Russian rockets and drones rained down on cities across Ukraine over the weekend of June 7, targeting, amongst other things, a children’s railway park. Dozens were killed and more injured. Ukraine responded in kind but hit mostly military and economic targets as the war entered a new drone and missile arm race phase.

Fighting in the Ukraine war has moved beyond the front line in Donbas as both sides rapidly escalate their long-distance attacks into each other’s territory as the production of drones and missiles reach massive proportions. Both Ukraine and Russia launched large scale attacks across the border as they changed tactics and attempted to crush the morale of their opponents.

While the drone attacks have been escalating this year, they reached a new level following Russia’s devastating missile barrage on Ukrainian cities during the weekend of May 23. Kyiv responded a week later with the spectacular Operation Spiderweb on June 1 and then a third attack on the Kerch bridge on June 3.

Russia is now retaliating for that humiliation and launched a large-scale attack on multiple cities in eastern and central Ukraine (video), at the weekend, while the AFU hit oil refineries and factories in European Russia as well as targeting multidirectional strikes on Moscow that didn’t kill anyone, but are playing hell with Russia’s civil aviation. The bulk of the Russian population live in the European part of the country and most of the airports are now within Ukrainian drone range.

Ukraine was also using its dwindling supply of US-made HIMARS missiles to hit the concentration of Russian troops released from the fight to retake the Kursk region that were building up the border ahead of Russia’s summer offensive.

Separately, the AFU have shot down one of Russia’s advanced fifth-generation SU-35 fighter jets using a F-16 for the first time, according to reports. Russia confirmed that one Su-35S was destroyed in the Kursk sector. It is likely that Ukrainian F-16 fighters are already aided by type ASC890 surveillance craft. Sweden announced plans to transfer two planes of that AEW&C type back in 2024. Its radar can track targets up to 400 km (250 miles) away, Russian military bloggers (milbloggers) report.

The pilots ejected, but the success in taking out one of Russia’s best airplanes adds to the recent morale-boosting news of recent successes in Ukraine’s military operations against the main body of the Russian military machine.

Nevertheless, Ukraine’s active assault on Russian forces is coming at a price. Ukraine lost up to 1,465 troops in a special military operation zone in the past day, according to unconfirmed information which the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement – numbers usually associated with the Russian offensive and several times higher than normal when the AFU was fighting a purely defensive campaign.

The fighting was fiercest in the battlegroup centre regions where the AFR have improved their frontline position, hitting the forces of two Ukrainian mechanised brigades, a motorised infantry brigade, two air assault brigades and a National Guard brigade near Dimitrov, Krasnoarmeisk, Sergeyevka, Novonikolayevka, Alexeyevka, Udachnoye and Novosergeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic. The enemy lost four Kozak armoured combat vehicles, eight pickup trucks five artillery systems, and a US-made AN/TPQ-50 counterbattery radar, according to the Defence Ministry, reports TASS. bne IntelliNews was unable to confirm these reports and the Ukrainian press has not reported on the details of AFU losses in the weekend’s clashes.

Kharkiv hit hard

Footage from Ukraine's city of Kharkiv this morning in the aftermath of Russians committing the largest attack of the war, sending missiles, guided bombs and drones onto residential neighbourhoods in several districts of the city. Four people were confirmed dead as of the time of writing and another 40 injured in the attack. “These are not retaliatory strikes,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

"As of now, more than 40 wounded and one killed in Kharkiv due to Russian strikes. Another brutal attack. Airbombs targeting civilians – near even a children's railway. This has no military sense, pure terrorism. Over three years of full-scale war, this cannot be ignored or overlooked. This is not a game. Every day we lose people because Russia feels impunity. A firm compulsion of Russia to peace is urgently needed," Zelenskiy said in a post on social media.

The first wave on Ukraine's second-largest city was a large Russian drone-and-missile attack in the early hours of June 7 catching residents in their beds. Video posted on social media show first responders arriving at the scene to carry dead and wounded civilians away, while other videos show residential apartment blocks on fire as emergency services attempt to evacuate the buildings.

