Ukraine’s New Air-Power Paradigm
Putin says Russia is bound to win a war of attrition. Recent developments cast doubt on his confidence. By Jillian Kay Melchior The Wall Street Journal June 24, 2026 11:25/ am ET Soldiers from the Khartiia Corps work with midrange drones. Ukraine's Khartiia Corps Vladimir Putin has been making the case that Russia’s battlefield advances are unstoppable and the outnumbered Ukrainians can’t win a war of attrition. It follows that Kyiv should settle before things get worse, even if it means surrendering the Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Ukraine’s latest moves, however, call this whole argument into question. “We are scaling middle-strike operations to systematically destroy enemy logistics and supply lines,” Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on May 27, calling it “a ‘logistics lockdown’ for the Russian army.” Senior Ukrainian military and political leaders began discussing a large-scale midrange strike campaign following the failed 2023 U...