Ukraine has shattered the limits many believed constrained its military, transforming long-range strikes with heavier drones, cruise missiles, and advanced precision weapons. This video explores how Kyiv overcame Russia’s air defenses, expanded its deep-strike capabilities, and intensified attacks on critical military and energy infrastructure. We examine the technology, battlefield strategy, and growing impact on Russia’s war effort—plus what these developments could mean for the future of the conflict.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Ukraine Drone Strikes Cut Russian Oil Capacity 40%
03:26 - Ukraine Targets 500 Russian Air Defense Systems
05:19 - Ukraine Deploys New 200kg FP-2 Heavy Drones
09:41 - Ukraine Launches New 3,000km Flamingo Cruise Missiles
12:40 - Ukraine Air Raid Sirens Target 70% of Russia
15:33 - Is Ukraine Testing the FP-9 Ballistic Missile?
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 / ATTRIBUTIONS: https://pastebin.com/GLNZBwkP
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Ukraine Drone Strikes Cut Russian Oil Capacity 40%
03:26 - Ukraine Targets 500 Russian Air Defense Systems
05:19 - Ukraine Deploys New 200kg FP-2 Heavy Drones
09:41 - Ukraine Launches New 3,000km Flamingo Cruise Missiles
12:40 - Ukraine Air Raid Sirens Target 70% of Russia
15:33 - Is Ukraine Testing the FP-9 Ballistic Missile?
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 / ATTRIBUTIONS: https://pastebin.com/GLNZBwkP
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:00For years, Vladimir Putin believed that Ukraine's military would never be powerful enough to truly
00:05challenge his army or threaten his regime. Even when Ukrainian drones began flying over
00:10the front lines and into Russian regions, the president remained confident in the idea that
00:15it was impossible for his country to lose. Russia would always be stronger. There would
00:20always be an invisible ceiling or cap on how strong Ukraine could get, and it would never
00:24be enough to deal with the levels of lasting serious damage it needed to win the war.
00:29Putin was wrong, and Ukraine just proved it. It has smashed the power cap and shattered
00:35the ceiling, achieving what many believe to be impossible and rising to whole new heights
00:39of power and performance on the battlefield today. To understand this shift, we have to
00:44rewind to the early stages of Ukraine's ongoing campaign against Russian oil and energy infrastructure.
00:50Kyiv has been targeting locations like oil refineries and pipelines for several years now,
00:55but seriously upped the ante in 2025, which saw 21 of Russia's 38 major refineries targeted,
01:03representing a 48% increase in successful strikes when compared to the previous year.
01:08Throughout 2025, it seemed as though barely a week went by without news of more fires,
01:14explosions and drone impacts at Russian oil plants. Cumulatively, these attacks took quite a toll on the
01:20country's economy and energy sector, with overall refinery capacity levels falling by a staggering 40%
01:26during the height of the strikes between August and October of 2025. Ukraine's unmanned systems forces
01:33also began attacking military production plants on a more regular basis, triggering fires and explosions
01:39in the places where Russia manufactures its drones, missiles and the other munitions. However,
01:45while the impact of the attacks was important, and the images and videos shared online of massive
01:50explosions and plumes of smoke filling the air were visually impressive, the fact of the matter was
01:56that many of these strikes weren't anywhere near as effective as they needed to be. There were two
02:01big reasons for this. The first was the presence of Russian air defences. While the efficiency of the
02:06Kremlin's defensive systems has been rightly called into question as the war has progressed, Russia still
02:12had quite deep stockpiles of important assets like the S-300, the more modern S-400, the Tor M-2,
02:19the Book M-3,
02:20and the Pantsir SM. Once Russian commanders realized that Ukraine was attempting to attack their energy
02:26infrastructure, they repositioned many of these assets to key locations like refineries and oil
02:32terminals in order to shoot down most of the drones and missiles Kyiv sent their way. This in turn meant
02:38that even if some Ukrainian drones managed to hit their targets, many others were lost, which limited
02:43how much damage the country could deal to its opponent. The second, and arguably larger issue,
02:49was that Ukraine's forces were having to make do with relatively rudimentary and quite compact drones
02:54to carry out their strikes. Even the more advanced models could only carry relatively small warheads,
03:00which meant that even if they bypassed Russia's defences and made it to their destinations,
03:04they weren't packing enough explosive power to actually put refineries out of action.
