Ukraine’s drones have opened a summer window of opportunity behind Russian lines. Front-line soldiers tell Ukrainska Pravda the army is on track to waste it.

Ukrainian forces have stepped up their use of “midstrikes” — drones able to hit targets several dozen kilometers behind the front line. Their success, alongside that of “deepstrikes,” has fueled assertions that Ukraine has wrested back the initiative and blunted Russia’s advance. Ukrainska Pravda asked soldiers how much the strikes on the “middle rear” are actually changing the situation at the front. Most were cautious about the claim that Ukraine has “seized the initiative,” saying front-line troops don’t yet feel the effect — even as the outlet calls the strikes promising and says their full impact is unlikely to be felt until late summer or early fall.

Ukrainian forces sharply intensified strikes on Russia’s “middle rear” in the spring of 2026. The main tool for these strikes has been the Hornet drone, a light American model built by a company founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt — who, one soldier said, “needs a good testing ground” for the weapons — along with its German and Ukrainian equivalents. In early spring, the drones began hitting targets dozens of kilometers behind the front, primarily near Donetsk. In May, Ukrainian forces began intensive strikes on the R-280 “Novorossiya” highway, which connects Rostov-on-Don to Crimea via Mariupol, Berdiansk, and Melitopol. Those strikes, which Meduza reported on earlier, helped cause a gasoline shortage on the annexed peninsula.

Amid the “midstrikes” and strikes on Russian oil refineries hundreds of kilometers from the border — by drones dubbed “deepstrikes” — Ukrainska Pravda reports that some now claim Ukraine has seized the initiative in certain sectors of the front. Its reporters asked front-line soldiers whether they feel it.

“I don’t know where we seized the initiative — it was just a wave of PR activity on some fronts, but in time the initiative will swing back. On the Sloviansk front, the Russian offensive hasn’t stopped since the fall of Siversk in December 2025,” said an officer from one of the corps operating in the Donetsk region.

“We are conducting active defense with elements of counteroffensive action, but we have not seized the initiative. May was a month of mounting enemy pressure, and early June was when it played out. The enemy decides where, when, and with what forces to attack,” said a source fighting on the Kramatorsk and Sloviansk fronts. “On the Huliaipole front there’s no talk of initiative, especially once the enemy’s fresh forces moved up,” added another source operating in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst at the Come Back Alive foundation, said it is fair to speak of attempts to halt a decline at the front that set in during the fall of 2023. “I would not yet use the term ‘seizing the initiative’ […] I would put it more cautiously — the situation has stopped getting worse,” he said. “Our tasks right now are more modest — stabilizing the front line, keeping the enemy from advancing, with the aim of strengthening our negotiating position,” Bielieskov added.

An officer from the 19th Corps, which is fighting on the Kostiantynivka front, was more blunt. “No effect whatsoever, not a drop,” he said.

Only one of the outlet’s sources immediately rated the “middle-rear” strikes a success — a serviceman from an intelligence unit (Ukrainska Pravda does not specify which one) that has worked with such drones for several years. “We are not just knocking out logistics — we are doing something far greater,” he said. He noted in particular that drone strikes have left virtually no electricity in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. The source also told Ukrainska Pravda that, as a result of the strikes, Russian troops have been using the roads noticeably less often in the occupied territories of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Ukrainska Pravda writes that the “middle-rear” strikes probably won’t be felt by Ukraine’s front-line troops until late summer or early fall.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has already announced a tender — a call for bids — to produce more than 100,000 drones for strikes on the “middle rear,” the outlet notes. While that tender is still open, the ministry has redistributed several billion hryvnias (tens of millions of dollars) within its budget, funding drone purchases for the 20 most effective units. “It all has to be done over the summer,” said a representative of one of the battalions that received Defense Ministry funds. Ukraine is also counting on receiving “middle rear” strike drones through international aid.

“If everyone approaches this the right way, we can impose a logistics lockdown on them [Russian forces],” one of the outlet’s sources said.

But Ukrainska Pravda’s central warning is that Ukraine could fail to capitalize on this summer’s opening. On the ground, the outlet argues, Ukraine is repeating its 2025 mistakes: at Kostiantynivka, up to 130 Russian troops have infiltrated the city — echoing the pattern that preceded the loss of Pokrovsk — while the army still faces manpower shortages, “kill zone” expansion, and a General Staff decision cycle so slow that it takes nearly a year to respond to situations that call for a month or two. The report frames the summer as a fleeting “window of opportunity” that Ukraine risks squandering.