PROFILE: The SBU Alpha Center — 40 Days to Break Russia, from Kerch to Moscow

Introduction: A special operations campaign 40 days long, approved by Zelensky himself

The presidential decision of June 25 and its immediate first strikes

On June 25, 2026, President Volodymyr Zelensky personally approved a 40-day special operations campaign designed to "compel Russia to end the war." Less than 24 hours later, the concrete results of that decision materialized in the port of Kerch in occupied Crimea: three Russian vessels in flames, an S-400 system neutralized, and a Crimean island cut off from the mainland by a queue of 2,760 vehicles.

The armed force behind this campaign carries a short and formidable name: the SBU Alpha Special Operations Center — Ukraine's internal security and intelligence service. This center is not a new entity, but its operational surge since early 2026 has been spectacular. Strikes on military vessels, neutralization of air defense systems, attacks on Russian oil infrastructure — Alpha has become one of the most active and most innovative actors in Ukraine's asymmetric war.

What this campaign says about Ukraine's summer 2026 strategy

The 40-day campaign does not aim at direct territorial liberation — that is the role of the land army. It aims at the systematic degradation of Russia's war machine: its naval capabilities, its air defenses, its logistical infrastructure, and its capacity to finance the war through oil exports. This is a multidimensional maximum-pressure strategy that seeks to create enough economic and military pain to force Moscow to recalculate the cost of continuing the conflict.

This approach is backed by a parallel decision: in the night of June 25 to 26, 660 Ukrainian drones struck 12 Russian regions simultaneously. The combination of Alpha's special operations and the massive drone strikes creates a multi-front pressure on Russia it had not anticipated at this scale.

Kerch, June 26: Russian spy ships in flames

The cable ships Volga and Vyatka — military vessels disguised as infrastructure

In the night of June 26, 2026, Alpha Center drones struck the Zatoka shipyard in occupied Kerch harbor. The targets: the vessels Volga and Vyatka, two Project 15310 cable ships under construction for the Russian Ministry of Defense, as well as the Petropavlovsk cargo-passenger ferry, 96% complete.

The SBU detailed the military role of these "cable ships": they were intended to deploy the Garmoniya underwater hydroacoustic surveillance system, designed for naval intelligence and submarine detection. They could also lay non-contact mines capable of striking vessels, undersea pipelines, communications cables, and other critical infrastructure. Each vessel costs "hundreds of millions of dollars," according to the SBU. A massive fire broke out across all three targets after the strikes. The economic value destroyed is considerable.

The Kerch S-400 neutralized — the door opened for future strikes

On the same June 26, Alpha Center drones also struck the weapons systems and "a radar of an S-400 air defense system covering the Kerch Strait." The SBU explained the logic of this target clearly: "Neutralizing air defenses opens the way for future precision strikes."

Every S-400 neutralized is one less layer of protection for Russian military installations in Crimea. The peninsula's integrated defense is built on overlapping layers of S-400, Pantsir-S1, and Tor-M2 systems. Methodically eroding those layers is a preparatory strategy for future, more ambitious operations. This is layered warfare, conceived for the long term, executed with precision.

Crimea cut off: 2,760 vehicles in the queue

The Kerch Strait strike and its effects on the occupying population

The June 26 strikes had a remarkable side effect on mobility in Crimea. Occupation authorities closed the Kerch Bridge (or the Kerch Strait crossing) from 11:50 p.m. to 6:14 a.m. during the air alert. When the crossing reopened, the queue never recovered. By 8 a.m., 1,300 cars were waiting on the Kerch side and 710 on the Taman side to enter. By 10 a.m., the line had swelled to 2,760 vehicles, with 1,780 trying to leave Crimea.

The main reason thousands of cars wanted to leave the peninsula in the middle of the night: the fuel crisis in occupied Crimea. Most cars were carrying jerricans of gasoline — in their trunks, on back seats, some on their roofs — to stock up in mainland Russia, as Crimea was short of fuel. Occupation authorities had recently doubled the liquid limit allowed to cross the bridge, from 100 to 200 liters, in an attempt to ease the shortage.

The strategy of isolating Crimea: cutting the flows before striking

This image — thousands of cars lined up with jerricans of gas fleeing a peninsula in shortage — is the perfect illustration of the Crimea isolation strategy that Ukraine has been pursuing for months. By striking logistical infrastructure, fuel depots, pumping stations, and transport links, Ukraine is turning Crimea into a logistical burden for Russia rather than a functional military base.

On June 25, the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) had struck 38 targets in occupied Crimea: three coastal radars, the Tavrida thermal power plant in Simferopol, a fuel depot in Dzhankoi, gas compression stations, electrical substations, and an anti-aircraft gun. The following day, Alpha added the vessels and the S-400. Crimea is under cumulative pressure that daily erodes its strategic value to Moscow.