03:09Because of this, there were many instances in which drone strikes happened and facilities were briefly
03:15shut down but soon came back online. There was still damage and it still mattered, but it wasn't
03:20sufficient to trigger the kind of crisis and collapse Kyiv's forces were hoping for. In 2026, however,
03:27everything changed because Ukraine found solutions for both of those issues. First, it began systematically
03:34eradicating Russia's air defences. Reports show that between June 2025 and March 2026, Ukraine carried out
03:42almost 500 attacks against enemy air defence infrastructure and another 433 against anti-access
03:49and aerial denial assets. Since then, the trend has continued. 24 radar systems were taken out just in
03:56Crimea between March and May of this year. 25 air defences were destroyed in April alone,
04:03including Tor, Buk, Osa and Pantses. Dozens upon dozens of even Russia's best systems like the S-400s
04:10have also been eliminated. And as Ukraine intensifies its attacks on enemy territory,
04:15the Kremlin's commanders have an increasingly small pool of assets to play with. As a result,
04:20they're having to pick and choose which towns, cities and pieces of infrastructure they want to
04:24prioritize for protection, leaving others absolutely exposed. Following the mass drone attack on Moscow,
04:31for example, Russia reportedly moved more of its S-300 and S-400 defences to the capital, weakening
04:37other areas in the process. One Ukrainian drone operator, nicknamed Churchill, revealed that Russia
04:44is losing the concept of layered air defence as more systems are destroyed and more blind spots emerge.
04:50As a direct consequence, it's now much easier for Ukraine to find clear corridors across Russian
04:55territories to the places it wants to target. It can deploy swarms of drones and salvos of missiles
05:01towards those locations, without having to worry about a high risk of them being shot down en route.
05:06This, in turn, also means that Kyiv's forces can feel more confident about deploying bigger and heavier
05:12weapons against those very same targets. Which leads us onto the second big shift in 2026,
05:18the use of larger warheads. Prior to this point, Ukraine generally used warheads weighing in the
05:24tens of kilograms. As Euromaiden notes, that's simply not enough to penetrate the thick steel
05:29barriers and concrete walls found throughout oil refineries and military production plants,
05:35and if drones were only slightly off target, they could struggle to deal any real damage at all.
05:40Basically, they could damage a specific target if they hit it but needed a direct strike. Missing by a
05:45few feet or hitting on the other side of a wall would cause minimal damage. Repairs could be made
05:50quickly. Throughout 2025, Ukrainian analysts realized that something had to change. They'd
05:56been using lightweight warheads in order to allow their drones to carry more fuel and cover further
06:01distances in order to hit targets far beyond the Russian border. But that advantage came at a cost.
06:08The relatively tiny warheads simply weren't strong enough. Thankfully, a ready-made solution came in the
06:13form of the Firepoint FP2 drone. Initially boasting a maximum flight time of 2.5 hours,
06:20an operational range of up to 200 kilometers or 125 miles, and a warhead weighing up to 105 kilograms
06:27or 230 pounds, this system changed the game. Firepoint has since made modifications that allow the FP2 to
06:35carry a whopping 200 kilograms or 440 pounds of explosives across even greater distances of up
06:42to 370 kilometers or 230 miles. They cost more, but they're so much more effective than the simpler
06:48unmanned aerial vehicles that Kyiv had counted on in the past, like the Liuti. And since their arrival on
06:54the scene, FP2 drones have been used in numerous mid- and long-range strikes on Russian infrastructure.
07:00They've blown holes in the sides of some of the most important pieces of oil refinery infrastructure,
07:06like primary distillation units. They've caused entire buildings to collapse at military production
07:11plants. And they've given Russia far greater damage to deal with and far bigger bills to pay
07:17than the simpler and smaller drones that came before them. And they're not the only ones. Ukraine has also
07:22started to use other heavy deep-strike munitions that managed to combine both strong range with weighty
07:28warheads. The Behemoth drone, for example, is an aptly named beast of the skies that sports not one,
07:34but two separate warheads, one weighing in at 40 kilograms or 88 pounds and another weighing in at
07:4035 kilograms or 77 pounds. As a one-way attack drone, the Behemoth doesn't drop its warheads.
07:47Instead, a tandem-charged warhead detonates on impact to punch through the target's outer defenses,
07:52before the larger thermobaric warhead explodes inside moments later, causing far greater damage.
07:58With drones like this, Ukraine is no longer just damaging the external walls and shells of Russian
08:04factories and refineries. It's bypassing their barriers and wiping them out from within.
