The trajectory of the war between Ukraine and Russia shifted to a very different direction with a military step taken on June 25th, 2026.
President Zalinski signed an unprecedented decision by officially approving history’s largest and most comprehensive 40-day attack plan against Russia.
The aim is quite clear, a massive operation that will force the Kremlin administration and directly Vladimir Putin to end the war.
According to Zalinsk’s statement, in this critical period lasting until August 4th, attack preparations began for the panorama that will unfold across nearly all of Russia’s regions.
Starting with the capital, Moscow, long-range drones, rocket/ drones like Polyonitzia and Peklo and cruise missiles like the FP5 Flamingo were readied for launch.
Additionally, Ukraine has western supplied supporting missiles like Storm Shadow and Attacams in its arsenal.
In other words, the environment was ready for all these missiles and drones to continuously roam Russian airspace for 40 days.
The Ukrainian security service pressed the button to launch a massive pressure and influence operation that will continue without pause alongside this extensive attack inventory.
Following that critical meeting, Zilinski held with SBU director Yhenni Kamar the orders moved the war’s center of gravity directly to Russia’s heart.
The size of the geography the plan covers was at a level that would astonish even military experts.
This massive striking power starting from the capital Moscow and St.
Petersburg in the north encompassed a wide corridor extending east to the Eural region within its range.
In the south, Kranadar, Vulgrad and the occupied Crimean Peninsula were sitting right in the middle of the direct line of fire.
The Ukrainian army was now giving clear signals that missiles and drones would fly across this massive geography nearly every day and that Russia’s strategic depth would completely disappear.
On the other hand, this was not just a threat or a diplomatic bluff.
Because on that historic day the 40-day massive attack plan was announced, the Ukrainian army and SBU Alpha units sprang into action within seconds and took the operation’s first concrete steps.
Starting with the capital, Moscow, Russia’s most strategic targets along that massive line, stretching to Tula, Kranadar, and Crimea began taking heavy blows simultaneously.
In the operation’s very first days, a total of 12 different Russian regions became targets of Ukraine’s simultaneous and extremely coordinated deep strikes.
The epicenter of this unprecedented storm was without a doubt directly Russia’s heart, the capital Moscow region.
Even the Russian Defense Ministry couldn’t hide this horrifying situation and was forced to acknowledge it was one of the largest unmanned aerial vehicle attacks in their history.
A full 660 Ukrainian kamicazi drones carried out a multi-directional saturation attack, paralyzing Russian radar systems.
Dozens of unmanned aerial vehicles reaching Moscow’s skies managed to penetrate the layered air defense system woven around the capital.
Mayor Sergey Sojanin through successive announcements laid bare the dimensions of the danger over the capital in all its nakedness.
The flames and explosion sounds rising from around the Moscow refinery, considered the jugular vein of the city’s energy infrastructure, proved the operation’s seriousness.
This was a strategic move directly aimed at cutting the war machine’s fuel supply.
While sirens blared in Moscow, another tip of the storm had already reached Tula Oblast to the south.
The Tula region always served as a strategic shield as one of Russia’s industrial and chemical production centers.
However, Ukraine’s long range striking power directly targeted the critical energy infrastructure in the Nova Muskovsk district and the famous AOT chemical facility.
With smoke rising from the facilities, the myth of safe industrial production in Russia’s interior regions was also being shaken.
factories stopping and energy transmission lines being severed showed how the 40-day plans economic sanctions leg was being implemented on the ground.
While these attacks on industrial targets in the north continued, Kranadar Cry in the south was surrendering to flames.
The Ptopskaya oil depot, one of the operation’s most vital targets, turned into a massive fireball from Ukrainian drones accurate strikes.
This facility was one of the logistics arteries of the Black Sea Fleet and Russian units on the southern front.
Kranadar, where flames lit up the night, was actually part of a much bigger target, the isolation of occupied Crimea, and Crimea became perhaps the region witnessing the 40-day plan’s most violent storms.
Drones and special operations strikes raining on every corner of the peninsula, left Russian occupation authorities literally helpless.
Two critical Russian ships in particular, Vulga and Viatka, vital to military logistics, were directly targeted and sustained heavy damage.
The fires that broke out on these massive vessels serving cable laying and resupply duties became one of the heaviest blows struck against Crimea’s logistics capacity.
With air defense radars blinded and power plants struck, a significant portion of Crimea was plunged into darkness.
Occupation Russian authorities surrendering before this relentless pressure were forced to declare a regional state of emergency.
Fuel sales were restricted, tourism was completely suspended, and summer camps were cancelled as the region was pushed into a full military siege psychology.
This state of emergency decision in Crimea was the clearest proof of how Zalinski’s influence operation collapses not just the military but the civilian and economic systems as well.
But the massive destruction picture that emerged in the operation’s very first days was just a small trailer of what will unfold over the next 40 days.
