Ukraine’s drone campaign is exposing growing weaknesses in Russia’s air defense network. This video examines reported strikes on air defense systems, radars, and electronic warfare assets, and explores how these losses may be affecting Russia’s ability to protect key military and energy infrastructure. We also look at the role of long-range drones, evolving battlefield tactics, and the strategic implications for both sides. Watch to discover how aerial warfare is reshaping the conflict in 2026.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - How Ukraine Drones Destroyed 194 Russian Air Defenses
02:52 - Ukraine Drones Wipe Out 3838 Russian EW Systems
05:37 - Why Russian S300 Air Defenses Fail Against Drones
09:19 - Ukraine Destroys Russian Pantsir S1 to Create Gaps
13:31 - Western Sanctions Cause Russian S300 Missile Shortages
16:15 - Will Ukraine Drones Completely Destroy the Russian Rear?
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/QD17LJFf
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - How Ukraine Drones Destroyed 194 Russian Air Defenses
02:52 - Ukraine Drones Wipe Out 3838 Russian EW Systems
05:37 - Why Russian S300 Air Defenses Fail Against Drones
09:19 - Ukraine Destroys Russian Pantsir S1 to Create Gaps
13:31 - Western Sanctions Cause Russian S300 Missile Shortages
16:15 - Will Ukraine Drones Completely Destroy the Russian Rear?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/QD17LJFf
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:00Russia's indomitable air defenses aren't looking so strong anymore.
00:03Ukraine has punched so many holes in Russia's defenses that we should start calling them
00:08Swiss cheats. And now Ukraine is eating that cheese for breakfast. At least its drones are.
00:14Every hole in Russia's air defenses is a catastrophe for Putin, as he watches his
00:18country utterly fail to prevent Ukraine's mid- and deep-range strike drones from doing their damage.
00:24Ukraine is now the king of the skies. With every hole that is punched,
00:28Russia's air defense problems are only getting worse. And 2026 alone has proven just how bad
00:35Russia's defenses truly are at stopping Ukraine's most dangerous weapons.
00:40Russia's air defenses are being taken out by the very weapons they are supposed to stop.
00:44On June 29th, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces took to X to reveal some shocking statistics.
00:52Since the beginning of 2026, the USF alone has managed to strike 194 elements
00:58of Russia's integrated air defense systems. Elements is a pretty nebulous term, but we can assume that
01:04it covers everything from air defense systems themselves, such as S-300s and Pantsirs,
01:09through to the radars that supply those systems with information that they need
01:13to properly target incoming threats. What this amounts to is an average
01:17monthly air defense destruction count of a little over 32. Which means that Ukraine is taking out at
01:23least one Russian air defense unit every single day. This is terrible for Russia.
01:27It shows that the drones that have already been devastating Putin's forces are becoming ever more
01:32effective against the air defense systems which should be shooting them out of the sky.
01:36The numbers for June alone are bad enough, and they prove that we're not too far off with the average.
01:42The USF managed to destroy 31 Russian air defense targets in June alone, signifying a deeper push
01:48into the Russian rear that has massive ramifications not only for Russia itself, but all of the
01:53territory that Putin's patsies have occupied in Ukraine. And as a final nail in the coffin of
01:58the Russian air defense myth, the USF revealed that its total count for destroyed Russian air defense
02:03systems since its June 11, 2025 formation now stands at 276. That's an interesting number.
02:10If we subtract the 194 destroyed during the first six months of 2026 from the 276 total,
02:16that gives us 82 air defense elements destroyed during the latter half of 2025.
02:22We told you that Ukraine has been escalating its air defense campaign, and this is the proof.
02:26The number of air defense elements that the USF has taken out during the first six months of 2026
02:31is almost 2.4 times higher than the number it destroyed during the final six months of 2025.
02:38Oh, and one more thing. These are just the USF's figures. There will be other Ukrainian units that are
02:42targeting Russia's air defenses, so even the insanely high numbers that the USF shared don't cover all
02:47of Putin's air defense woes. How could things get any worse for the Swiss cheese that has become
02:52Russia's layered air defenses? The answer is easy. It's not just these systems that the USF has shattered.