The Vtorovo station: striking the tap that feeds Moscow

A strike on the oil supply chain feeding the Russian capital

On June 27, 2026, the SBU Alpha Center struck for the second time that month the "Vtorovo" linear pumping and dispatch station in Vladimir Oblast, operated by JSC Transneft-Upper Volga. This station is a critical logistics node: it pumps diesel fuel into the Moscow circular oil pipeline, which supplies the major fuel depots surrounding the Russian capital. It also facilitates the export of petroleum products through Baltic Sea ports.

Drones struck the station's technical buildings, triggering secondary explosions. The station had already been targeted on June 10 by Alpha. These repeated strikes on the same site reveal a logic of cumulative degradation: even if a single strike does not completely destroy an installation, repetition forces costly repairs, reduces pumping capacity, and disrupts fuel supply to the Moscow region.

Economic warfare through drones: an attrition strategy

The Vtorovo strike fits into a broader strategy of economic warfare through drones — a strategy Ukraine has pursued with remarkable persistence since 2023. Refineries, fuel depots, oil pumping stations, power plants, military airfields — every strike on this infrastructure inflicts a real economic cost on Russia and creates disruptions that Russian media cannot always hide from the population.

The agenda for these operations is dense and methodical. According to the SBU, the declared objective of the 40-day campaign is to "degrade Russian air defenses and damage logistical infrastructure to weaken Russia's ability to sustain its forces." The strike on Vtorovo, by reducing fuel supply to the most densely populated region of Russia, is a direct contribution to that objective.

The night of 660 drones: 12 Russian regions under simultaneous pressure

An unprecedented saturation strike on Russian territory

In the night of June 25 to 26, 2026, simultaneously with Alpha's special operations in Crimea, Ukraine launched an exceptionally large drone strike: 660 drones were deployed to hit targets in 12 Russian regions. This massive saturation operation was designed to stretch Russian air defenses across the widest possible geographic front.

When Russian defenses must simultaneously monitor and respond across 12 different regions, their capacity to concentrate resources on the most important targets is diluted. This geographic saturation tactic is the aerial equivalent of a multi-front attack: it forces the adversary to disperse and creates windows of vulnerability in the most stretched defenses. This is elementary but effective strategy, made possible by the massive volume of drones that Ukraine can now produce domestically.

Domestic drone production: the key to the 40-day campaign

The 40-day campaign would not be possible without the spectacular ramp-up of Ukraine's drone industry. Hundreds of small companies, startups, and underground workshops produce FPV drones, long-range strike drones, naval drones, and reconnaissance drones in quantities that have astonished international military observers. This distributed industry is virtually indestructible — striking one factory does not eliminate capacity, it is reconstituted elsewhere within weeks.

Major General Yevhen Khmara, as cited by the Kyiv Post, had briefed Zelensky on Ukraine's medium and long-range strike capabilities and on recent Alpha operations just before the approval of the 40-day campaign. Zelensky's decision was therefore based on a realistic assessment of available capabilities — not a gamble, but an informed calculation.

The operational balance sheet: striking where it truly hurts

The Alpha doctrine: precision, strategic value, Russian impunity

The operational doctrine of the SBU Alpha Center is legible through its recent targets. It does not strike at random. It targets high economic or strategic value objects whose destruction or damage creates a multiplier effect: the vessels Volga and Vyatka would have provided the Russian fleet with underwater surveillance and mine-laying capabilities that their destruction delays or cancels. The Kerch S-400 neutralized opens windows for future strikes. The Vtorovo station disrupts fuel supply to the most densely populated region of Russia.

This logic of maximum strategic value per strike is the hallmark of an organization working with limited resources that must therefore optimize the impact of every operation. Alpha does not have the resources of a large conventional army — it compensates with targeting quality and execution precision.

Results in terms of pressure on Moscow

The cumulative impact of these operations is beginning to be felt. The economic costs of Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure run into the tens of billions of dollars. Logistical disruptions — fuel, electricity, transport — create friction in Russia's war machine and tensions in the civilian economy. Putin is forced to spend growing resources on the defense of Russian domestic infrastructure, resources that are not going to the front.

This redistribution of pressure — from Ukraine to Russia — is exactly the effect sought by the 40-day strategy. It will not end the war on its own. But combined with the successes of the Ukrainian army at the front, international economic sanctions, and Russian internal divisions, it contributes to an overall picture increasingly unfavorable for Moscow.

SBU Alpha within the Ukrainian intelligence landscape

An intelligence organization that acts as a strike force

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is the structural heir of the Soviet Ukrainian KGB — but its transformation since 2014, and especially since 2022, has made it a radically different organization. Its Alpha Special Operations Center operates at the intersection of intelligence, special operations, and drone warfare — a combination that allows it to identify high-value targets, plan precise operations, and execute them with long-range strike capabilities.

This fusion of intelligence and action is one of the most significant institutional innovations of the Ukrainian war. Traditional intelligence organizations collect and analyze; they do not strike directly. The SBU Alpha, by operating its own strike drones, short-circuits that traditional separation and dramatically accelerates the identification-to-action cycle. In a war where speed is critical, this is an important structural advantage.

