Can Ukraine keep striking beyond the front line without Fedorov?
Concern is growing over the future of Ukraine’s game-changing mid-range strikes after the DefMin’s dismissal. A serviceman who loads and launches these strikes takes us inside what might happen next.
At the bottom of this page: Latest news at this hour
Ukraine's new commander-in-chief takes office… Putin refuses to negotiate until he takes control of Donbas… Former commander-in-chief Syrsky published a farewell speech… Ukraine's unmanned systems forces have struck 13 Russian vessels… 37% rise in civilian casualties in Ukraine…
Editor’s Note:
Although the government met the protesters’ demands and replaced the Commander-in-Chief, Ukraine has lost an effective defense minister, thanks to whom it had begun to carry out precise medium-range strikes. For the entire country and our editorial team, the main question remains: what happens next?
If, like us, you’re concerned about Ukraine’s future, support independent journalism. Subscribe to be the first to get the news and not miss anything.
OUR LEAD STORY:
It’s around 11 p.m in a village house packed with several servicemen somewhere in the Dnipropetrovsk region, tens of kilometers from the frontline. Half-awake, Oleksii* breathes in the cool night air and fumbles for his thermal underwear, though only a few hours earlier his face had been baking under the summer sun. The drones and other equipment are already packed into the vehicle. All that’s left is for him to jump into the car with his comrades and head to the launch site.
There, illuminated only by a red light, they will secure the explosive payload. They will put on their tactical headsets to check whether the engine is working properly, and send the drone toward Russian military targets.
“You literally screwed that bomb onto the drone yourself. You picked up a screwdriver, attached it, and then it went out and struck its target,” Oleskii shared with unconcealed excitement.
Oleksii is one of the soldiers behind Ukraine’s successful mid-range attacks, hitting 200 km deep inside Russian positions past the frontline. The very strikes, along with deep strikes, that are leading the world to believe the tides are changing in Ukraine’s favor.
But on July 15, Zelenskyy dismissed Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who had overseen the recent expansion of Ukraine’s mid-range strike operations in Crimea and across occupied southern Ukraine.
Thousands of protesters began chanting outside of Zelenskyy’s office, appalled by the decision to dismiss who they believed was a highly effective defense minister. Almost week after Fedorov’s dismissal, Zelenskyy met one of the protesters’ central demands by removing the controversial Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi. But the call to return the former Minister of Defense remains unaddressed.
Zelesnkyy has since offered Fedorov multiple other positions, but he has turned them down, citing that the only way for him to make a profound impact in the fight against Russia is within the Ministry of Defense. Now, Ukrainian society is left wondering whether the momentum behind Ukraine’s mid-range strikes will continue at this scale.
Middle strikes have demonstrated that countries with fewer resources can gain a tactical advantage through asymmetric solutions. Any tactic or technology that allows Ukraine to move closer to victory is absolutely critical in a war against one of the world’s most powerful, highly centralized militaries with effectively unlimited manpower.
Many of Oleksii’s comrades were disheartened by the cabinet reshuffle. The 412th Nemesis Brigade of the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), to which he belongs, alongside other units of the USF, has been behind some of the country’s most consequential drone operations.
But, Oleksii says, the concern was never about Fedorov personally. What unsettled many in the military was the lack of a clear explanation for the sweeping changes at the Ministry of Defense — arguably Ukraine’s most important institution amid a full-scale war.
“Fedorov’s dismissal would not cause middle strikes to disappear overnight. Most units and military commanders recognize them as an effective capability,” said Oleksii. “But would they have been scaled at the same pace without the minister’s support? I reckon they would not. And the issue isn’t just quantity. The ministry also planned to introduce competitive procurement, which would reduce the cost of existing platforms.”
Oleksii no longer remembers which reason ultimately convinced him to join the military — after all, it has been two and a half years since he enlisted. Back then he was still a university student and below the draft age of 25. However, Oleksii was already looking for ways to volunteer, at times fearing that if he further procrastinated the decision, he would change his mind about volunteering entirely.
This is how he ended up in various military positions connected with radio intelligence or operational planning until he was moved to air reconnaissance of the middle strikes in Nemesis this January. Oleksii loves that, in his current role, he can see the direct results of his work — not on paper or in words, sometimes simply by watching footage of a Russian target being destroyed.
“[Launching the drone] sounds like a Shahed. It’s incredibly loud, so we wear the headset to protect our ears,” he said.
Ukraine began developing its mid-range strike capabilities in earnest only in the fall of 2025, even though Russia had been investing in them much earlier. Explanations for why Kyiv did not scale up the effort sooner vary — from the lack of sufficiently capable drones on the market at the time to a lack of interest from the General Staff.
