NPR84%
Inside a secretive Ukrainian team launching deep drone strikes at Russia 39%
By Joanna Kakissis45% Polina Lytvynova0%
6/27/2026, 9:02:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Appeal to Emotion, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 15% saturation with 131 hits. Analysis detected 1,683 faulty-reasoning hits from 871 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 44.3% and a BS Rank of 39% (13,538 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 61.90% of the article peer group.
EASTERN UKRAINE — As the sun sets on a vast farm field, soldiers in full body armor pull over on a dirt road and unload what looks like a miniature jet from a truck.
"Our beautiful drone," one of the soldiers says.
This drone, made by Fire Point, a Ukrainian defense technology company, can travel between 800 and 1,200 miles.
Ukraine's military has used drones like these to repeatedly hit oil refineries and depots deep inside Russia, including Moscow and even Siberia.
On June 18, Ukraine launched its largest drone offensive yet on Moscow and hit an oil refinery.
Thick black smoke billowed into the sky as residents reported a flurry of "oil rain."
The drones have also hit targets in Russian-occupied Ukraine, including the southern peninsula of Crimea, which Russia overran and annexed in 2014.
In the last few weeks, Ukrainian drones have struck supply routes for Russian troops as well as railroad bridges, ferry crossings and oil refineries.
"Crimea is being isolated by drones," Ukraine's Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview with a prominent Ukrainian journalist.
"And in the near future, it looks as though Crimea will become an island."
The Ukrainian strike campaign, which started in earnest in 2024 but drastically scaled up this year, has helped Ukraine gain momentum in a grueling war of attrition more than four years after Russia's full-scale invasion.
"Ukrainians can, on a near daily basis, launch hundreds of daily long-range strike vehicles into Russia that actually generate substantial damage and really do upset the Kremlin," said George Barros, director of innovation and open-source tradecraft at the Institute for the Study of War.
"It is an important aspect of the overall Ukrainian strategy to defend itself and end the war on terms favorable to Ukraine."
"Follow me," says the unit's commander, who uses the callsign Charlie, as he leads us deeper into the farm field.
"There are more drones down here."
**Ukraine's drone strikes "have hit our enemy hard"**
Charlie is in his 30s, tall and reserved, a career officer who says he has seen firsthand how Ukraine's rapidly evolving defense technology has helped it turn the tide in the war with Russia.
He began running this unit three years ago, when Ukrainian drone technology was in its early stages.
"Now," he says, "these drone systems are very effective.
Our defense forces lack cruise and ballistic missiles but our drones have really influenced the course of combat operations.
And they have hit our enemy hard."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on June 10 that over the last year alone, Ukraine's long-range drones have struck more than 356,000 Russian targets.
The deep-strike campaign is Ukraine's attempt to weaken the Kremlin's war machine, as Russia's full scale war has now lasted longer than World War I.
The U.S.-led negotiations to end Russia's war on Ukraine have stalled because of the Iran war.
Direct aid by the U.S. fell by 99% under the Trump administration, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy's Ukraine Support Tracker.
Commander Charlie says Ukraine has never relied entirely on foreign aid alone.
He says he has seen his soldiers constantly master new technologies to stay a step ahead of the Russians.
"There was an arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War," he says.
"And now there's another arms race in this war, but it's happening much faster, and it's focused almost entirely on unmanned systems — drones that are aerial, aquatic and ground-based."
**"It's almost time"**
As the sky turns a deep indigo, Commander Charlie's team hammers in launch pads for several drones.
"Setting up these launches used to take half a day," he says.
"Now everything happens so much faster.
I compare it to a pit stop in a Formula 1 race."
Another soldier who uses the callsign Push is setting up the drones.
He says he launches them practically every night.
"Every day we can see our work, the result of this work, and it really motivates us every day," Push says, and he pauses to smile.
"It's the best work in the world … We are doing a lot of damage [to] our enemies, and it's everything we need right now."
The team finishes launching the drones in about two hours.
The soldiers do not linger, even in this vast field in the middle of nowhere.
"Too dangerous," Charlie says.
"The Russians, of course, are looking for us," Uki adds.
"We are targets."
Zelenskyy has often called these long-range drone strikes "Ukrainian sanctions."
Commander Charlie and Uki also use the phrase when referring to their missions.
Like Zelenskyy, they say they want this war to end — but on their terms and not by rewarding the invader, Russia, with Ukrainian capitulation.
"You have now seen our sanctions in action," Uki tells us.
"Let's hope these will finally force the Kremlin into a peace that is fair to Ukraine."
In the pitch-black night, the soldiers get into their cars and trucks and drive away.
They leave no trace of their work in this farm field.
Only the scent of burnt fuel, which lingers in the warm night.
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