Because Zalinsk’s cards were quite strong, and the Ukrainian army’s technological capacity now reached a dimension very different from before, long range strike drones in particular, with ranges exceeding 1,000 km, are at a capacity to threaten every point in Russia’s depths.
Vladimir Putin panicking before this growing threat raised defense measures around the capital Moscow in the Valdai region where his residence is located to the highest level.
Hundreds of S400 and Pancier air defense systems were pulled from front lines and woven as an iron ring directly around strategic centers.
However, Putin’s massive defense shield was forced to take a major test against the innovative weapons inventory in Ukraine’s hands.
The Ukrainian army now possessed not just slow propeller drones, but jet engine extremely fast missile-like drones that leave no trace on radars.
Moreover, Ukraine’s domestically produced FP5 Flamingo cruise missiles, which changed the war’s trajectory, had entered the stage.
With a range exceeding 900 km and a destructive warhead weighing more than one ton, Flamingo missiles had the capacity to wipe even Russia’s most protected facilities off the map.
Launched from the ground and locking onto their targets with high precision, these missiles were one of the biggest cards to be used in the 40-day operations advancing phases.
Indeed, the direct striking of the Titan Barracotti military production facility in Vulgrad with these missiles was the clearest message of the new era.
This massive complex producing Iscander and Yars strategic missile launchers being engulfed in flames showed how the Russian war machines production line would be paralyzed.
While defense systems were piled around Moscow and Valdai, Russia’s other strategic regions were becoming completely defenseless and open targets.
For example, the Boscordistan region in the Eurals or the Ufa refineries in the east carried the potential to be constant targets within Ukraine’s range.
Additionally, the military-industrial complexes in the Samara region and the missile component factories in Chbuksari were among the critical stops on Flamingo missiles route.
This massive arsenal in Ukraine’s hands was working in an integrated fashion with decoy tactics and swarm attacks that could overwhelm Putin’s defense shields.
false targets deceiving air defense radars were allowing the real destructive missiles and kamicazi drones to infiltrate the most critical facilities.
This unprecedented asymmetric warfare strategy was declaring nearly every part of Russia, every centimeter, an unsafe zone for 40 days.
This massive geography had turned into an area where warning sirens never stop.
Zalinsk’s plan was working flawlessly and with every passing hour the intensity of blows struck against Russia’s will to fight was multiplying.
Now we come to the most intriguing part.
Why exactly 40 days? The 40-day period corresponds to approximately August 4th, 2026.
And this date range overlaps with points too meaningful to be coincidental.
First, on July 4th, the United States will celebrate its 250th founding anniversary, a period when Western support for Ukraine will symbolically come to the agenda.
Possible NATO consultations and meetings between Western leaders are also on the calendar in early July.
Then, August 2nd comes Russian Airborne Forces Day, one of the Russian military’s most symbolic celebrations.
The operation concentrating around these dates may aim to both strengthen Ukraine’s international position and target Russia’s morale at its most symbolic moments.
But the truly striking parallel is hidden in the date of August 4th itself.
And this date’s place in Russian history is chilling.
On August 4th, 1991, Soviet Union leader Miky Gorbachev went on vacation to his Forost DACA in Crimea with his family.
He had with him a draft of a new union treaty that would give Soviet republics more autonomy.
It was about to be signed.
But on the evening of August 18th, in Gorbachav’s absence during vacation, a group of hardline senior officials moved.
They knocked on the president’s door and asked him to either declare a state of emergency or resign.
Gorbachev refused.
Thereupon he was placed under house arrest in his own daca.
All communication lines were cut and the briefcase carrying nuclear launch codes was taken from him.
The next morning, the coup plotters declared they had seized the country, brought tanks into Moscow, and continuously broadcast the ballet Swan Lake on state television.
For Russians who lived through those days, this ballet still symbolizes the coup.
But the coup lasted only 3 days.
The plotter’s fatal mistake was assuming their orders would be obeyed without question.
Russian soldiers refused to fire on their own people.
Some tank units switched sides and Boris Yelten climbed a top a tank in Moscow, calling tens of thousands to resist.
On August 22nd, the coup collapsed.
Gorbachev was freed, but everything had changed.
His authority was irreparably destroyed.
In November, the Communist Party was banned, and in December, the Soviet Union officially dissolved.
In other words, August 4th is remembered in modern history as the date the fuse of an empire’s collapse was lit.
Zalinsky timing his operation to coincide with exactly this date has not been proven by an official strategy document.
But there’s another layer of irony here.
In 1991, the empire’s collapse began in Crimea.
And today that Crimea is the territory Putin annexed.
For the Russian elite who know history, such a coincidence can be read as a silent message.
The pressure peaking against another leader’s war machine on the day an empire began to disintegrate.
This is one of the most refined forms of psychological warfare.
The message is clear.
History can repeat itself.
So, is this pressure actually finding a response inside Russia? Zalinski’s claims are striking, but careful examination is needed.
