Executive Summary
- Battlefield assessment. Russia sustained its offensive pressure with a heightened operational tempo. Moscow likely controls over half of the contested city of Kostiantynivka.
- Ukrainian air operations. In the first such kill of the war, Ukrainian F-16s downed a Russian Su-35 air-superiority combat aircraft.
- A reshuffle in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine after Ukrainians protested the firing of the country’s defense minister.
- Drone innovations. Ukraine began using aerial drones to airlift unmanned ground vehicles across difficult terrain, testing a hybrid concept that could further change the face of warfare.
1. Battlefield Assessment
The operational tempo remained heightened across the battlespace last week, as Russia and Ukraine waged between 200 and 250 tactical clashes each day. The Ukrainian cities of Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Huliaipole, Pokrovsk, Lyman, and Kostiantynivka continued to absorb the bulk of Russia’s offensive push.
Declassified intelligence from the United Kingdom revealed that Russia’s chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, reportedly briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin three weeks ago that Moscow’s forces had fully captured Kostiantynivka. The city is a strategically important component of Ukraine’s so-called fortress belt, a heavily fortified defensive line in Donetsk Oblast. Its capture would carry significant military implications, providing Russia with a potential launching point for further operations against the remaining fortress belt cities of Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk.
While available evidence suggests it is highly unlikely that Russian forces have established complete control over the city, Kostiantynivka remains heavily contested. Open-source visuals suggest that Ukraine is using mostly unmanned systems to run supplies to its frontline troops. Combat footage also highlighted the intense urban fighting raging in the city. Russian troops most likely occupy slightly more than half of the metropolitan area.
Marking a turning point in the air war, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, announced that a Ukrainian F-16 fighter had shot down a Russian Su-35 air-superiority aircraft. General Caine’s announcement likely confirms a July 8 announcement by the Ukrainian Air Force.
In related operational news, Ukraine’s General Staff reported that the country’s 15th Separate Artillery Reconnaissance Brigade struck a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet and a Pantsir-S1 air-defense system at Khalino airfield in Kursk Oblast. The unit, nicknamed the “Black Forest,” has a history of preying on Russian air defenses. Its latest strike targeted both a combat aircraft and one of the systems protecting the airfield.
According to Ukrainian press sources, a typical MiG-29 is worth approximately $25 million. The Pantsir-S1 is another expensive component of Russia’s short-range air-defense network. The system is particularly effective at low-to-mid altitudes.
The Khalino strike followed a broader Ukrainian campaign against Russian air defenses. On the night of July 19–20, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces reportedly destroyed multiple Russian air-defense assets, including Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and Nebo radars. The majority of these assets were in Krasnodar Krai, while two were in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Russia retains a large inventory of combat aircraft and air-defense systems. But it faces the challenge of protecting an immense geographic area that extends from occupied Ukraine to the Caucasus and the Russian interior. Ukraine does not need to destroy Russia’s entire air-defense network to succeed. By forcing Moscow to disperse its combat platforms, Kyiv can progressively weaken the rear-area sanctuary that supports Russian air operations.
2. Protests Heat Up as Ukraine Reshuffles Its Military Leadership
On July 22, President Zelenskyy dismissed Oleksandr Syrskyi as commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To contain a leadership crisis that exposed a deeper struggle over the future of Ukraine’s military, Zelenskyy appointed General Mykhailo Drapatyi to succeed Syrskyi.
Zelenskyy made the change amid mounting political pressure at home. His removal of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, a popular and tech-savvy official, sparked protests that are now in their sixth day. By the second day of demonstrations, protests were already calling for General Syrskyi’s dismissal.
These events followed a public confrontation between Fedorov and Syrskyi. Syrskyi, 60, represents a traditional military culture centered on infantry, artillery, centralized authority, and established command hierarchies. His critics have accused him of excessive micromanagement and preserving a command culture rooted in Soviet-vintage military doctrine.
Fedorov, 35, represents a competing paradigm centered on innovation, decentralization, and technological modernization. The young minister has become the public face of Ukraine’s military innovations, from the expanded use of drones to the development of digital battle networks, autonomous systems, and data-driven warfare.
President Zelenskyy’s removal of Syrskyi was likely intended to ease public anger over his firing of Fedorov, but the uproar shows few signs of subsiding. Thus far neither Fedorov’s nor Syrskyi’s camp has shown a willingness to ease tensions. Zelenskyy, moreover, has reportedly ruled out restoring Fedorov as defense minister, although he has offered him another prominent government position focused on strengthening Ukraine’s technology sector. Fedorov reportedly rejected the proposed compromise, insisting that he would return only as defense minister.
Against this backdrop, on July 20 Zelenskyy convened a special meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. For the first time, this gathering brought together army corps commanders, including the commanders of the Air Assault Forces and Army Corps, alongside representatives of Ukraine’s leading new defense companies. The participants agreed to establish a regular mechanism for meetings between corps commanders, defense manufacturers, and government institutions, which the Ministry of Defense and the National Security and Defense Council would coordinate. This initiative appeared to institutionalize the battlefield-to-factory feedback system associated with Fedorov’s reform agenda.
3. Ukraine Takes Its Ground Robots Airborne
Ukraine appears to be combining its aerial and ground drones into a single strike system.
Footage published by the Russian Telegram channel Archangel of Special Forces reportedly shows a Ukrainian heavy-lift hexacopter using a cable to carry a small kamikaze unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). Although authorities have not confirmed the operation’s location or date, Ukrainian reporting has identified the UGV as an Ark Robotics ARK-1 carrying TM-series anti-tank mines.
Combining aerial and ground drones is useful because trenches, mud, vegetation, mines, broken terrain, and other obstacles constrain small ground robots. They must also travel through areas exposed to Russian reconnaissance drones, artillery, and electronic warfare.
Air transport addresses many of these issues. A hexacopter helps a UGV bypass difficult terrain, engage closer to its objective, and withdraw before entering a heavily defended area. This shortens its exposure and enables a UGV to conduct its final approach as a one-way attack system. Such cross-domain unmanned teaming uses an aerial platform to provide mobility and operational reach while a ground platform performs the terminal strike.
The ARK-1 has already moved from the Ukrainian battlespace to the proving grounds of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization just 120 miles from the Russian border. Latvia’s 2nd Mechanized Infantry Battalion employed the Ukraine-developed robotic-warfare platform during Exercise Crystal Arrow 2026. During the exercise, Latvian forces used UGVs for reconnaissance and one-way attacks, including operations against defended positions, while Ukrainian veterans and company personnel provided tactical instruction. The ARK-1 weighs approximately 26 pounds, carries a standard payload of 33 pounds, and can reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour.
While Ukraine’s robotic airlift of UGVs remains tactical in scope, the overall military impact of this innovation could carry strategic significance. Airborne deployment of a kamikaze UGV could represent the next step in Ukrainian robotic warfare.
4. What to Look for in the Coming Weeks
The military leadership reshuffle currently roiling the political environment in Ukraine could shape the nation’s postwar future. The state of civil-military relations in the country will merit monitoring for the foreseeable future.