In recent days, Russia has systematically bombed bridges in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, another step in the terror against the population where everything from trains, steel mills, transport, food warehouses, housing and electricity and heating infrastructure are attacked.
The ISW think tank, which provides daily reports on developments in the war, writes that Russia seems to have brought the winter war earlier this year, and that it has already started. It is about freezing and starving Ukraine in the coming months.
After the success of the faster, jet-powered drones, which Ukraine has had difficulty defending against, Putin has changed his strategy and abandoned the idea of an endless war of attrition where you gain territory meter by meter with ground troops. Now he bets everything on a winter war in the air.
Russia has 700 of the harder-to-stop ballistic robots in stock, adding up to 140 a month, according to Ukraine. They are largely being saved to be deployed when the cheap jet drones lose their edge.
Up to 90 percent of conventional Russian drones are shot down, but only about 50-60 percent of jet-powered ones.
Ukraine is developing interceptor drones at a feverish pace, and has tested several working prototypes. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 12 anti-drone towers with 50-caliber machine guns are also to be set up in the capital and another 8 around the county.
Against the ballistic robots, Ukraine really only has the American Patriot robots to deploy, and there is a great shortage of these.
Johan Huovinen, a teacher of military strategy at the Norwegian Defense Academy, agrees with ISW's conclusions and points out that Russia has shifted its focus from the battlefield, where it has lost the initiative, to impoverishing Ukraine economically.
- Before, electricity, heat and water production were mostly targeted. Now they have knocked out all four steel mills and are attacking grain transportation systems, which are vital to Ukraine's economy.
According to Huovinen, it may take time before Ukraine has time to scale up the production of the new interceptor drones.
- They must break the technological advantage that the Russians have with the jet-powered drones. Until the turn of the year, the assessment must be that the Russians will have that lead. The new drones require a more industrial process, as they too need jet engines.
The old defense drones could often be manufactured with a 3D printer.
But as Ukraine caught up, Russia has bunkered down with the hard-to-stop ballistic robots.
- Basically, only the Patriot system can stop them. It is required that Ukraine get them. There are a number of countries that have patriot robots, including Sweden, Germany, Poland, Greece and Spain. Even if it were only 25, it would do wonders in the Ukrainian air defense.
According to ISW, the Ukrainians are facing a cruel winter.
"Russia appears to have decided on a wave of attacks with increased brutality and lethality against civilians and civilian infrastructure. The Kremlin hopes it can draw attention away from Ukraine's recent successes on the battlefield, and ultimately force Ukraine to capitulate, by making daily life unbearable," writes the think tank.
Russia is "combining its weapons and technology to maximize the suffering of Ukrainian civilians."
The think tank points to data from the UN which shows that at least 15,380 civilian casualties have been confirmed up to and including August this year, which is a 55 percent increase compared to the same period in 2025.
