Beyond the Border: How Ukraine Is Rewriting the Rules with Deep Strikes into Russia

For much of the war, Ukraine has fought defensively — repelling invaders, reclaiming occupied territory, and absorbing punishing missile salvos. But that balance is shifting. In 2024 and 2025, Ukraine has developed a credible and persistent capacity to strike deep inside Russian territory, targeting military infrastructure, logistics nodes, and even strategic aviation assets far beyond the front lines.

These strikes are not symbolic. They are strategic, asymmetric, and increasingly frequent. And perhaps most striking of all: Russia appears unable to stop them.

The Shifting Battlefield: Russia Is No Longer “Safe”

Since early 2024, a growing number of drone strikes, sabotage operations, and targeted explosions have disrupted Russian military operations hundreds — sometimes thousands — of kilometers from Ukraine’s borders. These incidents range from high-profile hits like the repeated strikes on Engels air base, to mysterious fires at oil depots in Tatarstan, to the recent attack on the Kursk railway bridge in May 2025 — an operation which severed one of Russia’s key military rail arteries feeding forces in the Belgorod region.

Most spectacularly, the relocation of Russia’s Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers from Engels (near Saratov) to Olenya air base in Murmansk oblast, a remote Arctic site, confirms the growing strategic insecurity inside Russia’s own rear. Engels, once considered untouchable, has been struck repeatedly — despite housing some of Russia’s most critical nuclear-capable assets and being located over 600 km from Ukraine.

In parallel, temporary closures of Moscow’s airports, including Domodedovo and Vnukovo, have become routine in recent months. Civilian flights have been grounded mid-air and diverted as Russian air defences scramble to intercept inbound drones — many of which bypass even layered defences and penetrate within 50 kilometres of the Kremlin.

What’s unfolding is a slow but deliberate erosion of Russia’s internal sanctuary.

How Is Ukraine Doing It?

Officially, Ukraine offers little detail. She rarely claims responsibility directly. But multiple open source indicators, satellite imagery and Russian media reports allow us to outline a probable tool kit behind these long-range operations:

Long-Range Indigenous UAVs

Ukraine has developed a growing fleet of long-range, explosive-laden drones (often jet-powered, sometimes propeller-driven) capable of flying over 1,000 km.

• The UJ-22 Airborne and Bober drones are known examples — used in attacks on Moscow and other Russian cities.

• These drones fly low, use terrain masking, and rely on GPS/GLONASS navigation (GLONASS is a Russian version of GPS), often modified to bypass or spoof Russian jamming.

Analysts believe Ukraine is building and deploying hundreds of these drones monthly, many assembled in modular fashion by private tech teams under MoD coordination.

Sabotage and Partisan Networks

In several incidents — including oil facility fires in Novosibirsk and Tatarstan — Russian investigators have hinted at internal sabotage rather than external attack.

• Ukrainian intelligence services (notably the GUR, Ukrainian military intelligence) are believed to operate sleeper cells and saboteurs across Russian regions.

• Cross-border raids, such as those in Belgorod and Kursk, are frequently accompanied by information warfare and “chaos by proxy” campaigns, targeting infrastructure as well as morale.

Electronic Warfare and Masking Tactics

Ukraine’s strikes are often designed to exploit weaknesses in Russia’s detection architecture:

• Drones are programmed to fly around known radar coverage zones or through underprotected corridors, particularly at night.

• Some drones are launched from within Russian territory, bypassing much of Russia’s border detection grid entirely.

Foreign Supplied Capabilities (Indirection & Deniability)

While Western powers have restricted to varying degrees use of certain weapons inside Russia, there is evidence of “modified assets” used for strategic deterrence:

• Soviet-era missiles and cruise weapons — retrofitted with Ukrainian guidance packages — are used for deep strikes without direct Western hardware.

• Covert upgrades may come via indirect suppliers (e.g. component smuggling, repurposed civilian technologies).

Why Russia Can’t Stop It

Despite having one of the world’s largest air defence systems, Russia struggles to prevent these strikes. Several reasons explain this:

Scale vs. Flexibility

Russia’s air defence system — built to counter NATO bombers and ballistic missiles — is rigid, layered and optimsed for high-speed threats, not dozens of cheap, slow, radar-dodging drones.

• S-300 and S-400 systems are expensive and deployed in fixed patterns.

• Mobile units are stretched thin across vast regions and now must defend both occupied Ukraine and core Russian territory simultaneously.

Civil-Military Fragmentation

Airspace near Moscow is tightly controlled. But outside core zones, command fragmentation and poor integration between military and regional civil authorities allow threats to slip through.

• Regional governors are often unprepared or underinformed.

• Local air defence units in Tatarstan or the Urals are minimal, outdated or symbolic.

Overextension

Russian air defences are overstretched. Moscow has deployed much of its air defense infrastructure to occupied Crimea, Belgorod and Luhansk, leaving key rear assets relatively under-protected — especially oil refineries, bridges, airfields and strategic rail hubs.

Psychological and Strategic Effects

The impact of Ukraine’s deep strikes is more than material. It is psychological and asymmetric:

• Russian civilians now feel the war directly, undermining Kremlin narratives of control and security.