To put it simply, middle strikes are strikes that Ukraine launches at a distance of 30–200 km (20–120 miles). It is precisely in this territory that Russia has concentrated much of the critical infrastructure needed to sustain its occupation and advance, including air defense systems, electronic warfare assets, and command and logistics hubs.
Middle strikes often use Starlink connectivity, which remains available in occupied Ukrainian territories but not in Russia (Fedorov is largely responsible for cutting off Russian Starlink access). As a result, operators can steer drones onto their targets in real time and immediately verify the damage after impact.
Deep strikes, on the other hand, are generally directed at high-value strategic targets deep inside Russia and in Moscow. They are designed to erode Russia’s economic capacity, such as oil refineries, and are typically flown to pre-programmed GPS coordinates.
“We like it because once the mission is done, we don’t have to wait for the aircraft to reach the target,” Oleksii said. “We also operate from much farther back — 40 to 50 kilometers from the front line. That’s ideal. You drive out, do the job, and twenty minutes later you’re back home asleep.”
Recently, Oleksii and his comrades moved from a village to a city in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where he lives just a twenty-minute walk from KFC. It gives him a sense of belonging to civilization rather than being “stuck” in the middle of nowhere.
Today, Oleksii and his comrades operate drones at ranges of up to 240 kilometers, striking Russian repair facilities, ammunition depots, and other fixed military targets around Berdiansk and Mariupol.
“There was this abandoned school where Russian operators of Molniya [drones] had set up their position. We bombed the two exits to trap them inside,” Oleksii said. “I’m not sure we killed everyone in there. But that position never operated again.”
What had earlier been conducted by separate units became, in May, a more systematic priority for Kyiv. This was when Ukraine’s Defense Ministry launched ‘Logistics Lockdown,’ a program aimed at scaling up its middle strike capabilities, allocating 5 billion hryvnias ($111 million) to frontline units to procure necessary equipment.
The funding was to be distributed based on units’ ePoints rankings — a digital incentive system introduced by Fedorov under which military units earn points for destroying Russian personnel and equipment and can redeem them for the equipment they need.
The most visible consequences of this program include a fuel crisis in occupied Crimea and bringing the highway linking Crimea, occupied Donbas, and Russia under sustained fire control, one of the Kremlin’s most critical military supply routes.
Kyiv has also launched its campaign against Russia’s shadow fleet in the Sea of Azov, within the range of middle strikes, targeting more than 100 vessels in an eight-day span this July. The operation is already being described as one of the largest anti-shipping campaigns in modern history, surpassing the pace of vessel losses seen during the Iran–Iraq Tanker War of the 1980s.
Roman Pohorilyi, a military analyst and a co-founder of DeepState, an OSINT project tracking battlefield changes, says that with middle strikes, Ukraine can establish fire control over Russian logistics.
“If the middle strikes are deployed at scale, within a radius of roughly 100 kilometers, we’ll be able to disrupt virtually any movement, as well as target air defense systems, EW and similar installations. That also extends to logistics — the movement of weapons, supplies, and personnel to the front,” he said.
In Pohorilyi’s view, the newly-appointed acting minister, Yevhenii Khmara, is technically capable of carrying on his predecessor’s work. He comes from the Security Service of Ukraine’s Special Operations Center ‘A’ — one of the country’s most effective military formations. Under ideal circumstances, and if he builds on the team’s existing groundwork, the program could continue to develop, Pohorilyi said.
“But when the founder of the entire effort, the person who shaped its vision, is at the helm, that’s when it works best,” he added.
Khmara met with the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces today, stating that the development of both middle- and deep-strike capabilities would remain one of the key priorities.
As of now, Russia lacks effective countermeasures to defend its forces against Ukrainian mid-range strikes. Weapons development and emerging technologies analyst Bohdan Dolintse says that one of the few reasons Russians are ineffective at mid-range drone downing is that they do not have enough cheap air defense capabilities to cover all the occupied territories.
Dolintse agrees that Ukraine’s rapid expansion of middle-strike capabilities is likely to continue, even under new leadership. According to him, the Ministry of Defense was the institution that just sped up its development, but it is the battlefield itself that drives technological innovation.
“When political leadership changes at a ministry, it is common for deputy ministers to be replaced as well. Those reshuffles often cascade down, bringing new department heads and new teams. At the same time, the core group of civil servants responsible for developing and implementing reforms and legislation has largely remained in place,” Dolintse said.
When former Defense Minister Fedorov was dismissed, Oleksii was in Kyiv, preparing to take up the position at the ministry “to help launch even more bombs at Russia.” For two months, he was going through bureaucratic procedures to move from the combat zone to the capital and “become more effective.” However, this process stopped at the finish line, when Fedorov left office.