Alpha operations in the broader context of Ukrainian intelligence

The SBU Alpha is not alone. It operates in coordination with other Ukrainian services: the GUR (military intelligence), the Armed Forces, the Unmanned Systems Forces, and the Main Intelligence Directorate. This inter-service coordination is itself a remarkable institutional performance for a country at war, where interagency rivalries often paralyze democracies in peacetime.

The 40-day campaign is the visible expression of this coordination: drone strikes, Alpha's special operations, and military operations at the front mutually reinforce one another within a coherent overall plan. This level of operational integration represents a strategic maturity that few would have predicted for Ukrainian forces in 2022.

Psychological warfare: terrorizing to demoralize

Striking Russia's rear means striking the Kremlin's morale

SBU Alpha operations do not target only material military objectives. They target the psychology of Russia's war machine. When a pipeline deep in mainland Russia explodes, when a shipyard in occupied Crimea burns before cameras that Moscow cannot censor, the message goes beyond tactical value. That message says: you are not safe at home. The Kremlin built its internal legitimacy on the promise that the war would stay "over there." That promise is cracking.

The 660 drones launched in a single night across 12 Russian regions simultaneously could not all reach critical military targets. But they forced millions of Russians to hear the sirens, to go down to shelters, to watch the news with anxiety. This is a dimension of the war that Western analysts often underestimate — psychological attrition warfare is not a side effect of Ukrainian strategy. It is a central, deliberate, planned component of the SBU and its Alpha Center.

The strategic precedent for the next phases of the conflict

The 40-day campaign establishes an important precedent for the next phases of the conflict. It demonstrates that Ukraine can maintain multidimensional pressure — ground, maritime, aerial, infrastructural — simultaneously, without concentrating all its resources on a single front. This is the definition of advanced asymmetric warfare: maximizing impact with resources inferior in volume but superior in operational intelligence.

If the West maintains its support in air defense systems, in long-range munitions, and in financing, Ukraine has demonstrated it can not only hold but strike. The SBU Alpha's 40 days are a strategic argument as much as a military operation. They say: we have the capabilities, give us the tools.

Conclusion: 40 days, but a war that has lasted 4 years

A campaign within an existential conflict

The 40-day campaign approved by Zelensky on June 25, 2026 is one tool among many in a conflict that has been running at full intensity for more than four years. The SBU Alpha Center will not end the war on its own. But its operations — ships burning in Kerch, S-400 neutralized, Vtorovo station struck, Crimea in shortage — contribute to an overall picture of growing pressure on a Russian regime whose resources are eroding.

That overall picture includes: 35,000 Russian soldiers killed or seriously wounded each month according to Rutte; front advances significantly slowed according to the same sources; a war economy under severe sanctions; and now a 40-day campaign pressing on Russian infrastructure from Crimea to the Moscow region. This is not victory — but it is not defeat either.

What the West must understand about Ukrainian capability

SBU Alpha operations send a clear message to those in the West who still doubt Ukraine's capacity to hold and to win. Ukraine is not a country waiting for rescue. It is a country that fights, innovates, strikes, and resists with a strategic coherence that few peacetime armies could demonstrate. It needs the support of the West — in weapons, financing, and diplomacy — but it is the engine of its own resistance. The ships burning in Kerch are not an American or European victory. They are a Ukrainian victory.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My sources and their reliability

This article draws on direct sources from the Ukrainian SBU, the Kyiv Independent, Euromaidan Press, and the Kyiv Post. Operational information on specific strikes — vessels targeted, the S-400 system, the Vtorovo station — comes from official SBU communications and is corroborated by multiple independent media outlets. Data on effects (queues in Crimea, fuel shortage) comes from observers and open-source monitoring channels (including NASA FIRMS for fire detection).

What I do not know

I do not have access to the classified operational details of the 40-day campaign. I cannot precisely assess the long-term impact of the strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. Exact damage assessments are often subject to revision. I report what is publicly confirmed and analyze the strategic implications without claiming a complete view of the ongoing operations.

Sources

Primary sources

Euromaidan Press — Crimea isolation: SBU hits two Russian spy ships and an S-400 in occupied Kerch as 2,760 cars pile up trying to leave the peninsula — June 26, 2026

Ukrpravda — Ukrainian special operations in Crimea, June 26, 2026

Kyiv Independent — Ukraine says it struck military supply vessels and Russian air defense systems in occupied Crimea — June 26, 2026

Secondary sources

Kyiv Post — Ukraine strikes key oil facility supplying Moscow in new drone strike — June 27, 2026

Kyiv Independent — Ukraine's SBU to wage 40-day pressure campaign against Russia, Zelensky says — June 25, 2026

Kyiv Post — Ukrainian drone campaign and SBU Alpha operations — June 2026