Sitrep for July 6-10, 2026 (as of 10:00 a.m. UTC+3)
Over the past several days, the frontline has remained largely unchanged, with most developments centered on aerial strikes.
In the early hours of June 30, a Ukrainian Mil Mi-8 helicopter crashed in the Poltava region during a combat mission, killing all four crew members. According to reports, while intercepting Russian UAVs, the crew successfully shot down two Shahed-136 [Geran-2] loitering munitions, but a third drone attacked the helicopter itself, causing it to crash. This suggests that the drone responsible was operator-controlled, allowing it to be redirected onto the helicopter.
This is not the first loss of an aircraft during UAV interception missions. However, in previous incidents, aircraft or helicopters were typically brought down after flying into debris from the drones they had just destroyed. As previously reported, a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet also crashed in the Poltava region on June 27, although the circumstances remained unclear at the time. Given that the incident likewise occurred during a combat mission, it is possible that the aircraft was brought down by fragments from a destroyed drone. The pilot successfully ejected.
Another challenge facing so-called "airborne air defense" is the risk posed by friendly ground-based air defense assets, particularly mobile fire teams. According to reports, in the early hours of July 2, a Russian Ka-52 [Hokum B] attack helicopter engaged in repelling a UAV raid was hit by a 9K333 Verba MANPADS fired by a volunteer air defense operator from a BARS [Special Combat Army Reserve] unit. The aircraft commander was killed, while the navigator successfully ejected. As in the previously discussed incident involving the Moscow Oil Refinery, it is possible that the MANPADS missile locked onto a more "attractive" infrared target than the drone itself—such as the engine of an aircraft or missile (including a jet-powered drone), or even a burning object on the ground. In this case, the Ka-52 became the unintended target.
The most significant issue regarding Russian air strikes against Ukraine remains the growing use of ballistic missiles and the shortage of interceptor missiles capable of engaging them. According to daily situation reports issued by the Ukrainian Air Force, only one day since the beginning of July saw any successful interception of Russian ballistic missiles:
- July 1: One Iskander-M ballistic missile was launched; it was not intercepted
- July 2: Russia launched four Zircon hypersonic missiles and 24 Iskander-M/S-400 missiles; only four Iskander missiles were intercepted
- July 4: A single Iskander-M missile was launched; it was not intercepted
- July 6: None of the 23 Iskander-M/S-400 missiles or six Zircon missiles were intercepted
- July 8: None of the five launched Iskander-M/S-400 missiles were intercepted
- July 9: Both launched Iskander-M missiles penetrated Ukrainian air defenses and were not intercepted
According to the available reports, no ballistic missiles were employed on the remaining days.
Western Assistance
As Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said, Ukraine has signed contracts for Patriot air defense system missiles, with deliveries set to begin next year, and is continuing to conclude new contracts. He therefore appealed to partner countries to transfer missiles from their own stockpiles against future deliveries that had been planned for Ukraine. The main obstacle to such an arrangement is that nearly all of Ukraine’s allies now likely understand that the war will almost certainly continue into next year, meaning the shortage of interceptor missiles will persist and depleted inventories will not be replenished.
Dutch Defense Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius has already said that the Netherlands has exhausted its capacity to supply additional weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot air defense systems. In our assessment, the country still retains a reserve stock of these missiles that must be preserved in accordance with regulatory and departmental requirements.
At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had received a major air defense assistance package from Canada, although its contents have not been disclosed. Earlier, following the NATO summit in Ankara, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine would soon receive a number of PAC-3 missiles, reportedly from the United States according to some accounts.
The president also stressed that work on the European "anti-ballistic coalition" is continuing and that discussions are underway on creating Ukraine’s own missile defense system, Freya, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles. Many countries now recognize the need for an alternative to Patriot, as the United States under Trump has become an unreliable partner that could suspend or freeze deliveries of critical missiles. Another attraction of the Ukrainian system is the opportunity to test its effectiveness under real combat conditions. Developing such a system, however, could take several years.
Asked by reporters whether the United States would assist Ukraine in producing Patriot missiles, Trump suggested on July 8 that Ukraine would receive a production license that same day. His remarks created the impression that establishing production could take just two or three months. There is little reason to expect Ukraine to have domestically produced interceptor missiles by the fall, however, primarily because Trump’s timelines have often proved detached from reality, while his proposals have frequently been underdeveloped, prohibitively expensive, or simply unworkable. Bloomberg estimates that preparing to manufacture Patriot missiles in Ukraine could take several years. By contrast, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said that preparations to begin production could take only a few weeks. In our view, he was referring to the start, in the coming weeks, of cooperation between Ukraine and Poland, acting as an intermediary in the localization of production of US-made Patriot systems. That intermediary role may be linked, among other factors, to the presence of US forces in Poland and the possibility of transferring Patriot-related technologies to the country.
