![\"Ukraine](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/s2-1786361259.jpg\")
Ukraine hopes its long-range strike campaign against Russia turns the tide of the conflict [Screen grab\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\nEastern Ukraine \u2013 In a farm field in eastern Ukraine, a choking engine interrupts the sound of crickets and nightingales.<\/p>\n
Then come indistinguishable shouts of male voices, followed by a crescendo \u2013 a loud sound like scissors tearing through wrapping paper.<\/p>\n
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It pierces the night as a brief flare of flame illuminates the sunflower field below.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike an orchestra, every part has to work together in order for us to achieve effective strikes,\u201d says Colonel Ray, commander of the Kairos Battalion of the Magyars Birds Brigade.<\/p>\n
Ukraine hopes its long-range strike campaign against Russia turns the tide of the conflict [Screen grab\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
The drone, roughly the length of a compact SUV with a wingspan of nearly 6 metres (19.7 feet), climbs into the night. Where exactly it is headed is known only to him.<\/p>\n
Before reaching its target, the drone will travel at about 160km\/h (100mph), thousands of metres above the ground, passing over the bombarded cities and battlefields along Ukraine\u2019s front line.<\/p>\n
Once it reaches cruising altitude, control is handed over to a command centre elsewhere in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could pilot it from Pennsylvania once it\u2019s up there,\u201d the brigade\u2019s spokesperson says, explaining how the drones navigate using satellite systems.<\/p>\n
Scaling up<\/p>\n
Along its journey, the drone is careful to avoid towns and cities where it risks being intercepted.<\/p>\n
Data on Russian air defences is fed back to planners, helping give the hundreds of drones Ukraine now launches on some nights the best possible chance of making it through.<\/p>\n
Lately, Ukraine\u2019s long-range drones are striking targets sometimes more than 2,500km (1,553 miles) inside Russia, reaching cities like Moscow and St Petersburg, across the Ural Mountains and even into Siberia.<\/p>\n
Their targets include oil refineries, factories and warehouses.<\/p>\n
While long-range drones are not new to the war, the scale of their use has changed.<\/p>\n
Ukraine now produces its own one-way attack drones by the hundreds, allowing it to cut through red tape from Western partners that once prevented it from striking deep into Russia.<\/p>\n
When it began ramping up such attacks in March, some Western allies urged restraint.<\/p>\n
The US-Israel war on Iran had already disrupted global energy markets, and Ukraine\u2019s increasing attacks on Russian energy infrastructure have threatened to add further pressure.<\/p>\n
But Kyiv kept going.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian officials began calling the strikes \u201clong-range sanctions\u201d, a tongue-in-cheek way of arguing that Kyiv was enforcing, through drones, the economic pressure Western sanctions had failed to deliver.<\/p>\n
![\"\u2018Do](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/s3-1786361262.jpg\")
\u2018Do not touch! Moving part\u2019 reads a label on a piece of Ukraine\u2019s weaponry [Screen grab\/Al Jazeera][Screen grab\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n