Inside Ukraine’s Multi-Front Pressure: Domestic Missiles, Deep Strikes, and a Stalled Diplomacy

Two Drone Strikes on St. Petersburg in One Week

Ukraine demonstrated its growing deep-strike capability with two separate drone attacks on Russia's second-largest city within the same week, both timed to coincide with Russia's flagship economic forum.

June 3 — During the Forum's Opening: Ukrainian drones flew more than 1,100 kilometers from the border to strike the Petersburg Oil Terminal and military targets at the Kronstadt naval base. Zelensky confirmed the operation on social media, writing that the strikes hit "purely military targets" and also targeted a weapons production enterprise in the Tambov region . The oil terminal, one of Russia's largest fuel storage and export facilities, was set ablaze just hours before Putin was scheduled to open the event .

June 6 — On the Forum's Final Day: Ukraine launched a far larger drone barrage. Russian air defense reported shooting down 144 drones over the Leningrad region, describing it as an unprecedented assault . Strikes set a defense ministry facility on fire and disrupted operations at Pulkovo Airport, Russia's second-largest commercial hub, for several hours . Residents were ordered to shelter in place .

Zelensky explicitly tied the second attack to the diplomatic breakdown. "Last night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg region — to the enemy navy's arsenals and a base in Kronstadt," he wrote on Telegram, describing the massive drone operation as "the answer to the refusal to end the conflict" . A Ukrainian post further warned that "failures will get more humiliating" for Russia .

Both attacks underscored Kyiv's ability to strike more than 1,000 km deep into Russian territory with regular frequency, marking a significant shift in the conflict's geography .

The Race for a Ukrainian Ballistic Missile

Parallel to the drone operations, Zelensky is accelerating Ukraine's domestic ballistic missile program and framing it as an existential strategic imperative.

On June 8, he delivered his most direct warning yet, announcing that Ukraine is near to completing its own ballistic missiles for strikes on the Russian Federation. He invoked the phrase "We will not die in silence" to underscore the program's urgency . The warning followed a year of step-by-step progress: the previous August, Ukraine had test-fired a long-range Flamingo missile capable of traveling 3,000 km, with mass production projected by early 2026 .

But Zelensky has also been vocal about the obstacles. In late May, he accused Western countries of deliberately blocking Ukraine's development of an independent ballistic system, citing business competition and political resistance from several nations . He noted that while Russia's opposition was predictable, the resistance coming from other countries revealed deeper tensions over Ukraine's emergence as a serious military producer .

On June 2, he disclosed that Russian forces had designated Ukrainian missile manufacturers as a "priority target," with Moscow intensifying efforts to disrupt production and technology development inside Ukraine . Simultaneously, he continues to press Western partners for immediate defense needs. On May 31, he sent urgent letters to the White House and Congress arguing that only the United States can produce anti-ballistic missiles in the quantities Ukraine needs, especially as the conflict in Iran strains global supply chains . A separate letter to President Trump in late May warned of critical missile defense shortages, stating, "When it comes to defending against ballistic missiles, we rely almost exclusively on the United States" .

Zelensky has set an ambitious target: by year-end, at least 50% of weapons on the front lines should be Ukrainian-made. He projects that Ukraine's potential in drone and missile production alone will reach $35 billion in the coming year .

The convergence of these developments—a bold but rejected diplomatic opening, two deep drone strikes within a week explicitly linked to the negotiations' failure, and the imminent arrival of a domestic ballistic missile—represents a new phase in Ukraine's strategy. Kyiv is building leverage across multiple domains while signaling that the diplomatic path requires Russia to accept its military cost of refusal. With talks stalled and Putin ruling out a summit in the near term, Zelensky's actions make clear that Ukraine intends to keep raising the operational tempo on Russian territory.