08:09This is making a massive difference on the ground. Attacks that might once have been deemed as a mere
08:14nuisance or inconvenience for Russia are now becoming veritable disasters. Strikes that would once have
08:20caused minimal damage that only required a couple of days to patch up are now putting facilities out
08:25of action for weeks or even months at a time. The bad news, at least as far as Ukraine is
08:31concerned,
08:31is that these heavier drones can only go so far. The Behemoth, for instance, is limited to distances of
08:37just 300 kilometers or 185 miles. That places them firmly in the middle-range category. But what if
08:44Ukraine wants to hit targets that are much further away? Fortunately, it has an answer for that as
08:50well. But before we get to that, you're watching the military show. And if you haven't subscribed yet,
08:56now's the time. For several years, the only way that Ukraine could feasibly hit targets that were
09:01hundreds of miles into Russia was with the use of long-range drones. It didn't have the kinds of
09:06missiles that could cover such vast distances. All it had were small drones carrying a few dozen pounds of
09:12explosives at the most. Many were shot down by Russian defenses, but some made it to their targets
09:18now and then. However, for the exact same reasons covered earlier on, they weren't able to deal
09:23lasting damage. Again, Ukrainian analysts identified this issue and worked on a way to fix it. And to fix
09:30an issue like this, the answer is quite simple. You need weapons that can travel further distances at
09:35greater speeds and deliver far larger payloads than pre-existing options. In short, you need cruise
09:42missiles. So Firepoint, the exact same company behind the FP2 drone and one of the biggest players in
09:48Ukraine's rapidly expanding defense sector, developed the FP5 cruise missile, otherwise known as the
09:54Flamingo. Thanks to its jet propulsion system, this missile, which costs around $500,000 per unit,
10:01boasts an incredible operational range of 3,000 kilometers or 1,900 miles. It carries a
10:081,150 kilogram or 2,540 pound warhead. It was unveiled in August 2025, and it took some time
10:17after that for Firepoint's developers to perfect the self-contained inertial navigation system that
10:22was necessary to allow this missile to function as intended and strike its targets reliably. Now that
10:28they've done that, the full ferocity of the Flamingo has been unleashed, and Russia simply can't cope with it.
10:35On June 27, reports emerge of multiple Flamingo missiles being launched at the Titan Barrikady
10:41missile plant in Russia's Volgograd region, situated in the southern part of the country,
10:46approximately 500 kilometers, 310 miles from the front lines. Footage showed the unmistakable
10:52silhouettes of two of these mammoth missiles hitting the plant, which is responsible for assembling mobile
10:58launchers for ballistic missiles and artillery systems. And this was just the latest in a series of
11:03successful strikes involving the Flamingo missile. On June 10, for example, five Flamingos were
11:09dispatched towards the Venir Progress Defense Electronics plant in Cheboksary, which is located
11:15in western Russia, 900 kilometers or 560 miles from the front. Two of those missiles made it through,
11:21blasting by the factory's anti-drone protections and causing huge explosive damage on impact and fire
11:27damage in the aftermath. In the bomb department too, Kyiv has made some serious strides. In the past,
11:33it had to rely on western supplies, which are often only available in limited quantities and tied to
11:38other restrictions that Ukraine had no control over. Now, however, Ukraine has changed the game by
11:44starting serial production on its own assets. Assets like the Equalizer Glide Bomb from developer DG
11:50Industries. Capable of traveling dozens of miles from the point of release, these bombs pack more than enough
11:57to wipe out Russian targets like air defense systems, radar stations, ammo depots, troop
12:03concentrations, tanks and other armored vehicles. We've seen Ukraine carry out mid-range and long-range
12:09strikes for several years now. But the game has absolutely changed with the introduction of these
12:14heavier weapons. They're not just poking and prodding at Russia's assets and infrastructure anymore.
12:19Now, Kyiv is quite literally blowing targets to bits. The later strikes are more damaging and costly for
12:25the Kremlin than anything that's come before. As Michael Bonnet, researcher of the California think tank
12:30RAND notes, to even any casual observer, Ukrainian strikes have been having a higher and higher impact
12:36over time. And it's not just a question of more firepower. It's also a question of extended range.
12:43According to the latest report, Ukraine today possesses sufficient munitions to target around half of Russia
12:48Russia and more than 70 percent of its entire population. Russia's own monitoring channel,
12:53radar across all of Russia, recently reported air raid warnings in regions far and wide across the country.
