Ukraine Military History Institute
The deep strike game is no longer Russia's alone
Rob Lee starts with a bottom line rather than a forecast. The deep strike game, in his words, is no longer dominated by Russia. Ukraine is also hitting things at depth, and the longer the war goes on, the more incentive it has to keep developing those capabilities.
That matters because of what it does to the price of the war for Moscow. Lee describes the war as increasingly costly for Russia, and he frames the strategic question the way it has long been framed: stop the advances on the front line, raise the costs Russia pays elsewhere, in the economy and beyond, and you may set the conditions for a ceasefire or some kind of peace deal.
Two outcomes, and only one of them is a deal
Lee is careful not to promise the deal. He lays out the alternative alongside it. If the pressure does not produce a ceasefire, there is a risk for Putin that the war starts going the other direction: Ukraine advancing, taking back territory, and Russia on the back foot again.
His read of Putin is that he has doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on this war over and over. Lee thinks the war has clearly reached diminishing returns for Russia, and yet Putin keeps going at it.
So the increasing pressure Ukraine is applying this year either sets conditions for a peace deal, or it sets conditions for reversals later in the year or further out. Lee does not pick between them. He leaves it at seeing how the year develops.
Sam Cook adds the obvious worry: pressure could make Putin desperate enough to double down again in some other way. Lee accepts the point. There is, he says, also an escalation risk.
The bet that foreign support would crack did not pay off
Lee then identifies what he sees as part of Russia's strategy in this war: the assumption that foreign countries would not keep supporting Ukraine, and that cracks would develop. His judgement is that this did not really happen.
He describes support from Europe as strong and robust, and the financial aid as sufficient to keep two things running: Ukraine's defence industry and its budget. Cook points to the political events behind that, noting that Orban lost and that there is now a two-year funding package.
The word "sufficient" is doing careful work. Lee is not saying Ukraine is flush. He is saying the money is enough to keep domestic production going, and that is the condition the rest of his argument rests on.
Why a funded defence industry changes the dependency
Lee draws the comparison with 2022 and 2023. Then, artillery was the main casualty-producing weapon, and Ukraine was very reliant on foreign aid for both the ammunition and the howitzers to fire it.
Two things have changed. First, Ukraine is making its own guns. Lee cites the Bohdana at what he thinks is around 40 a month, and flags the figure himself as approximate.
Second, and more important, the weapon that causes the casualties is different. Drones now account for the vast majority of casualties, which Lee puts at more than 80%, and most of that comes from FPVs and bombers made in Ukraine.
Put those together and the logic follows. If the main casualty-producing weapon is something Ukraine builds itself, and the industry that builds it is funded, then the fighting depends far less on what arrives from abroad. Lee's conclusion is that Ukraine is now much less dependent, at least on American aid, than it was before.
The one gap without a domestic answer
Then he names the exception. There is no good alternative right now to PAC-3, the Patriot interceptor. Lee calls it still a big issue.
He ties it to the recent strikes on Kyiv, where in his account Ukraine is really struggling to intercept ballistic missiles, and where even cruise missiles are getting through.
This is what lifts the argument above an optimistic summary. The shift that freed Ukraine from dependence on artillery shipments did nothing for defence against ballistic missiles. Domestic drones and domestic guns answer the question of how to hold the front line. They do not answer the question of how to protect a capital, and that is where the remaining weight of American supply sits.
It also connects the two halves of Lee's argument. The pressure strategy works by holding the line while raising the cost of the war for Russia. A gap in ballistic missile defence is the place where Russia can still impose costs that Ukraine cannot yet answer from its own factories.
What to watch
- PAC-3 supply, and any alternative to it. Lee says there is no good substitute right now. A credible non-Patriot answer to ballistic missiles would close the last major dependency he identifies.
- Missiles getting through over Kyiv. If ballistic and cruise missiles keep reaching the city, the gap he describes is still open.
- Which way the front line moves. Lee frames two outcomes of the pressure: conditions for a deal, or reversals against Russia. Whether Ukraine begins taking back territory is the test of which one is arriving.