September 3, 2026
On June 24 the (acting) president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced a 40-day campaign:
"I approved a 40-day operation by the Service to influence the aggressor state in order to press for an end to the war," Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine has for months engaged in waves of medium-range and long-range strikes on targets in Russia or Russian-held areas, mainly focused on the oil industry.
The campaign was launched while life in Kyiv was still relatively peaceful. Russian attacks were aimed at industrial sites but tried to avoid civilian targets. Ukrainian imports and exports via Odesa harbor were fully functional. The whole country had sufficient energy supplies.
During the campaign, the Ukrainian forces used drones to attack Russia's oil industry. Strikes on power installations in Crimea, Moscow and St. Petersburg followed. Ukraine soon added all Russian shipping and harbor installations in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea to its target list. Last but not least it started to strike at purely civilian targets in Russia like the warehouses of Wildberry, the Russian Amazon.
The campaign was designed to influence Russian politics as well as Ukraine's supporters in the West:
Lutsevych suggests Ukraine's successes in bringing the war to Russia - before and within the 40-day campaign - may have contributed to a change of attitude in the Trump administration towards Ukraine.
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"I think it shows it is done for Russia in its attempt to conquer Ukraine and is important for the strategic posture of Ukraine's forces in the future, although it is more symbolic at the moment."
Zelensky's campaign, however, did not take into account that Russia could react and would hit back.
The Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, intended to create transport problems for Russia, were responded to by drone attacks on Ukrainian gas stations. More than 300 of those throughout the country's east have been destroyed by Russian drone strikes. Additionally, Russian forces targeted Ukraine's railways. So far nearly 500 locomotives have been destroyed or damaged.
Both measures have made the resupply of Ukrainian front-line groupings increasingly difficult.
Attacks on Russian-related shipping in the Azov and Black Sea were likewise mirrored.
All ships trying to exit or reach Ukrainian harbors came under attack. A missile and bombing campaign destroyed Ukrainian grain export terminals and other harbor installations. For all practical purpose the country is now landlocked.
Metallurgical plants in Ukraine have shut down because of damage and the lack of export facilities. Revenues from wheat exports are down to near zero:
By late August, vessel traffic at Ukrainian ports had collapsed from a normal pace of seven to eight ships per day down to approximately one. Ukrainian grain exports fell by as much as 75% in early August compared to the same period last year, with volumes potentially dropping to around 4 million metric tons.
But it were the attacks on civilian warehouses in Russia that have received the harshest response. Russia launched a devastating campaign to eliminate Ukrainian warehouses in and around Kyiv. About 90% of commercial storage capacity, as well as its content, has been destroyed:
Ukraine is not facing a systemic shortage of basic food products despite Russian attacks destroying around 90% of retail chains' warehouse capacity, Agriculture and Food Minister Taras Vysotskyi said during his briefing with journalists on August 28.
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The comments come after a large-scale Russian overnight attack struck logistics infrastructure in the Kyiv region, damaging or destroying distribution facilities used by several of Ukraine's leading retail and consumer companies.Among the businesses affected were Fora, Budynok Ihrashok, Comfy, Epicentr, Aurora, Silpo, and Roshen, Forbes Ukraine reported on August 27, citing statements from company executives.
Despite the official claims several major retail chains in Kyiv reported a lack of basic goods.
On top of all the damage caused in response to the 40-day campaign, a new phase of Russian strikes is now again aimed at energy targets:
Ukrainians living in Kherson have been urged to flee after Russia struck a power plant.
Four glide bombs were dropped on the city's thermal power station, destroying all of its heat and power-generating equipment, according to Naftogaz, the state energy company.
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The scale of the campaign has grown sharply this year. Naftogaz said in early August that its facilities had been targeted by 287 Russian attacks since the beginning of the year, more than in all of 2025 and more than during the first three years of the full-scale war combined.
The much intensified Russian air campaign continues. By now the Kyiv region has been under sustained attack for more than 60 hours. There is a lack of air defenses against missiles. The old method of shooting down drones with machines guns no longer works against the latest version of fast jet-powered drones.
Zelensky's 40-day campaign against Russia was very expensive. The long-range drones used in mass against Russia were purchased at exaggerated prices. The campaign was financed by robbing the defense ministry's financial reserves for troop payments. In total the Ukrainian defense budget for this year now lacks $27 billion:
On Aug. 25, Serhiy Rakhmanin, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, told Radio NV that former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov had complicated the ministry's financial situation.
On July 15, Fedorov, summarizing his tenure as defense minister, said his team had taken over a ministry with no budget and risked "taking funds from year-end military pay and investing them effectively in middle-strike, fiber-optic FPV drones, low-cost reconnaissance, ground robotic systems, interceptor drones and deep-strike drones."
The 40-day campaign to 'influence Russia' did work - though not in the intended direction.
Instead of be cowered into peace talks the people of Russia took it as an incentive to end the war on their terms.
While Kyiv, for the first time during the war, has come under sustained attacks, the situation on the front line is also getting more precarious. Russian troops seem to have no problem infiltrating and act miles behind Ukrainian lines.
Ukrainian troops are stuck in impossible positions, with no way out:
Four Ukrainian soldiers have spent between six and nearly nine months at the same frontline position near Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine, their families told Hromadske.
Their relatives are asking the military to bring them back from the position, where food, drinking water and fuel have at times become difficult to deliver under constant Russian drone surveillance and attacks.
Ukraine's Eastern Operational Command confirmed to Hromadske that the four men - Vadym, Andrii, Valerii and Pavlo - remain in the combat zone near Chasiv Yar. It said they would be among the first to be replaced once battlefield conditions allow it, but that attempting a rotation now would expose soldiers to an unjustifiably high risk.
Given the Russian supremacy in firepower, it is a wonder that these men are still alive.
This article was originally published on Moon of Alabama.