July 21, 2026: The latest Ukrainian innovation is mechanical birds capable of destroying ground targets. Ukrainian engineers designed, developed, and fabricated a swarm of biomimetic drones that resemble a flock of migrating birds. A flock of these birds was used against the Engels-2 airbase in Saratov Province, just east of Ukraine. These drones are designed to simulate the migration shapes and flight formations of birds. Russian radar systems are programmed to ignore things like migrating birds. Then the flock dived towards the airbase, where some irreplaceable Russian Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers were severely damaged by secondary blasts as the hangars and aircraft support equipment also went up in flames.

Ukraine has been developing new long-range drone attack systems since the war began. Four years of Ukrainian long-range drone attacks on targets throughout western Russia have had a cumulative impact. It was obvious that Ukraine needed a locally produced drone that was free of any target restriction imposed by the United States on the use of long-range missiles sent to Ukraine. Ukraine is now producing its own locally designed and manufactured Flamingo drone. This is a three-ton drone with a range of 3,000 kilometers, a speed of 900 kilometers per hour, and a 1.1-ton warhead. Production began in mid-2025, and during 2026, monthly production will eventually reach 300-500. Each drone costs about $500,000. The most recent attack drone is the FP-7.x.

Ukraine has lots of experience with long-range drone attacks on targets inside Russia. Ukrainians maintain timely information on the deployment and capabilities of Russian air defense systems. Then there is BDA, or Battle Damage Assessment. This means obtaining accurate data on the effectiveness of your long-range attacks. Ukraine depends on the American surveillance satellite network and reports from Ukrainian operatives inside Russia to verify BDA, though the French have started helping too.

Determining the targets of a long-range drone campaign can be tricky. For example, the World War Two American/British strategic bombing campaign against Germany made a crucial mistake. When selecting which targets to hit and when, one critical set of targets was omitted. The Allied target planners ignored German electrical generating plants because they incorrectly assumed the plants were interconnected in a system resistant to aerial bombing. After the war, it was discovered that power plants were the most vulnerable targets because key components could not be easily replaced and because Germany lacked an interconnected system. Bombing a few of these plants in a region would halt production for up to a year for much of that region. Adding power plants to the target list could have shortened the war in Europe by up to a year. The Ukrainians are still refining their target list to get the most economic damage out of each drone attack campaign but have consistently hit Russian petroleum storage and refining sites.

With its extremely long range, Flamingo can hit nearly 90 percent of the targets that produce weapons or export income for the Russian military effort. The Russian capital is 850 kilometers from northern Ukraine. It is 1,100 kilometers to St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea and 2,000 kilometers to the bases of the Russian Northern Fleet in Murmansk, near the Arctic Circle.

Targets are usually industrial facilities that support the war effort. These include numerous oil refineries and oil storage facilities, as well as facilities that produce specialty steels for artillery tubes, railroad car coil bearings, and tanks. The drones came in low and slow to deceive Russian air defenses, which struggle to detect slow-moving aerial targets, especially at night, when most of these attacks occur. While the targets are up to 3,000 kilometers from Ukraine, the drones can also move north through a corridor several hundred kilometers wide. Russian anti-aircraft defense systems cannot cover an area that wide and long, especially when the attackers are coming in low and slow in the dark.

Russia tries to play down the effectiveness of the Ukrainian drone attacks by describing rather obvious burning refineries and fuel storage depots as accidents. There have been a lot of such accidents, and Russian troops in Ukraine have to closely monitor their fuel consumption because fuel deliveries are not as frequent and reliable as they used to be. The Russian fuel facilities also supply the commercial and civilian market. Commercial users are important because they supply firms that produce goods needed by the military and consumers. Agricultural crop yields are highly dependent on fuel to produce fertilizer and pesticides, sow and reap harvests, and transport them to market.

The Ukrainian drone attacks also led to disruptions of flight operations at the three airports serving the Moscow region. Ukraine does not comment on details of its drone attacks. Ukraine believes the results speak for themselves. Targets in western Russia are increasingly under attack by Ukrainian drones, and the Russian government has a hard time explaining why combustible targets in the region keep exploding or catching fire. Such events are contrary to the official government reports about the Russian war efforts in Ukraine. Russia has not experienced attacks like this on the homeland since World War II, and that is something the Russian government does not want to discuss.

Ukrainian drone strikes have also hit Russian air bases where Russian MiG-31 fighter-bombers as well as bombers like the Tu-22M and Tu-95 are found. So far, at least six of these aircraft have been damaged or destroyed by Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia. The attack on the Savasleyka airbase highlights the vulnerability of military infrastructure to drone attacks. The attack drones come in low and slow at night. This made it difficult for airbase air defenses to detect and destroy many of the drones. These attacks demonstrated how much air warfare has changed because of the use of reconnaissance and attack drones by both sides.

Before Russia invaded, military analysts worldwide did not anticipate such a widespread use of drones and how it would change ground, air, and naval warfare. Long-range attacks by drones were terrifying because the attacker was not risking the lives of highly trained pilots. Pilot training costs over a million dollars per pilot. Skilled pilots lost in combat cannot be quickly replaced. Drones have no pilots, and the men and women who build, program, and, in some cases, operate them are far from the combat zone. Ukraine's annual drone production is now roughly equal to Russia's annual artillery shell production.

Because of the extensive use of drones, warfare has fundamentally changed. Ukraine and Russia are both competing to keep up with new drone designs and uses. The long-range drone attacks on Russian munitions and fuel depots as well as air bases are examples of that. Russian missile and drone attacks on civilian infrastructure and population centers are the only response they can muster. Ukraine has hidden its stockpiles and combat aircraft more effectively than Russia. Moreover, Ukraine can quickly receive emergency resupplies of fuel and munitions from NATO allies. Russia has a more difficult time because they were subjected to severe economic and military sanctions after it invaded Ukraine.