As the front line in Ukraine calcifies into a bloody deadlock, the future trajectory of the war is being shaped in the skies.
This air war is an all-encompassing contest stretching from a few yards above scorched tree lines to satellites in low-earth orbit. Its physical toll is etched in fire across the landscape by missiles and drones, though much of the fight remains unseen, in the race to deploy artificial intelligence and control a spectrum of radio waves.
Ukraine is using exploding drones to hit Russian oil facilities from Siberia to St. Petersburg and Russian ports from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Day after day, the warehouses of Russia’s largest online retailer are going up in flames, and Russia-occupied Crimea is being plunged into darkness. Ukraine is striking Russia far more often than it did earlier in the war, including attacks with cruise missiles on military targets hundreds of miles from the front.
At the same time, Russia is setting monthly records for its own aerial onslaughts, exploiting gaps in depleted Ukrainian air defenses to deadly effect.
In July, Moscow fired at least 126 ballistic missiles — a wartime high, according to a New York Times analysis of Ukrainian Air Force data. About 400 civilians died last month in Russia’s barrages, which included cruise missiles and drones, making it the deadliest month since April 2022.
Before dawn on Wednesday, at least 17 more people were killed in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in an attack that included 24 ballistic missiles and four hypersonic missiles. None of those missiles were shot down, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
Beyond the human toll, the Russian assaults have forced Ukraine to suspend vital grain and steel shipments from its seaports. The attacks have also shattered already-ravaged infrastructure, spawning fears that the country could be headed toward another winter of scarce heating and electricity.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is essentially two wars in one.
One is waged around the clock by infantry soldiers and drone operators in hide-outs along the 800-mile front. Russia is still trying to capture Ukrainian land, at a cost of tens of thousands of soldiers’ lives every month, and it is inching forward in the eastern Donbas region. Ukraine, for its part, is still defending its territory with its own outnumbered army and trying to regain land where it can, including in the south.
The other war comes in waves through the skies. It is aimed at distant cities and military sites in both countries, often in the dark of night, and has grown deadlier for both Ukrainians and Russians.
The objectives of these aerial assaults go beyond purely military goals. Kyiv is seeking to deepen the economic pain for the Kremlin, bring the war home to Russians and force President Vladimir V. Putin to accept a cease-fire on terms he does not dictate. For Moscow, it is a continuation of a yearslong campaign to wear down Ukrainian resolve and render cities unlivable.
The air battle is growing more intense as both sides produce ever more innovative weapons at larger and larger scales.
Russia is now putting jet engines on inexpensive drones modeled on the Iranian Shahed, launching a constellation of satellites to help guide its weapons, and rolling out low-cost cruise missiles that bridge the gap between slow attack drones and advanced strategic missiles. Russian fighter jets are firing satellite-guided glide bombs that systematically obliterate towns and cities.
Ukraine is producing a constantly evolving arsenal of drones and missile-drone hybrids with advanced navigation and communications systems that allow them to strike with greater precision across Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky is vowing to accelerate aerial attacks as Ukraine tests its first domestically produced ballistic missiles.
Both countries are using new methods to resist electronic jamming and employing autonomous systems that direct weapons to their targets without human intervention.
As Russia and Ukraine expand their offensive arsenals, their air defenses are struggling to keep up.
Ukraine is facing acute shortages of American-designed Patriot interceptor missiles, the country’s only defense against Russian ballistic missiles.
Mr. Zelensky has instructed his diplomats to push harder to persuade allies to supply more Patriots. But dwindling global stockpiles, a result of the war in Iran, have made the task tougher, and President Trump has walked back a vow to allow Ukraine to produce Patriots in the coming years.
For Russia, a primary challenge is defending a vast landmass that was an asset in past wars but is a liability now that Ukraine is pumping out long-range attack drones. By adapting software, hardware and tactics, Kyiv has opened holes in what was once the world’s most robust air defense network.
Anatolii Khrapchynskyi, a Ukrainian Air Force reserve officer and military analyst, said that before the Russians launched their all-out invasion in 2022, they relied on the deterrence provided by their nuclear arsenal. Air defenses, he said, “were only able to cover about 40 percent of their strategic military facilities.”
When the invasion stalled and Russia failed to establish air dominance, Russian commanders rushed to move defensive systems like the Pantsir and Tor closer to Ukraine. While this shielded the front line, it stripped protection from military bases and industrial hubs in the Russian hinterland.
Now, analysts said, every destroyed launcher and radar system forces Moscow to choose between safeguarding the front or defending the country’s interior.
“Russia’s challenge is fundamentally geographic,” said Justin Bronk, a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a security think tank in London. “When Ukraine forces Russia to pull systems back from the front line to protect cities or refineries in the rear, it creates gaps everywhere.”
While Russia still has robust air protection, the pressure has fractured the country’s shield into isolated defenses, which Ukraine is exploiting with strikes both deep inside Russia and closer to the front to undermine Russian logistics.
An assault on Moscow’s central oil refinery in June, which sent black smoke billowing over the Russian capital, showed that even the Kremlin’s core stronghold could be breached.
Kyiv recently expanded its targets to include the warehouses of Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries, forcing Moscow to again recalibrate how it allocates defenses, analysts said.
To plug the emerging holes, Russia has resorted to stopgaps such as mounting Pantsir batteries on high-rise buildings for a better field of vision and deploying naval warships to protect northern regions like Murmansk.
Ukrainian commanders also pointed to a shift in their own doctrine. Rather than waiting for centralized approval, pilots are authorized to pivot away from planned mission targets if they spot an opportunity to strike a priority target like a Russian radar or launcher.
Where Ukraine cannot match Russia is in its industrial scale. Moscow churns out standardized strike drones, decoys and cruise missiles by the thousands. Ukrainian intelligence agencies estimate that Russia produces about 120 ballistic missiles every month, outpacing the total U.S. production of Patriot interceptors.
The Russian arsenal is being bolstered by missiles from North Korea, Ukrainian officials said, pointing to evidence from debris collected after a strike in the central city of Kryvyi Rih last Thursday that killed a family of 10.
Moscow is also developing its own interceptor drones, which Ukraine has used to great effect, and it still fields a significant number of sophisticated S-400 and S-300 air defense batteries.
Crucially, Russia’s defense industrial sector is supported by supply chains that have withstood sanctions, leveraging foreign microelectronics and Chinese dual-use technology to adapt its systems rapidly.
Russia’s strategy relies on a cold calculation: that it can exhaust Ukraine’s defenses before its own network breaks.
Liubov Sholudko and Kim Barker contributed reporting.
