Summary

Two years ago almost to the day, a cohort of Ukrainian soldiers launched a daring mission: to give Vladimir Putin a taste of his own medicine and seize some Russian territory. They piled into tanks and armored vehicles, broke out of Sumy and surged across the border into Russia’s Kursk region, and quickly locked down more than 500 square miles of enemy soil. It was widely billed as a stunning offensive, one that saw Russia’s borders breached for the first time since World War II, and gave Kyiv a valuable bargaining chip as rumors swirled that ceasefire talks might gather pace. Fast forward a few months to February 2025, and Russia’s forces had practically erased all Ukrainian troops from Kursk, save for a thin wedge of territory, and a weary Volodymyr Zelensky headed to meet newly minted President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. We all remember how that meeting turned out. Now, with U.S. negotiators expected to visit both Russia and Ukraine in the coming weeks, Zelensky has submitted a fresh peace proposal to Washington. This time, his leverage is real, and although the prospect of a ceasefire with Russia materializing in the near future is vanishingly small, the Ukrainian president has a much better chance of focusing the Trump administration’s ire on Moscow to heap pressure on his opposite number in the Kremlin. You Don’t Need Land To Have a Good Hand The Kursk offensive was supposed to change the equation for Ukraine. In January 2025, outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken openly acknowledged that Kyiv’s foothold across the border would play an important role in any ceasefire negotiations as the Biden administration prepared to hand over the keys to the White House to Team Trump. Instead, what started as an operation to secure vital leverage, while distracting Russian forces from pressure points on the front line and giving a middle finger to Moscow in the process, ended in a grisly defeat. Ukrainian forces were eventually forced back out of Kursk, with soldiers and civilians alike later condemning the operation as "illogical" and "not worth the cost." But Kyiv learned the lesson, and with the exception of a small cross-border operation into Belgorod, Ukraine’s armed forces have not attempted to set foot on Russian soil since. They have, however, developed a new bargaining chip that does not have to be occupied, supplied or defended. Thanks to its extraordinary innovations in drone technology and increasing numbers of homegrown missiles, Ukraine’s forces can strike deep into Russian territory. Since the start of the year, Kyiv has steadily ramped up the quantity and ambition of its strike campaigns to destroy oil refineries, energy and logistics infrastructure; it launched three times as many long-range attacks in July as it did in January, according to data gathered by independent conflict monitor ACLED. Last week, a drone attack hit a warehouse used by Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries in Yekaterinburg, more than 1,200 miles from the Ukrainian border. Then came Novorossiysk. In a major overnight operation Wednesday, yet more Ukrainian drones and anti-ship missiles struck grain export terminals and Russian warships at the port city that, until this week, had been the only place Russian vessels in the Black Sea could shelter from Ukrainian fire. Moscow claimed its defenses shot down more than 500 Ukrainian drones, yet still enough got through to cause significant damage. The numbers illustrate Kyiv’s emerging strategy: it does not necessarily need to defeat Russian air defenses so much as overwhelm and stretch them, according to an analysis by Emily Ferris, senior associate fellow for international security at the RUSI think tank. Territory can change hands and be retaken, but the capability and will to destroy valuable targets deep behind enemy lines is much harder to erase. Has Zelensky Learned the Art of the Deal? Ukraine’s strikes on Russian assets in Novorossiysk are impressive, but the real value lies in what Kyiv’s drone operators chose not to hit. The city hosts an oil export terminal for the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which brings vital crude from Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field to the world. The CPC normally moves more than 1 million barrels of Kazakh crude a day; around 80 percent of the landlocked country’s oil exports and roughly 2 percent of global supply. Two American energy giants, Chevron and ExxonMobil, have stakes in the terminal and the oil field, and with global energy markets in turmoil thanks to America’s war with Iran and disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, the Trump administration hardly needs another major source of crude squeezed. Kyiv agreed to hold off strikes on CPC infrastructure and any non-Russian, nonsanctioned vessels coming to and from the port. Then it battered Novorossiysk anyway, just very selectively. The message, intentional or otherwise, is difficult to miss. Two years ago, Kyiv was desperate for American multiple launch rocket systems to strike just a few dozen miles inside enemy territory. Kyiv can now reach a strategic hub that Washington cares deeply about, hammer Russian assets sitting inside it, and spare the infrastructure Trump’s administration wants protected. Ukraine still needs what the U.S. is selling—interceptors to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles in particular—but Zelensky has gone from begging Washington for help to granting the White House favors. This isn’t the only dimension in which Ukraine’s relationship with the U.S. has changed, either. Now the Pentagon itself wants access to Ukrainian technology. Washington and Kyiv recently signed a statement of intent opening a path for Ukrainian land, sea and aerial drones to undergo U.S. military testing. Ukraine, meanwhile, is already exporting its tech through joint-production arrangements with European allies, ensuring that a portion of the profits and the drones produced flow back east to bolster Ukraine’s economy and arsenal. Four-and-a-half years of fighting for its existence have given Ukraine a unique capability that money alone can’t buy—a defense industry operating on the fastest possible feedback loop, with manufacturers building systems, watching Russians find ways to defeat them, modifying them and sending the next version back into combat in a matter of weeks, rather than decades. Pressure creates diamonds, as they say, and the value of Ukraine’s is rising. Zelensky must make sure Trump sees it, too. Putin Can Still Raise the Stakes None of this means Kyiv is close to winning the war. Despite labor shortages and the specter of economic stagnation, Russia retains an enormous defense industrial base and a vast armory of cheap drones and missiles to wreak havoc across Ukraine. Russia still holds the larger army and remains capable of grinding forward inch by blood-soaked inch in eastern Ukraine, even if its advances have slowed and Ukrainian forces have recently clawed back ground elsewhere. But the Russians’ snaillike progress is due in no small part to a near-four-year moratorium on more military mobilization. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Zelensky immediately placed Ukraine under martial law, instituting conscription to swell the fighting ranks and hold off Moscow’s onslaught. Putin, meanwhile, has not announced a fresh round of mobilization since September 2022, when 300,000 reservists were called up for war. The move proved woefully unpopular, and sent tens of thousands of Russian citizens fleeing across the border into the likes of Finland, Estonia, Georgia and Kazakhstan. Ever since, the Russian military has kept the war effort going through recruitment drives, raising military salaries, offering signing bonuses to new recruits, and relaxing restrictions that prevent criminals from joining the military. It has also leaned on support from North Korean soldiers, more of whom recently arrived in Russian preparation for fresh deployments. This is unlikely to change in the next month, because Putin’s United Russia party is preparing for the first parliamentary elections since the February 2022 invasion. Even a quasi-dictator presiding over carefully managed elections can’t afford to announce a military mobilization this close to the ballot. Come October, though, the elections will be disappearing in Putin’s rear-view mirror. Then all bets are off. Zelensky recently told British broadcaster Sky News that Ukrainian intelligence believes Moscow would call up between 300,000 and 500,000 soldiers later this year, a view shared by many Russian military bloggers and independent media outlets. Ukraine’s technological superiority can help Kyiv damage oil refineries, sink ships and confound Russian air defenses. It can’t conjure more manpower, shoot down ballistic missiles, or prevent Moscow from throwing more men into the meat grinder. The next time Zelensky walks into a room with Trump, he will still need Patriot missiles, money and political support. But he won’t be going in empty-handed.