The drone and missile attack also included the powerful 3,000kg FAB glide bombs that Russia introduced into its arsenal last year.

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy lambasted the attack, saying that Russia’s strikes on Kharkiv are not a response to Operation Spiderweb, but an “attempt to destroy life,” adding that Russia “only brings ruins and death, therefore pressure on it must be increased.”

AFU hit Russian troop concentrations in Sumy with HIMARS

Fighting on the Sumy Front, just inside Ukraine on its eastern border, has been intense for more than a month now. Russian forces have been conducting active offensive operations in the Sumy direction and making slow and costly, but steady, territorial gains. Currently, the front line runs through the settlements of Khotin and Yanakivka, where Ukrainian forces have managed to stabilise the front and shift the battle into a more passive, positional phase.

Until now there has been no reported Ukrainian counterattacks or counteroffensives aimed at reclaiming the territories seized by Russian forces. It appears to be a deliberate tactical manoeuvre, say milbloggers, aimed at inflicting maximum losses on the enemy while minimising Ukraine’s own casualties.

Ukrainian forces have inflicted heavy losses on Russian troop concentrations and command posts near the border town of Sumy in the last days, by luring enemy units into counterattacks and using the resulting intelligence to guide targeted HIMARS strikes, Euromaidan Press reported on June 6.

More than 50,000 Russian troops have been deployed to the Kursk region, indicating a significant build-up ahead of a potential large-scale offensive aimed at breaching Ukrainian defences in Sumy. Ukrainian commanders described the concentration as part of Russia’s attempt to regain battlefield momentum through renewed offensives and numerical superiority.

“To neutralise this threat, Ukrainians needed to eliminate this large force concentration before they had the opportunity to move to the front line,” the report said, cited by Euromaidan Press.

Ukrainian troops initiated operations near Tyotkino, targeting the eastern flank to force Russian redeployments and stretch defensive lines. By threatening a flanking manoeuvre, Ukrainian units encouraged the Russian troops to shift positions, making them more vulnerable to reconnaissance and artillery. Russian attempts to plug gaps were met with FPV drone strikes suppressing attempts by AFR to advance in small groups, before hitting the larger concentrations with HIMARS.

“Russia moved, Ukraine mapped, HIMARS delivered,” the report added, describing how Ukrainian forces traced enemy movements to staging areas in Lgov and Rylsk. These sites were then struck by HIMARS batteries, causing significant casualties, according to the report. Local sources reported mass evacuations of wounded Russian soldiers, and one precision strike reportedly killed the deputy commander of Russia’s 155th Marine Brigade at a command post in Rylsk.

“These strikes show that Ukrainians are already draining Russian reserves even before they can launch their offensive,” the report stated. “Either Russians will have to station their forces much further to the rear, or they must take the blows dealt to them by Ukrainian strike teams,” the report said.

The US-supplied HIMARS have been amongst the most effective of the missiles supplied by allies, but Ukraine’s stocks are already dwindling. In the recent Ramstein meeting of Western military leaders earlier this month, the allies pledged some $1.3bn of fresh military supplies, but notably US Secretary for Defence Pete Hegseth skipped the meeting and the US pledged no military aid to Ukraine whatsoever.

Despite the Ukrainian rocket attacks, Russia continues to have the upper hand in the Sumy region just inside the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian servicemen and milblogger Stanislav “Osman” Buniatov complains that the AFR primarily focus on hunting down Ukrainian drone pilots, which makes the latter deploy further away from the front line. That helps the Russians turn the impact zone into a safe buffer zone in which their infantry can advance with no risk of drone attacks.

“Ukrainian milbloggers have been complaining about the Russian advantage in drone war for some weeks now. Drones used to be the strongest side of the Ukrainian army for much of the full-out war,” says journalist and bne IntelliNews columnist Leonid Ragozin.