12:59That includes five separate regions of the Volga Federal District, situated southeastern Moscow,
13:05the Astrakhan region, which is around 900 kilometers, 560 miles from Ukraine, and parts of the North
13:11Caucasus region, some areas of which are up to 1,200 kilometers or 750 miles from Ukraine. In central Russia,
13:19alerts have sounded out in Moscow, which is around 400 to 500 kilometers, 250 to 310 miles from Ukraine,
13:27Vladimir, which is 450 kilometers or 280 miles away, Tambov, which is 350 kilometers or 220 miles away,
13:35and Libetsk, which is around 300 kilometers, 186 miles from Ukraine's border. On July 1, Ukraine's
13:43president, Volodymyr Zelensky, even announced that his country's forces had struck an oil refinery in Ufa,
13:49a whopping 1,300 kilometers, over 800 miles away from the front line. It was the second time this
13:55location had been hit. A military facility in the Penza region was also struck, located around 600 kilometers,
14:02or 370 miles from the front. This marks a major shift compared to the earlier stages of the conflict.
14:09In 2024, for example, the only Russian regions that really had to worry about Ukrainian attacks
14:15were those situated quite close to the border, and a large part of Ukraine's assets were also used
14:20against enemy assets within the occupied territories too. Now, almost nowhere in Russia feels truly safe.
14:27From the western regions to the edges of Siberia, the sound of air raid sirens is becoming a
14:32bigger part of everyday life as Ukraine brings the war home to the Russian public. And those sirens
14:37aren't mild inconveniences. Often, when an alert occurs, entire towns and cities have to shut down.
14:44Airports suspend operations, public transport services stop, and people are told to remain
14:49indoors or seek shelter underground. This has an effect, and even though Ukraine doesn't copy the
14:54Russian playbook and target civilian homes and infrastructure, the Russian people are still
14:59having their lives impacted by the war in increasingly frightening and challenging ways. This, in turn,
15:05makes them more eager to find someone to blame, and many are pointing their fingers at one man only,
15:10Vladimir Putin himself. Consequently, Putin's popularity has plummeted. Even in stake-backed surveys
15:17carried out by Kremlin mouthpieces, increasing numbers of Russians are airing real concerns about
15:21whether their president is still fit to lead. And it's likely to get even worse for Putin and his people
15:27in
15:27the weeks and months to come, because Ukraine's arsenal is only going to get stronger from here
15:31on out. Indeed, recent reports also suggest that Ukraine may have fired its first ever domestically
15:37produced long-range ballistic missile. This news is based on data from Russia's own Ministry of Defense.
15:44In a recent report, the Kremlin's MOD claimed that over a period of 24 hours, its air defenses intercepted
15:50over 600 drones, seven aerial bombs, and what it described as a long-range operational tactical missile.
15:57Moscow didn't provide any further details about what type of missile that was, nor has Ukraine given
16:02any official statement on the matter at this time. However, we do know that Firepoint has been working
16:07on its FP9 ballistic missile and recently confirmed that it was approaching the flight testing stage.
16:13The company's head of design, Denis Stielemann, affirmed that tests would begin in either summer or early fall.
16:19It's possible that those tests have already commenced and that the FP9 has been fired against
16:24one or more Russian targets. If so, this would represent another enormous addition to Kyiv's arsenal.
16:29The FP9 was designed with the express intention of destroying targets deep inside Russia's regions.
16:35It boasts an estimated operational range of 855 kilometers or 530 miles, can reach remarkable speeds of
16:43up to 2200 meters a second and carries a huge warhead weighing up to 800 kilograms or 1760 pounds.
16:54We've seen Kyiv's defense sector produce world-leading drones and powerful cruise missiles.
16:59A ballistic missile is the final piece of the puzzle, and if the FP9 is already operational,
17:04there's no telling how much damage Ukraine could do with it, as Bloomberg notes.
17:08If confirmed, the firing of a ballistic missile would mark a new step in Kyiv's effort to expand
17:14its domestically produced long-range strike capabilities beyond drones and cruise-type systems.
17:19Even if these reports turn out false and the FP9 isn't quite ready to deploy yet,
17:24it's only a matter of time until we start seeing this missile send valuable Russian infrastructure sky-high.
17:30When combined with heavier drones, new glide bombs, and flamingo-cruise missiles, Ukraine is packing more
17:37heat than at any other point in its history, giving Russia a tidal wave of problems it simply cannot solve.
17:44Now, to learn more about how those problems are piling up on Putin's desk and driving the Russian
17:48president even deeper into crisis, check out this video. Alternatively, watch this video to discover how
17:55Moscow's businesses, investors and elite, are starting to wave the white flag, recognizing that the war is
18:00unwinnable and urging Putin to bring it to an end. And finally, don't forget to subscribe to the military show
18:06for more great content, just like this.
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