As the experience of other countries licensed by the United States to manufacture Patriot interceptors demonstrates, establishing a production line for interceptor missiles can take many years. Japan, for example, obtained a license to manufacture Patriot interceptors, including the PAC-3, in 2005. Three years later, it conducted its first successful PAC-3 test, and production has since reached around 30 missiles per year. Germany, meanwhile, received its license in 2022 but has yet to produce a single Patriot missile.
Some observers have suggested that Ukraine would only assemble missiles from pre-manufactured components. Even if that is the case, however, it is unlikely to accelerate production significantly, because the main bottleneck in PAC-3 manufacturing is not the availability of assembly lines but the active radar seekers, which are produced by Boeing and, to the best of our knowledge, are not expected to be manufactured in Ukraine.
In addition, following the NATO summit held in Ankara on July 7-8, the alliance pledged to provide €70 billion [$80 bln] in military assistance to Ukraine in 2026. NATO members also committed to maintaining at least the same level of military support in 2027. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced that the alliance will invest more than $40 billion in drones and UAV operator training, while launching the Drone Edge initiative to accelerate the development of unmanned technologies, counter-drone systems, and the procurement of advanced equipment across the alliance. By 2027, NATO aims to increase the number of trained drone operators fivefold. Twenty member states have already joined the initiative.
At the summit, Zelenskyy also signed the Drone Deal with Estonia, Netherlands, and Denmark, with Germany, Finland, Norway, and Canada expected to join next. The initiative provides for the joint production of defense equipment, the transfer of Ukrainian technology and battlefield expertise, the training of specialists, the exchange of technical know-how, the development of the defense industry, and, in the longer term, the export of Ukrainian-developed technologies to partner countries.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Zelenskyy argued that the outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine will be decided by the "battle in the sky." In our view, this claim is somewhat debatable. While the nature of the war is indeed evolving—from a predominantly positional conflict toward one increasingly defined by air power and long-range strikes—it is premature to speak of its eventual outcome. Phrases such as "the outcome of the war" or "the decisive phase" create the impression that the end of the conflict is already on the horizon, whereas this is far from certain. Moreover, it remains impossible to predict whether the character of the war will change yet again, as it has done repeatedly over the past several years.
Zelenskyy also once again emphasized what he sees as Ukraine’s most critical vulnerability: its difficulty in intercepting ballistic missiles. In his view, this could ultimately determine the outcome of the war. He further suggested that if thousands of Ukrainian drones were to strike Moscow simultaneously, people within Vladimir Putin’s inner circle would begin urging him to relocate beyond the Ural Mountains to a safer location. According to Zelenskyy, Putin himself has a better understanding than others of Ukraine’s growing capabilities. We also partially disagree with this assessment. According to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, a drone attack of comparable scale had already taken place on June 18, yet it had no discernible impact on Russia's position regarding the termination of the war. Moreover, Ukrainian forces generally avoid targeting Putin's residences, leaving him with little practical reason to relocate beyond the Urals.
General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, recently published an opinion piece in The Telegraph and the Ukrainian news agency Interfax-Ukraine. According to Zaluzhnyi, the widespread expectation that the war is approaching its conclusion and that Russia is on the verge of defeat reflects a tendency to interpret developments through the prism of individual battlefield successes rather than the broader strategic picture. Although strikes against Crimean infrastructure, the land bridge, and Russian oil refineries have posed significant challenges for Russia, they represent isolated tactical victories rather than evidence of a strategic shift or turning point in the war. At the same time, Russia continues to expand its capacity to conduct large-scale aerial attacks.
In Zaluzhnyi’s assessment, the battlefield has reached a state approaching strategic equilibrium. Russia lacks the military capabilities necessary to conquer all of Ukraine, while Ukraine currently does not possess the means to liberate all occupied territories by military force alone. The military balance has therefore evolved into a situation of mutual deterrence.
We agree with this assessment and believe that a de facto parity has also emerged in the domain of long-range aerial strikes. Even if recruitment of volunteer contract soldiers by the Russian Ministry of Defense were to decline sharply, creating manpower shortages along the frontline, this would be unlikely to produce a fundamental change in the military situation. The AFU have themselves faced persistent personnel shortages for a considerable period and currently lack the capacity to launch a large-scale counteroffensive.
