Ukraine ‘clearly taking the lead’ following drone strike deep inside Russia, expert says
Ukraine struck deep inside Russian territory this week and its strategic shift toward direct attacks on Russia’s beleaguered energy sector may be tipping the scales in the four-year-old war, experts say.
Ukraine struck deep inside Russian territory this week and its strategic shift toward direct attacks on Russia’s beleaguered energy sector may be tipping the scales in the four-year-old war, experts say.
“This summer we’ve really seen a bit of the turning of the tide on the progress of the war, with Ukraine really clearly taking the lead,” said Mai’a Cross, dean’s professor of political science, international affairs and diplomacy at Northeastern University.
Monday’s attack on Nizhnekamsk, a vital petroleum hub some 550 miles east of Moscow, resulted in 13 deaths, including a child, and dozens of injuries, according to the city’s mayor, who detailed casualties in a Telegram post. Ukrainian officials said the intended target was the massive TANECO oil refinery.
The attack follows a wave of strikes on Russian energy and logistics facilities, including on warehouses in the Moscow and Tambov regions that service the Russian online marketplace Wildberries, often compared to the U.S.-based Amazon.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has touted the strategy as a way to put economic pressure on Moscow to end the war.
“There will be more Ukrainian deep strikes, which should demonstrate to Russia and the Russians that peace is necessary,” Zelenskyy said in a statement Wednesday.
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The stepped-up attacks on Russian energy infrastructure come as Russia’s oil sector has weathered years of Western sanctions. Those measures, according to a recent analysis by the European think tank Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS), have resulted in higher costs, restricted access to technology and an increasingly narrow pool of buyers. Russia has attempted to make up for those shortfalls by redirecting oil exports to Asia and building alternative financial and logistical networks, according to HCSS.
Now, declining oil production and Ukraine’s expanding drone campaign against refineries and other facilities are adding pressure to an industry that is increasingly struggling to generate the revenue needed to sustain a prolonged war, experts say.
“It also points to Ukraine really just making a mark for itself as one of the most … battle-ready modern armies on the planet,” Cross said.
While Ukraine continues its expanded drone campaign deep inside Russia, Russia continues to sustain its war effort by drawing on foreign supplies and manpower — particularly from North Korea and Iran — while maintaining a heavily militarized domestic economy, she said.
It’s a point that Zelenskyy also alluded to in his address this week. “For the first time, they cannot wage war without reinforcements,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasing reliance on North Korea to fight the war.
Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post on August 8 that Ukrainian officials have identified North Koreans on the battlefield, and claimed this month that between 30,000 to 50,000 North Korean soldiers may be poised to join the war and help Russia. He also noted that Russia has been deploying North Korean short-range ballistic missiles, and that the Kremlin received another shipment of weapons from its East Asian ally this week.
Independent analysts have long observed a deepening cooperation between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as a way of blunting U.S. power on the world stage. While there is “some degree of long-term cooperation” between Russia and North Korea, the two nations’ wartime interests appear to be largely transactional, said Peter Fraunholtz, assistant teaching professor in history and international affairs at Northeastern University.
“Russia has a lot of leverage over North Korea,” Fraunholtz said, “and Putin has been pretty good about maintaining very old relationships that go back to the days of the Soviet Union.”
The Kremlin has not disputed that North Korea has helped the war effort. Moscow needs North Korean weapons and manpower to sustain the war, while Pyongyang receives economic, military and diplomatic support from Russia in return, Fraunholtz said. In 2024, the two nations signed a security and defense agreement, the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which calls for the countries to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.
“The key thing to remember … when we’re talking about Iran, Russia, North Korea and China, is that they’re not friends by any stretch of the imagination,” Cross said. “These relationships are very transactional.”
A recent report by South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy, a Seoul-based think tank, highlights its northern neighbor’s growing dependence on Russia. The report estimated that North Korea earned as much as $14.4 billion from Russia between August 2023 and the end of 2025, largely through payments for weapons and troops, as well as illicit exports of food and fuel.
As the war drags on, experts note that Ukraine has grown more emboldened to take the fight directly to Russian territory, a shift that would have been difficult to imagine earlier in the war.
“From the Western powers supporting Ukraine, there was almost this sense of caution around Ukraine attacking into Russian territory,” Cross said. “But that caution has completely disappeared. It’s a completely different picture.”
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