02:58The air defense elements covered by the figures we've shared so far account for Russia's main air
03:03defense network. We're talking about the S-300s and S-400s that are supposed to guard dozens of square
03:08kilometers of territory and the radar systems that should detect threats from potentially hundreds
03:13of kilometers away. But the USF has been destroying more than these headline-grabbing pieces of
03:17equipment. On top of everything else, the USF reports, 426 mobile radar systems and 3,838 of
03:26Russia's Mobile Electronic Warfare or EW systems have fallen victim to USF drones. These types of systems
03:33aren't designed to protect major targets. They're typically used for the likes of fuel depots, logistical
03:37hubs and similar, smaller targets that Russia tries to conceal behind the lines. EW systems in
03:43particular are among Russia's most important defensive tools as they can send incoming drones
03:48off course by jamming or otherwise interfering with GPS signals. But even they are falling prey to
03:54Ukraine's drones. And every single one of these more localized systems that goes down
03:59opens up more opportunities to take out key Russian assets dozens of kilometers behind the front.
04:04This is a nightmare scenario for Russia. What we're seeing here is the collapse of an air defense
04:09network that was supposed to be impenetrable, and even Russia knows. The entire nation is feeling the
04:14effect of the failure of its air defenses. 89 different regions across the country and in the occupied
04:20territories are now being impacted by fuel shortages, which are being caused by a combination of Ukraine's
04:26nonstop strikes against Russian refineries that are supposed to be protected by air defense systems,
04:30and its attacks on fuel trucks that EW and localized radars can no longer protect.
04:35We get the clearest indication of Ukraine's brilliant strategy from its attack on the
04:39Slavyansk oil refinery, which Ukraine hit on June 28th and had been burning for two days by the time
04:46RBC Ukraine reported on the strike on June 29th. That refinery, which is about 300 kilometers away from
04:52Ukraine's border and has a capacity of 5.2 million tons, accounts for about 9% of oil refining in
04:58Russia's
04:59southern federal district. Ukraine just keeps on hitting this refinery. April 27th saw a strike,
05:05so did May 19th, and now Ukraine has hit it again on June 28th. This is starting to become a
05:11monthly
05:11tradition for Ukraine, the Slavyansk oil slaughter. And Russia can't do anything about it, because the
05:18refinery's perimeter is so massive that it isn't possible to install enough air defense systems to
05:23deal with the swarms of Ukrainian drones coming from different directions. It's a microcosm of a problem
05:28that Russia now faces all over. It's too big to defend itself, and Ukraine is stretching the
05:33defenses that Russia does have thinner every time the USF takes out another air defense element.
05:38Russia is learning the harsh lesson that so many of its allies have been learning over the past few
05:42months. Russian air defenses simply aren't good enough. Cast your mind back to late February and
05:47early March. You may remember this period as the time when the US launched Operation Epic Fury
05:52against Iran. For years, Iran had been building up an air defense network made up primarily of Russian
05:58air defense systems, or its own copies of those systems and air defenses purchased from China.
06:03And what did this massive network of Iranian defenses achieve? The sum total of nothing when faced with
06:09the enormous barrage of missiles and bombs that the US and Israel unleashed during the early part of
06:14Operation Epic Fury. As Army Technology pointed out at the time, the US and Israel achieved almost
06:19immediate air superiority over Iran. By the beginning of April, US Central Command was claiming that about
06:2580% of Iran's entire air defense network had been knocked out. All the country had left was mobile
06:31launchers. Russian S-300s and other defenses were rendered useless and then destroyed. We saw something
06:37similar, albeit on a much smaller scale, in Venezuela. When the US captured Nicolas Maduro, it did so on the
06:43back of Russian-made S-300 and Buck M-2 air defenses. Those defenses, much as they would later in
06:49Iran,
06:50utterly failed to stop American missiles from tearing through Caracas and setting the stage for Maduro's
06:55capture. Now, what Ukraine is doing to Russia's air defenses is different. The Russian systems are the
07:01same, but the weapons that they are failing to stop are different. Ukraine, and especially the USF, is
07:06using drones rather than missiles. Still, we see similarities. Russian air defenses can't stop the
07:11weapons they are supposed to stop. And as Ukraine manufactures more deep and mid-range strike
07:16drones, it is able to use a swarming strategy to overwhelm Russia's air defenses, enabling strikes
07:22both against those defenses and the targets they are supposed to protect, which is somewhat reminiscent
07:26of the shock and awe campaign we saw in Iran. However, Russia's big problem is this. Its air defenses
07:32simply aren't built to deal with USF drones. These defenses were built to deal with missiles. They do a
07:38bad enough job at that, but they struggle even more when facing drones that their radars struggle to
07:42detect, track, and engage. This isn't a Russia-centric problem. Though its air defenses systems may pale in
07:49comparison to modern Western systems, technologically speaking, both Russian and Western systems are
07:54designed to combat aircraft and missiles, which are larger, faster, and fly much higher than the
07:59drones that Ukraine unleashes. A drone can remain below the line of sight of a ground-based radar system
08:04until the drone is so close that it can unleash a payload against that radar or its associated system
08:10before a missile can even be fired off. And let's talk about those air defense missiles for a moment.