Zalinski shared a series of figures based on internal Russian documents captured by Ukrainian intelligence.
According to these documents, the anxiety level among the Russian public has exceeded 50%.
Moreover, this rate is even higher than the period when Ukraine entered the Kursk region last year.
66% of Russians describe their financial situation as difficult.
And the most striking number, more than 80% of the population thinks a major economic crisis is now inevitable.
Zalinsky characterized this data as transparent indicators of Putin’s military policies failure.
An important caveat is necessary here.
These figures are claims based on Ukrainian intelligence and have not been independently verified.
In the middle of a war, statistics showing the other side’s morale collapsing need to be approached with caution because they could also be part of a psychological operation.
However, this time the direction of the picture Zilinski described coincides strikingly with verifiable and independent economic data.
And this data comes not from Ukraine but directly from Russia’s and international institutions own figures.
The picture is as follows.
In the first quarter of 2026, the Russian economy contracted.
Even more critically, the oil and gas revenues financing the war dropped nearly 50% in the year’s first 2 months, reaching a 5-year low.
The National Welfare Fund, known as the Kremlin’s Rainy Day Fund, is melting rapidly.
On top of these are double-digit inflation, interest rates reaching 16.
5%, and tax increases implemented in January.
Even Putin himself was finally forced to acknowledge the economy is in serious trouble.
So even if the exact percentages Zilinski shared cannot be verified, the general picture he described, an economy struggling under pressure, coincide strongly with independent data.
The real issue is not whether these numbers are accurate to the decimal point.
It’s that multiple independent and reliable indicators all point in the same direction.
that the Russian economy is truly approaching a historic stress point.
Domestic public opinion figures may be debatable, but the operation’s military ground is entirely concrete and verifiable.
The clearest proof of this comes from Russia’s own statements.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced it shot down 8,849 drones in May 2026.
This figure’s strikingness emerges in comparison.
The same ministry had reported this number as 3,676 in January.
In other words, in just a few months, the drone threat Russia faces nearly increased two and a half times.
An interesting detail is also this.
During the same period, the volume of Russian missile and drone attacks is occasionally trending relatively low.
Military analysts generally interpret this not as a good sign but on the contrary as preparation for a major attack.
In other words, Russia may be stockpiling.
This shows the operation’s two directional nature.
While Ukraine increases pressure, Russia may also be quietly preparing for retaliation.
In any case, the 40-day operation’s military leg is not an imaginary plan.
It’s a continuation of a proven, measurable, and increasingly intensifying campaign from recent months.
This operation sounds powerful, but there are serious reasons to think it will bring Russia to the table in 40 days and serious reasons not to.
The first objection is that the economic picture is not as one-directional as it appears.
The Russian economy is under pressure, but at the same time, it didn’t collapse despite four years of war and heavy sanctions.
In fact, in independent surveys, Russians life satisfaction trended relatively high in recent years.
Society adapted to wartime conditions and restrictions more than expected.
The impact of sanctions is also not as sharp as thought.
Oil and gas revenues constitute approximately 1if of the budget, meaning even much harsher sanctions are not enough to collapse state finances alone.
Moreover, external developments can turn in Russia’s favor.
For example, in periods when Middle Eastern tensions drove oil prices up, Moscow’s energy revenues suddenly increased, providing temporary relief to the budget.
This shows that while Ukraine’s energy pressure is real and serious, Russia’s economic resilience should not be underestimated.
The second and more concrete risk is Russian retaliation.
Intense pressure operations generally don’t go unanswered.
While the volume of Russian missile and drone attacks is trending low right now, this may be not a weakness, but a preparation signal.
Russia could respond with a much more intense attack wave against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure or major cities.
Moreover, Russia is not alone.
Drone parts and technology from China, ammunition, and soldiers from North Korea are increasing Moscow’s capacity to withstand such pressure.
The Kremlin has rejected negotiation calls to date and persistently maintained its victory narrative.
Therefore, expecting a 40-day operation to suddenly bring Putin to the table is not realistic.
Furthermore, Putin’s administration can easily frame domestic anxiety as Western provocation and use this pressure to strengthen its own narrative.
But there is the other side of the metal, too.
Even if this operation doesn’t produce immediate results, Ukraine’s strategy is not tied to a single 40-day campaign.
This is an intensified phase of a deep pressure strategy that has been ongoing for months.
Russia’s economic resilience may be real, but its weaknesses are also accumulating.
Refinery losses pile up without being repaired.
The welfare fund melts, and every new attack makes this burden a little heavier.
The real risk for Ukraine is different.
its own resources depleting and fatigue if the operation extends because this type of intense campaign strains not just Russia but also Ukraine’s drone production, intelligence capacity, and international support.
Therefore, the operation success depends not only on the intensity of strikes, but on three things simultaneously.
International support continuing, the scale of reaction inside Russia, and Ukraine’s ability to maintain this tempo.
Do you think these three factors can be sustained? Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
