has the right to strike military bases and war infrastructure of the aggressor on its own territory — provided these targets are directly linked to the conduct of hostilities and precautions are taken to avoid excessive civilian casualties. Legal scholars specializing in the law of armed conflict are debating the application of these principles to Ukrainian drone strikes.

Ukraine has consistently stated that its strikes target exclusively military objectives and war infrastructure. Exceptions — drones that deviated from their trajectory and struck civilian areas in Russia — are presented as accidents, not intentions. The credibility of this position depends on the quality of guidance systems and the rigor of the target selection process.

The NATO debate on deep strikes

For a long time, several NATO members — notably the United States and Germany — hesitated to authorize the use of their weapons to strike Russian territory, fearing escalation. These restrictions were progressively lifted as allies concluded that the fear of escalation benefited Putin more than Ukraine. Ukraine's deep strike capability was thus multiplied by Western political decisions.

Some allies, like the United Kingdom with its Storm Shadow missiles and France with its SCALP missiles, were among the first to lift these restrictions. The authorization to use American ATACMS missiles against targets in Russia represented a major symbolic break in Western support policy for Ukraine.

The debate over restrictions on using Western weapons irritated me for a long time. Weapons were given to Ukraine with one hand while being told how not to use them with the other. It was an absurd posture that served primarily to reassure the fearful — rather than to help those who were fighting.

Moscow adapts its defenses

Russia has responded to Ukrainian deep strikes by substantially reinforcing its air defense capabilities around strategic sites. S-400, Pantsir, and Tor systems have been deployed in concentric rings around the most important refineries, arms factories, and ammunition depots. This adaptation has made certain targets harder to reach — forcing Ukrainian engineers to constantly innovate.

Russia has also developed enhanced early detection capabilities, using long-range radars and alert systems to anticipate Ukrainian drone waves. Specialized drone interception units have been created and deployed across the entire territory in depth. But the volume and diversity of Ukrainian attacks make total protection impossible.

Russian propaganda facing the evidence

Confronted with satellite images and videos of burning refineries circulating on social media, Russian propaganda struggles to maintain its usual narrative. Russian authorities have alternately denied the damage, minimized its impact, and accused the United States and NATO of being directly responsible for the strikes. These narrative contradictions reflect Moscow's difficulty managing the psychological impact of the deep strike campaign.

For the Russian population, seeing refineries burning in Volgograd or Saratov — far from the Ukrainian front line — is a powerful signal that the war is no longer «over there». It is penetrating deep into Russian territory. This psychological impact on Russian society is difficult to quantify, but potentially significant in a war where popular resilience is one of Putin's assets.

Seeing Russian refineries burning on the front pages of Western news gives me an ambivalent feeling. I take no joy in the destruction itself — but I recognize it as the price of the war Putin chose. He lit this fire in February 2022. The flames of Volgograd are his bill.

Toward increasing range

The technological trajectory of Ukrainian drones points toward increasing range and precision. Ukrainian engineers are working on systems capable of reaching targets at 2,500 to 3,000 kilometers — which would theoretically bring strategic installations in western Siberia and the Urals within reach. This range extension would force Russia to spread its air defense resources even thinner across an immense territory.

Progress in guidance systems — combining GPS, inertial navigation, and optical target recognition — is improving precision even against Russian electronic countermeasures. The drone war has become a permanent technological race where every improvement on one side forces an adaptation on the other.

The stakes for the rest of the conflict

The deep strike campaign has become one of the structural elements of Ukraine's medium-term military strategy. It aims to reduce Russian industrial and logistical capacity to the point where sustaining the war effort at its current pace becomes impossible. It is a strategy of industrial attrition — patient, systematic, costly for both sides, but one that holds hope for Ukraine.

For this strategy to fully bear fruit, it must fit within a long-term vision: coordinated with Western economic sanctions, sustained by a continuous flow of arms, and integrated into a diplomatic strategy for a conflict resolution that protects Ukrainian interests. The «Ukrainian sanctions» are powerful — but they cannot, alone, end the war.

I am convinced that this deep strike campaign is one of the most important strategic decisions Ukraine has made since the war began. It changes the rules of the game, forces Russia onto the defensive at home, and demonstrates that Kyiv is not condemned to absorb blows — it can also deliver them.

Growing but still hesitant support

Western allies' support for Ukraine's deep strike campaign has evolved considerably since 2022. At the start of the conflict, several governments refused even to deliver weapons capable of reaching Russian territory, fearing uncontrollable escalation. This caution, understandable but sometimes excessive, has progressively given way to a more pragmatic policy: if Ukraine can strike its aggressor's military capabilities on its own territory, that capability should be supported.

The United Kingdom, then France, then the United States successively lifted restrictions on the use of their weapons for strikes on Russia. These decisions had a direct impact on Ukraine's capacity to conduct deep strike operations with precision munitions. Storm Shadow, SCALP, and ATACMS missiles joined the arsenal of Ukrainian-made drones to strike Russian military infrastructure.

International coordination of objectives

A less visible but essential aspect of Western support is intelligence sharing on potential targets. American, British, and other NATO member intelligence services share satellite data, information on Russian air defense positions, and economic analyses of the strategic value of targeted infrastructure. This intelligence directly improves the quality of target selection by Ukraine.

This international coordination transforms the deep strike campaign into a partially multilateral operation, even though pilots and operators are exclusively Ukrainian. It is a form of division of labor that maximizes the campaign's effectiveness while maintaining a formal separation between Ukrainian operations and the direct capabilities of NATO allies.

The shift in allied positions on deep strikes illustrates a truth often forgotten in foreign policy: excessive caution has a cost. Every month of unnecessary restrictions on weapons delivered to Ukraine cost Ukrainian lives. The fear of escalation must not serve as a blank check for the aggressor.

A redefined asymmetric warfare tool

The «Ukrainian sanctions» — this biting and accurate metaphor — represent one of the most significant military innovations of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. They demonstrate that resilience and ingenuity can partially compensate for inequalities in size and military power. They also illustrate that modern war is no longer solely about tanks and artillery — it is an economic, industrial, and technological war.

Ukraine understood before many others that to stop Putin's war machine, you had to strike it at its source: oil revenues, arms factories, logistical depots. This strategy does not guarantee rapid victory — but it contributes, methodically, to exhausting the enemy's resources. And in a long war, exhausting the adversary is often the path to peace.

A signal to Moscow, Beijing, and the whole world

Beyond their direct military and economic impact, Ukraine's deep strikes send a powerful political signal: Ukraine is not fighting to survive — it is fighting to win. This determination, supported by the courage of its people and the solidarity of its allies, may be Kyiv's most precious asset. And these drones that outperform Brussels are its most eloquent demonstration.

Zelensky and his people have shown the whole world that freedom is defended, financed, and invented. The coming weeks and months will tell whether this deep strike strategy is enough to alter the terms of the conflict. But one thing is certain: Putin underestimated Ukrainian creativity in 2022. He has not finished paying for it.

These drones that outperform Brussels — I deeply love this image. It says everything about Ukraine in 2026: a people that has transformed its survival into innovation, its distress into strategy, its despair into ingenuity. It is a lesson for all those who still believe that size determines destiny.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

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.

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