08:15They're expensive. Drones aren't. So even if a Russian air defense system manages to track a drone,
08:20some calculus has to be done. Is it worth expending a missile that may cost hundreds of thousands,
08:26perhaps even millions of dollars, to destroy a drone that costs a fraction of that amount? The answer
08:31would be yes if Ukraine only sent the occasional drone. When there are swarms of dozens or hundreds,
08:36the battlefield calculus doesn't add up. It's simply too expensive for Russia to use its air
08:41defense network to stop Ukraine's drones. Not that this matters all too much when those systems are
08:46getting destroyed where they stand. So Ukraine has turned Russia's air defenses into Swiss cheese.
08:52Those defenses have collapsed, and Ukraine now rules the skies in large portions of the occupied
08:57territories as well as being capable of striking targets in Russia over and over. But what does
09:02all of this mean for Russia? And why can't Russia do anything to solve the problems? We'll answer
09:07those questions right after this reminder that you are watching The Military Show. There's a lot more
09:12where this comes from, so hit subscribe and ring the notification bell if you're getting value from our
09:16channel. Russia's Swiss cheese defenses are a problem because every air defense system, radar,
09:23or EW device that the USF destroys creates a gap for other drones to exploit. It's almost like Ukraine's
09:29drones are waiting in the wings, ready to pounce as soon as the USF takes out the only things that
09:34would have a chance to stop them. We've seen that in Slavyansk, though in that case, the facility was
09:39so large that the gaps were already there. But the USF has plenty more examples. Between June 27 and 29,
09:46the USF took out an array of targets in the occupied territories, all of which were made possible by its
09:51campaign against Russian air defenses. In Crimea, the USF destroyed a Pantsir S-1 air defense system,
09:58along with a pair of radars, an ST-68 and a 48 YA-6 K-1 Podlyov. There's a nice
10:04bit of synergy there.
10:05Air defense systems had to be destroyed to allow Ukraine to take out even more.
10:10Other targets hit during those three days of destruction included fuel tank railcars in Crimea.
10:15In Zaporizhia, the 412th Nemesis Brigade destroyed a pair of Russian fuel tanks, along with a facility that
10:21Russia used to store lubricants. Operators of the 3rd Battalion of the 414th Magyar's Birds Brigade
10:27took out a different fuel tanker in the same sector. And drones that were flown into Russia's
10:32Bryansk region took out a train that Russia was using to support its troops near the border with
10:36Ukraine. Head over to Kherson, where Ukraine's 20th Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade destroyed a
10:42harbor tug that was yet another cog in Russia's massive logistical network. That's what the loss of
10:47so many of Russia's air defenses makes possible. Gap after gap is created. Ukraine targets air
10:53defenses that are either directly guarding the targets it wants to hit, or are covering aerial
10:57corridors through which it wishes to send drones. With the defenses down, the pathways open, and Ukraine
11:03strikes. Over and over and over again. All of these strikes occurred over the course of three days.
11:10In 2026 as a whole, we've seen Ukraine massively ramp up both its mid- and deep-range strike strategies,
11:16and it's all due to the collapse of Russia's air defenses. At the beginning of June, Ukraine's
11:21Defense Minister Mikhailo Fedorov reported that Ukraine had doubled its number of successful
11:25strikes being carried out over 50 kilometers beyond the front lines in May when compared to April.
11:31That doubling was part of a consistent increase that has been happening since the start of 2026.
11:37On June 22nd, the Institute for the Study of War, ISW, reported that Ukraine was on track to match its
11:43May total of 210 intermediate-range strikes against Russia. By the time of the ISW's report,
11:48Ukraine was at 145 for June. We don't have the final tally for the month yet, but it's almost
11:53certain to be in the 200-plus region. It's not like Russia is doing much better on the deep strike
11:58front either. UNM reports that June saw Ukraine hit 11 different oil refineries and 8 military
12:04plants inside Russia, several of them multiple times. We've also seen Ukraine target facilities in and
12:10around Moscow, which is meant to be the single most well-defended region in all of Russia.
12:14Thank the Swiss cheese for all of this. The USF punched the holes, then it, along with other
12:20Ukrainian drone forces, shoved unmanned aerial vehicles right through them. Of course, Crimea
12:25is at the center of all of this. As impressive as the strikes inside Russia and the other occupied
12:29territories are, most of what Ukraine's drone forces are doing right now serves the wider strategy
12:34for isolating Crimea and wresting the illegally annexed peninsula out of Putin's control.