Oleksii joined protests outside the Presidential Office, despite the fact that, under orders from then–Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, some service members who had taken part in the demonstrations had reportedly faced consequences.
For now, Oleksii’s future remains just as uncertain as the fate of the Defense Minister’s seat.
*Oleksii’s name was changed for security reasons.
Interested in more coverage about recent political and military reshuffles? Take a look at these stories:
NEWSFLASH: Zelenskyy dismisses Defense Minister
The Ukrainian work-protest balance
NEWSLASH: Zelenskyy dismisses army chief after public pressure
Editor’s Note:
Although the government met the protesters’ demands and replaced the Commander-in-Chief, Ukraine has lost an effective defense minister, thanks to whom it had begun to carry out precise medium-range strikes. For the entire country and our editorial team, the main question remains: what happens next?
If, like us, you’re concerned about Ukraine’s future, support independent journalism. Subscribe to be the first to get the news and not miss anything.
THE LATEST NEWS AT THIS HOUR:
By Kateryna Antonenko and Oleksandra Poda
Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
UKRAINE’S NEW COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF TAKES OFFICE: On July 22, Major General Mykhailo Drapatiy announced that he had assumed the duties of Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
A career military officer, Drapatyi first saw combat in 2014 when Russia-backed separatists launched an offensive in eastern Ukraine and has been serving ever since. At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, he commanded the Southern Operational Group and directed the defense of Kryvyi Rih, one of the early battles in which Ukrainian forces successfully halted a Russian advance. He later led the group during the liberation of the right bank of the Kherson region.
PUTIN REFUSES TO NEGOTIATE UNTIL HE TAKES CONTROL OF DONBAS: According to Bloomberg’s sources, Russia is prepared to return to negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine only after Putin establishes control over the entire Donetsk region. The Russian Ministry of Defense has assured Putin that it will establish full control by the end of 2026. However, many military leaders consider this plan unrealistic, predicting that reaching this goal will only be possible by 2027. Furthermore, the Kremlin no longer considers returning the occupied territories to Ukraine and insists on retaining the captured areas of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions as buffer zones. The Kremlin responded to Bloomberg’s reporting, calling it “speculation.”
Despite these statements, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rubio are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in the Philippines to discuss negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
FORMER COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF SYRSKY PUBLISHED A FAREWELL SPEECH: Syrsky thanked the soldiers for their service and said that under his command, 743 square kilometers had been liberated. “I am handing over to my successor an army that is not only holding its ground but is also on the offensive—with initiative, with structure, and with people who know how to defeat the enemy. And I sincerely hope that this offensive will continue. Everything is in place for that,” he said.
UKRAINE’S UNMANNED SYSTEMS FORCES HAVE STRUCK 13 RUSSIAN VESSELS: In the Black and Azov Seas over the past 48 hours, Ukraine has struck over a dozen Russian vessels. In addition, strikes on Wildberries’ logistics warehouses in the Moscow region are continuing. A large-scale fire caused by drone strikes is also ongoing at logistics warehouses across other Russian regions. This comes as Ukraine is increasing attacks on Russian vessels.
37% RISE IN CIVILIAN CASUALTIES IN UKRAINE: The number of civilian casualties has risen by 37% compared to the same period last year, according to the UN mission, 1,396 civilian deaths and 7,978 civilian injuries were documented from January through June. The head of the UN Human Rights Mission in Ukraine, emphasized that these figures are nearly double those for the first half of 2024.
The main reason for the rise in casualties is the intensification of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities far from the front lines.
CAT OF CONFLICT:
Mariana felt super jealous of this cat, who lives in her apartment building and gets to sleep peacefully with his pink plush turtle instead of waking up at 4 a.m. to finish writing this story. A fun fact: all her neighbors are in love with this cuddly kitten and even take him to a vet from time to time!
Stay safe out there!
Best,
Mariana
Thanks so much for this information packed post. I didn’t answer your question regarding the dismissal of Defense Minister Fedorov. I didn’t answer because I just do not know whether the move was appropriate or not. I believe that more information will become public and perhaps you (we!) might be able to discern what is accurate information and what is not. Is the dismissal the result of a power struggle within the leadership of Ukraine? Is the dismissal the result of other factors we do not know? It seems controversial to say the least. But whether it is the correct move, I just do not know. What I do know is that the very public backlash to this move demonstrates to me that Ukraine remains a country where the people have a right to express their displeasure with the move. This demonstrates to me that Ukraine remains a place, unlike their hostile neighbor, where people have the right to express their displeasure publicly. That is the hallmark of a country that is much more free than the one they are resisting with all their might.