Drone and missile attacks on both sides are intensifying, with analysts warning that offensive capabilities are outpacing air defenses. June 2026 was the deadliest month for civilians since the start of the invasion.
While the front lines in Ukraine barely move, the war in the air is becoming increasingly destructive. Analysts warn that both Russia's and Ukraine's offensive capabilities have outpaced their air defenses, leading to more targets hit, greater damage to critical infrastructure, and a weekly rise in civilian deaths.
"We are definitely seeing an increase in the number of attacks and a higher number of casualties. There has also been an escalation in the diversity of targets being hit," Olha Polishchuk, head of research for Eastern Europe at ACLED, a global conflict monitor, told CNN.
In late June 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a 40-day campaign of intensified drone strikes deep into Russian territory. According to his chief adviser, that campaign is ongoing. Instead of occasional long-range strikes on Russian refineries, Ukraine now frequently targets refineries, oil tankers, electrical substations, and broader energy infrastructure.
Natia Seskuria, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told CNN that this is a significant problem for Russia. "The past 40 days have shown that they have a serious weakness in interception and that Ukraine has been quite successful in reaching its targets." Seskuria adds that the campaign also has a "pragmatic goal of slowing down the Russian summer offensive, in terms of stretching Russian resources for intercepting drone attacks."
Ukrainian forces have also broken through Russian defenses near St. Petersburg and have targeted Moscow on multiple occasions. In June, ACLED recorded a significant increase in attacks on energy and transport infrastructure in occupied Crimea. Analysts also highlight a rise in strikes on the Russian economy, such as attacks on warehouses of Russia's largest online retailer, Wildberries, which the Ukrainian government claims are legitimate military targets because they supply Russian troops on the front line. Russian air defense systems, as analysts previously explained to CNN, are designed to counter conventional aircraft and missiles, not to suppress drones.
The escalation is mutual. Polishchuk emphasized to CNN that all Ukrainian strikes are mirrored on Ukrainian territory. After the attack on Wildberries, numerous warehouses of the Ukrainian electronics chain Rozetka became targets. At the same time, on the front line, ACLED notes a decline in the number of armed clashes in recent months, describing the advance as "very, very slow."
Russian night attacks on Ukraine far outnumber those Moscow endures. Last month, Moscow launched an average of 172 attacks per day, while Kyiv averaged 28. For months, Russia has been increasing the number of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles in each wave of attacks, aiming to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses. In July alone, Russia fired 139 ballistic missiles at Ukraine, more than in any other month this year, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
These massive aerial strikes are compounded by smaller drone attacks on civilians in cities near the front line. Residents of these areas have previously described feeling like victims of Russian troops' "drone safari." Russia denies targeting civilians.
The scale of destruction became painfully clear earlier this week when an attack on Kyiv and its surroundings, involving more than two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles, killed at least 17 people. No missiles were intercepted.
Civilians bear the brunt of the air war. In June 2026, the United Nations recorded the highest number of civilians killed and wounded in Ukraine in a single month since 2022. In the first half of this year, at least 1,396 civilians were killed and 7,978 wounded in Ukraine, a 37% increase compared to the same period in 2025.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said that at least 797 Russian civilians have been killed this year, but CNN and international monitoring groups cannot independently verify this figure.
Ukrainian President Zelensky has repeatedly appealed to allies for more Patriot interceptors. Hopes rose when, at last month's NATO summit, U.S. President Donald Trump promised to allow Ukraine to produce these missiles on its own soil, but he later withdrew that promise. According to data from the Kiel Institute, the U.S. had allocated more than $130 billion (about €115 billion) in aid to Ukraine before February 2025, but Congress has not approved new major aid packages during the second Trump administration.
As for the possibility of negotiations to end the four-and-a-half-year war, analysts are pessimistic. Polishchuk believes that negotiating with Russia has so far been extremely ineffective and that Vladimir Putin's war calculus is likely to change only under internal pressure. Seskuria, meanwhile, sees little room for diplomacy, noting that Putin no longer has the leverage he had at the start of talks with the U.S. "I think the second option is escalation, which is more likely," she concluded to CNN.
