New Russian strike on Kyiv as drones reshape war
Russia fired two ballistic missiles and 94 drones at Ukraine overnight, while Ukrainian hits on Russian refineries and tankers push NATO toward a 40 billion dollar counter-drone push.
- Russia fired two ballistic missiles and 94 drones at Ukraine overnight; air defenses downed 72, with hits recorded at 13 locations.
- One woman was killed and two people wounded in Kyiv.
- Ukraine struck 21 vessels in 72 hours, including 19 shadow-fleet tankers, and hit a refinery in Saratov.
- NATO launched a counter-drone initiative worth more than 40 billion dollars in Ankara.
The war in Ukraine has entered a phase where the outcome is measured less in kilometers of front line and more in the ability to strike the enemy’s energy arteries, which is why the overnight Russian assault on Kyiv and Ukraine’s deep hits on Russian refineries are not distant news for Serbia, since every attack on oil infrastructure and on the tanker fleet raises the risk premium in a market that indirectly supplies the Balkans as well. Russia fired two ballistic missiles and 94 drones through the night, Ukrainian air defenses downed 72 of them, yet strikes were still recorded at thirteen locations, and in Kyiv one woman was killed while two people were wounded.
Kyiv under missiles, Russian oil under drones
The imagery of this war has become two-directional in a way Moscow finds increasingly hard to control. While Russian missiles and cheap Iranian-designed drones keep pressing Ukrainian cities, Kyiv has answered with a deep-strike campaign that hit 21 vessels in just 72 hours, among them nineteen tankers of the so-called shadow fleet that Russia uses to bypass the sanctions regime and export oil. Ukrainian drones also struck a refinery in Saratov and a petrochemical complex in Tatarstan overnight, shifting the target from the front line to the very heart of the Russian budget.
That shift is not cosmetic. Revenue from crude and refined products remains the main pillar of Russia’s war economy, so every damaged storage tank or processing unit means less fuel on the domestic market and less money in the treasury. The shadow fleet, a network of aging tankers with opaque ownership and insurance, was for years Moscow’s way of dodging Western restrictions, and it is now becoming the vulnerable point Ukraine systematically targets. Unlike expensive missiles, Ukrainian drones cost little yet inflict disproportionate damage, a logic that overturns the traditional math of defense.
What does the counter-drone race mean for our region?
The Western response came from Ankara, where NATO used its summit to launch a counter-drone initiative worth more than 40 billion dollars over the next five years. Twenty members of the Alliance are taking part, with a plan to increase drone-operator training fivefold by 2027, a step through which the transatlantic bond acknowledges that a cheap unmanned aircraft has become a strategic threat on par with conventional weapons. The Alliance’s leadership frames the decision as a tectonic shift in how Europe thinks about protecting the sky above its own cities and refineries.
For Serbia and the whole of the Balkans, the message is twofold. On one hand, the region remains exposed to every disruption in the oil market, because energy stability is not built in Belgrade but imported through prices and supply routes that this war keeps reshaping. On the other, the counter-drone race NATO is now setting in motion will define new security standards along Europe’s entire periphery, including countries that are not members of the Alliance yet share the same sky. The geopolitical reality is that the line between front and rear is dissolving, and the technology burning over Saratov today may tomorrow define what defense looks like at every energy node from the Pannonian plain to the Black Sea. Is Europe truly ready for a war in which the most dangerous weapon is also the cheapest?