12:39So much of what Ukraine is hitting now in and around Crimea has been made possible by the USF
12:45and its campaign against Russian air defenses. The Kerch Strait crossing and the ferries that
12:50Ukraine has taken out there may not have been struck otherwise. Ukraine's campaign to destroy
12:54fuel trucks heading into Crimea is working because Russia's air defense network is so full of holes
12:59that mid-range strike drones can fly through large portions of the occupied territories unimpeded.
13:05Add all of that to the fact these air defenses were never built to deal with drones in the first
13:09place and you get a recipe for disaster that is being shoved right down the throats of the Crimean
13:14occupiers. A state of emergency has been declared in the Crimean city of Sevastopol as Ukraine's drones
13:20strike and the peninsula suffers from a fuel crisis. All of this has been built up over months of the
13:26USF
13:26destroying Russian air defenses. But somehow Russia has even bigger problems. It's not just that the
13:32USF is destroying air defense systems by the hundreds or that those systems aren't even designed
13:36to deal with what Ukraine is sending Russia's way. The much worse issue for Russia is that it can't even
13:41fill the holes in the cheese. Every hole that Ukraine punches is either there for good or can only be
13:47filled by Russia punching a new hole somewhere else. And the reason why is that Russia can't get its
13:51hands on any more air defense systems. The Center for European Policy Analysis or SEPA describes
13:57Russia's air defenses as threadbare in a June 3rd article. It pointed to Ukraine's drone strike in
14:03St. Petersburg which occurred on that very day, noting that at least 50 of Ukraine's drones had
14:09been able to arrive, circle around and then strike a range of targets that included a Russian corvette and
14:15oil storage tanks. Russia still relies too heavily on EW when Ukraine has AI-powered drones that can
14:21overcome these types of systems, SEPA argues. Bureaucracy, combined with the need to keep
14:26shifting a limited number of air defense systems around, is contributing to the gaps that we see,
14:30just as much as Ukraine's drones. Ukraine's persistence and gradual scaling of its drone assaults
14:35have exposed the weaknesses in Russian defenses, and Russia is far too behind the technological times to
14:41do all that much about it. Russia can't even build more of its existing air defense systems. At least
14:46it can't build at a scale even close to Ukraine's rate of system and radar destruction. The commander
14:52of Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment, who goes by the callsign Charger, says that Russia can't
14:58get its hands on the microchips that it needs for its missiles and radars. Because it's a scarce resource,
15:03it's very expensive, and even if they just throw a sack of dollars at the manufacturer, air defenses won't
15:08just materialize because there's no microchips. There is no device where you feed it money and
15:13it gives you a microchip that controls an anti-aircraft missile, Charger says.
15:17Russia can thank the gradual impact of Western sanctions for that one. It's not impossible for
15:22Russia to get its hands on the chips it needs, but those chips can rarely be purchased directly,
15:26leaving Russia to pay third countries over the odds for chips that take longer to arrive,
15:31due to having to be sent all over the world so that Russia can skirt sanctions.
15:34The issue, combined with the sheer size of Ukraine's drone swarms, also means that Russia is now running
15:39low on air defense missiles. That's according to CBS News, which reported on June 17th that Russia is
15:45already dealing with a shortage of S-300 missile interceptors, and that this shortage may soon
15:50extend to other air defense systems. So even when the USF isn't blowing those systems up with drones,
15:56many aren't even loaded with enough missiles to stop a swarm. And when you combine all of this with the
16:00sheer size of Russia, and the additional need to protect the occupied territories, you get why
16:05SEPA called Russia's air defense network bread-bear. There wasn't enough to go around before,
16:11and there's even less after the USF devastated Russia's defenses. And so the Swiss cheese has been
16:16made. The USF will carry on punching holes, of course. This is no time for complacency. What we're
16:22going to see as we move into the second half of 2026 is much more of what we've seen during
16:26the first
16:27half of the year. Refineries, air defenses, logistics, troop gatherings, and so much more
16:32are reachable like never before. And as Putin focuses all of his efforts on a frontline campaign
16:37that's going poorly, Ukraine will keep whittling away, leaving the Russian rear defenseless.
16:42An even bigger aerial storm is coming for Russia, and it's not like what Russia has absorbed so far in
16:482026 was particularly small. Ukraine has already unleashed a strike storm so massive that it blocked out
16:54the sun in Russia. 800,000 targets have been taken down in 2026 alone, as Ukraine continues to reshape
17:01the battlefield. Find out more by checking out our video. And if you enjoyed this video, hit subscribe
17:07and ring the notification bell to ensure that you see more of our videos covering the breakdown of Russia
17:12Russia at Ukraine's hands. And thank you, as always, for watching.
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