Ukrainian and Russian Strikes
Recently, Russian FPV drones have been particularly active in the city of Kherson and the surrounding region. On July 9, two people were killed and 32 others, including two teenagers, were injured in a UAV attack. Clearly, neither the fuel crisis nor the strikes on the land bridge to Crimea have impacted the situation in the Kherson direction.
An advisor to Ukraine's Minister of Defense and military expert Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov asserts that Russian Shahed tactics have changed. Once Ukraine started shooting down 92-96% of the gasoline-powered Shaheds during attacks far behind the frontline, the Russian Armed Forces increasingly began using jet-powered Shaheds instead. At the same time, the total number of Shahed drones launched against Ukraine has decreased. Beskrestnov does not see any technical or economic reasons for this decrease. He believes the shift is due to the reorientation of production toward mass-producing cruise missiles, or "jet drones." He also notes a shift in tactics from mass strikes to precision strikes. High-value targets are selected, reconnaissance of the facilities is conducted in several stages, and defense lines are studied, including electronic warfare, ground surveillance radars, and air defense. Corridors are probed to bypass interceptors, and routes are plotted at different altitudes and speeds. Ukrainian forces operate similarly during strikes on Russian territory. Beskrestnov also mentions the use of the Seeker variant of the Geran-2 drone, which has target acquisition capabilities.
In the early hours of July 6, during the attack on Kyiv, one of the strikes hit the village of Vyshneve in the Kyiv region. Footage captured a massive secondary detonation. A spokesperson for the AFU General Staff stated that the facility was neither under the control nor within the chain of command of the AFU. However, Zelenskyy later said that an ammunition storage facility had been located in Vyshneve and announced that dismissals would take place within Ukraine's state-owned defense holding Ukroboronprom. We do not know what kinds of munitions were stored there, but the showers of sparks visible in the footage suggest that they may have included composite-propellant rockets, such as surface-to-air missiles.
On July 6, Russia's largest oil refinery, the Omsk Oil Refinery, located approximately 2,500 km [1550 mi] from the Ukrainian border, was struck. It is important to emphasize that being struck does not necessarily mean being destroyed. On July 10, the AFU once again attacked the Ilsky Oil Refinery in the Krasnodar region, which has been targeted repeatedly since the beginning of the war. During the strike on the Omsk refinery, an FP-1 drone was filmed performing an evasive maneuver. In addition, Sukhoi Su-57 multirole fighter aircraft and a Beriev A-50U AEW&C aircraft were observed, apparently participating in the effort to repel the raid.
On July 8, a Russian Sukhoi Su-35 air superiority fighter was shot down over the Luhansk region. The pilot ejected and survived. According to pro-war Russian Z-bloggers, three Ukrainian aircraft participated in the operation, including at least two F-16 fighter aircraft, along with a Patriot air defense system, which apparently shot down the fighter. The Su-35 is typically used to provide air cover for other aircraft, such as Su-34 fighter-bombers. The Russian Aerospace Forces possess a substantial number of these aircraft, and they continue to be produced and delivered.
Last week, a campaign of strikes against tankers in the Sea of Azov began. According to Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the AFU Robert "Madiar" Brovdi, these vessels were transporting gasoline to Crimea. However, according to Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories, independent Russian investigative media outlet], the tankers were carrying not only, and not primarily, gasoline, but also fuel oil, marine fuel, and gas condensate.
Many noted that the ships were moving in a tight formation with no cover, making them easy targets for Ukrainian drones.
Brovdi published an emotional post threatening Russian truck drivers and claiming that any truck in Crimea is a "legitimate military target" in occupied territories. In this regard, we cannot help but recall the Russian soldiers from the From Mariupol to the Carpathians Telegram channel, who also call civilian vehicles military targets. However, despite instances of milk tankers and water tanks being used to transport gasoline or military trucks being disguised as civilian vehicles, not all vehicles are legitimate military targets.
Such posts from commanders encourage drone operators to commit war crimes, which will lead to an increase in civilian casualties.
Similarly, Ukrainian forces launched drones from a truck disguised as a civilian vehicle. However, this does not justify Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian trucks under the pretext that they were transporting drones.
According to a Reuters source among Russian officials, Vladimir Putin is angered by the systematic UAV attacks on Russian oil refineries and the AFU’s other successes. He is now determined to give Ukraine a "tough response" and categorically rejects all calls for negotiations and peace agreements. However, it should be noted that such sources are not very credible and may be nothing more than Kremlin-friendly leaks. Our team is divided on what kind of escalation to expect. Some participants suggest that a new mobilization may begin after the elections, while others believe that the current massive strikes, including the intensive use of ballistic missiles, constitute the escalation itself. They also believe that the RuAF will continue to ignore civilian casualties.
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