Moscow targeted

Ukraine’s new long-distance drones can now reach Moscow, and kamikaze drones were sent against the Russian capital from three directions simultaneously, hitting factories, warehouses and other military-industrial targets.

Due to the attack two of Moscow’s three main airports – Domodedovo and Vnukovo – were closed. The constant threat of drone attacks on airports have caused continuous disruptions to Russia’s civil aviation, causing multiple cancellations of flights and regular diversions in a country that relies heavily on air transport to get around its vast territory.

Most of the drones were shot down by Russian air defences but several reached their targets, causing large fires that burnt out of control. Several explosions were reported in the outskirts of the city, according to local reports.

Kyiv hit again

The Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) has been targeting civilian residential buildings in the Ukrainian capital but has also hit some significant industrial and military targets, and with increasing accuracy.

The former Bolshevik plant in central Kyiv was completely destroyed by precision Russian missile strikes. Unconfirmed local reports say a high-ranking Ukrainian figure was inside the Cold War-era bunker hidden beneath the site.

Ukrainian weapons dumps destroyed

Russian-made Lancet drones reportedly hit a weapons dump (video), decimating the majority of Nato-supplied M109 howitzers as well as a store of dozens of Shadow Storm missiles, Patriot missile ammunition and other high-tech supplies stored in an underground bunker that had only arrived in Kyiv a week earlier.

The Russian ZALA Lancet loitering munitions have reportedly destroyed over 103 US-made M109 self-propelled howitzers, more than half of the 160 units delivered to Ukraine by NATO. The recently developed Lancet drones are proving increasingly effective in targeting high-value Nato hardware and powerful enough to destroy stores housed in bunkers.

Saratov oil depot

Kyiv continues its strategy of hurting the Russian economy and undermining the Kremlin’s ability to supply the AFR by hitting oil facilities across the country.

A Ukrainian drone swarm has struck the Russian oil depot in Saratov which supplies Russia’s strategic bomber fleet located at the nearby Engels-2 airbase. While the long-range Ukrainian drones are not powerful enough to destroy the refinery completely, which was built in the Cold War era and protected from missile strikes, they do cause fires and the fire in the Saratov depot rapidly spreads, jumping from one oil tank to another and causing significant damage.

Lukoil oil refinery hit

Ukrainians carried out a kamikaze drone strike on the Lukoil oil refinery in Nizhny Novgorod. This was not the first attack on the refinery; as a result, a massive fire broke out on site, and the plant’s infrastructure was almost completely destroyed, according to Ukrainian reports.

Tula chemical plant hit

Ukrainian drones reportedly struck Russia’s Tula region for a second time, causing a fire at the Azot chemical plant in the city of Novomoskovsk, which produces both civilian-use chemicals like fertilisers but also chemicals used by the military, including the production of artillery shells.

The plant was previously struck and caught fire on May 24 in a similar overnight drone attack and is located about 395 kilometres from Ukraine. Two people were injured, but their lives are not in danger," Tula Oblast Governor Dmitry Milyaev later reported, adding that the fire had already been extinguished.

Russian trains targeted

The Security Service of Ukraine reportedly carried out yet another large-scale drone attack today on a military train traveling between Donetsk-Zaporizhzhia in Russian-occupied Southeastern Ukraine.

Last week a passenger train in Bryansk that borders Ukraine was targeted when explosions brought down a bridge on top of the train, killing about half a dozen people. Similar attacks in Kursk derailed another train. The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) did not comment on the incident, but Russian President Vladimir Putin called it an “act of terrorism.”

In the Donetsk-Zaporizhzhia incident hundreds of FPV drones are reported to have emerged from hiding in hatches aboard several grain hoppers, while the train was in motion, before striking the locomotive and then proceeding to strike over a hundred train wagons carrying heavy equipment and supplies for the Russian Armed Forces, The Kyiv Independent reports.

Operational Command South of the Ukrainian Ground Forces reports that Russia suffered losses amounting to roughly a regiment-sized unit worth of equipment and supplies, including thirteen tanks. The attack and the losses have also been confirmed by Russian milbloggers.