• Elite air units have been forced to relocate thousands of kilometres away, reducing sortie rates and weakening Russia’s long-range deterrence.

• Military logistics — once centralised and rail-reliant — are now fragmented, as bridges like the one in Kursk (destroyed overnight at the date of writing) become liabilities.

• Internationally, the perception of Russian vulnerability grows — despite its size and arsenal.

“The illusion of Russia as an untouchable fortress has collapsed,” said one Ukrainian analyst. “Now the fortress is on fire — and the fire is coming from inside.”

Implications for the War and Beyond

Ukraine’s capacity to strike deep into Russia shifts several key dynamics:

• Strategic parity: Even without Western deep-strike weapons like ATACMS being used inside Russia, Ukraine has demonstrated the ability to inflict strategic disruption at depth.

• Escalation management: Kyiv’s restraint in targeting civilian areas, and its preference for military and logistical decentralised nodes, keeps many Western red lines intact — while still bleeding the Russian war machine.

• Russia’s long war viability: As Ukraine hits deeper, Russia is forced to disperse fuel, munitions and air power, driving up costs and logistics complexity.

Perhaps most significantly, Ukraine has shattered the assumption that only major powers can project force at strategic depth. With drones, sabotage networks, and determination, it has turned asymmetric warfare into a tool of so-called "horizontal escalation" — one that Moscow is not yet equipped to contain.

Conclusion: A New Phase of Strategic Attrition

Ukraine’s war is no longer fought solely at the front. It now extends across hundreds of kilometres into Russian airspace, logistics hubs and strategic thought. Each successful strike erodes not just Russian equipment, but Russian confidence.

In forcing Russia to retreat her bombers to the edge of the Arctic Circle, in grounding flights from her own capital, and in making bridges in Kursk tremble under the threat of sabotage, Ukraine has shown that the battlefield is wherever determination, intelligence and innovation can reach.

The war is still far from over. But it is no longer confined.

And Russia, for all its might, is learning that size is no guarantee of safety.

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Key Ukrainian deep strike events into Russian territory during the second Russian invasion of Ukraine

December 2022

• Engels & Dyagilevo Air Base Strikes: Ukraine launched drone attacks on Engels airbase in Saratov Oblast (~630 km from the border) and Dyagilevo airbase in Ryazan Oblast (~470 km away), marking her first significant strikes deep within Russian territory. 

August 2023

• Pskov Airport Attack: Ukrainian drones targeted Pskov Airport, destroying two Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft and damaging two others. The raid was reportedly launched from within Russia. 

October 2023

• ATACMS Deployment: Ukraine employed US-supplied ATACMS missiles for the first time, destroying up to 21 Russian helicopters at airfields in Berdiansk and Luhansk. 

March 2024

• Western Russia Incursion: Ukrainian-backed groups, including the Freedom of Russia Legion, conducted cross-border incursions into Belgorod and Kursk Oblasts, capturing several settlements and engaging Russian forces. 

August 2024

• Drone Barrage on Moscow: Ukraine launched her largest drone strike on Moscow, prompting temporary closures of major airports and highlighting vulnerabilities in Russian air defences. 

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October–November 2024

• Industrial Strikes: Ukrainian drones attacked Russian distilleries in Belgorod, Voronezh, Tula, and Tambov, disrupting supplies of alcohol used in aviation fuel and explosives. 

• Caspian Port Attacks: Drones targeted the Caspian port of Kaspiysk in Dagestan, damaging Russian naval vessels and disrupting military logistics. 

January 2025

• Ust-Luga Port Strike: Long-range drones hit Russia’s Ust-Luga port near St Petersburg, damaging gas condensate tanks and disrupting operations. 

• Cyberattack on RegionTransService: Ukraine’s defence intelligence conducted a cyberattack on RegionTransService LLC, crippling a company integral to Russian military logistics. 

• Oil Depot and Gunpowder Plant Strikes: Drones targeted an oil depot in Voronezh Oblast and a gunpowder plant in Tambov Oblast, causing significant fires and disrupting military supplies. 

• Druzhba Pipeline Attack: Ukrainian drones struck a pumping station on the Druzhba pipeline in Bryansk Oblast, disrupting oil flows and showcasing long-range strike capabilities. 

1 June 2025

• Operation Spider Web: In a coordinated operation, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) launched drone strikes on multiple Russian airbases, including Olenya, Dyagilevo, Ivanovo Severny, Belaya, and Voskresensk. The attacks destroyed or damaged over 40 military aircraft, including strategic bombers and surveillance planes. Drones were reportedly launched from within Russia using concealed truck-based systems. 

• Bridge Explosions in Bryansk and Kursk: Simultaneous explosions destroyed railway bridges in Bryansk and Kursk regions, disrupting military logistics and causing civilian casualties. 

This timeline illustrates Ukraine’s evolving strategy to project power deep into Russian territory, leveraging a combination of drone technology, cyber warfare and special operations. These actions have not only inflicted material damage but have also challenged Russia’s perception of internal security and strategic depth.