The Air War in Ukraine

F-16 fighter jets have been carrying the main burden of the Ukrainian Air Force's combat missions for some time now.

The First Confirmed Kill credited to a F-16

Text: Miro Barič

In today’s episode of this sad series, we will look at the period from July 1 to July 31. During this period, Ukraine launched several new campaigns targeting Russian ships in the Sea of Azov and the logistics warehouses of Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries. At the same time, however, Ukraine also made several incomprehensible mistakes that led to unnecessary losses. In the fifth year of the war, such carelessness should not be happening.

On Wednesday, July 1, Ukraine stated in a letter addressed to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that Russia’s shadow fleet should not be considered ordinary civilian shipping, but rather a legitimate military target, because it serves to finance Moscow’s war operations.

On the night of Monday, July 6, Ukraine then launched a large-scale operation against Russian ships in the Sea of Azov. They began attacking them with “Magyar’s birds,” meaning units equipped with aerial drones. The main targets were the aforementioned shadow fleet, whose ships were anchored in the Sea of Azov because they considered it a safe haven from Ukrainian naval drones operating in the Black Sea. However, ships forming part of convoys supplying Crimea were also hit, after the Ukrainians had previously managed to significantly restrict Russian land transportation.

The attacks on ships continued practically every night until the end of the month. Over the course of roughly three weeks, Ukrainian drones managed to score more than 200 hits on Russian vessels. This does not mean that 200 ships were hit—some were hit multiple times. The targets were mainly tankers, but also ordinary cargo ships, ferries, and tugboats. Most of the ships did not sink, but that was not necessary. Ukrainian operators focused on key sections such as the bridges or engine rooms. Damage to these areas means that a ship is put out of service for a long time. In the event of a more extensive fire, such a ship may be permanently disabled, even if it remains afloat.

Ukrainian drone forces launched another campaign against the online retailer Wildberries, nicknamed the Russian Amazon. Over the course of the month, Ukrainians hit 20 of the company’s warehouses. Seven of Wildberries’ ten largest warehouses burned down completely. At first glance, this appears to be a purely civilian target, but that is not entirely the case. The retailer also operated a section called “Everything for the Special Military Operation,” where goods needed by Russian soldiers at the front were sold—from night-vision equipment and bulletproof vests to the drones.

Ukrainian officials stated that, in addition to disrupting Russian logistics, the operation was also intended to damage the Russian economy. Wildberries is not only the largest player in the Russian online market, but also the country’s largest debtor. It had taken out loans to rapidly construct large logistics centers, and its potential collapse would also lead to the collapse of several Russian banks. The commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Robert Brovdi (nicknamed Magyar), also said that the attacks were intended to make ordinary Russians feel the consequences of the war. According to Russian media, approximately 80 percent of the goods in the warehouses were uninsured, meaning that small sellers who used Wildberries often lost everything.

Strikes against Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov.

Wildberries logistics centers are easy targets for Ukrainian drones; they are not protected in any way, they are not designed to withstand strikes, and fires there cause enormous economic damage.

“Military” Targets

Naturally, Russian propaganda portrayed the Ukrainian attacks as the destruction of purely civilian targets. Let us just recall that the same propaganda had previously defended attacks on, for example, branches of the Ukrainian company Nova Poshta, which have been occurring since the beginning of the war. During this period, Ukrainian “military” targets were also hit, such as the Ukrainian Red Cross warehouse in Kyiv. On Thursday, July 2, it destroyed humanitarian aid and emergency equipment worth $1.8 million. These included generators, medical and hygiene supplies, and blankets for people affected by the war. During the same attack, a bookstore warehouse was also hit, with 800,000 books burned.

On the night of Sunday, July 19, Russian missiles again struck a UNICEF warehouse in Kyiv containing humanitarian aid for Ukrainian children and families. Generators, hygiene kits, and water tanks worth $3.9 million were destroyed. One of Kyiv’s largest textbook printing facilities was also hit. Estimates of the consequences vary; according to some reports, as many as 600,000 textbooks were destroyed in total.

All of this, however, is merely property damage. Far worse is the loss of innocent human lives. The United Nations confirmed that at least 437 civilians, including 17 children, were killed in Ukraine in July 2026. Another 2,610 civilians were injured. These are the highest figures since May 2022. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the UN has recorded at least 16,874 civilian deaths in Ukraine, including 820 children. Another 51,273 people have been injured, including 3,126 children. UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo herself emphasized when releasing these figures that the actual number of casualties would be much higher. The UN is unable to verify figures from areas where fighting is taking place or from occupied Ukrainian territories.

One of the worst Russian attacks during the period under review came as early as the night of Wednesday, July 1, into Thursday, July 2, when 30 people were killed in Kyiv. It is becoming clear that Ukraine is short of Patriot missiles, which are the only ones capable of intercepting Russian ballistic missiles. Deliveries of Patriots had been steadily declining, and after the American adventure in Iran they fell even further. While Ukrainian defenses are capable of neutralizing the overwhelming majority of drones and cruise missiles, ballistic missiles continue to strike Ukrainian cities. During this night, a record 52,500 people, including nearly 4,500 children, took shelter in the Kyiv Metro. The new Russian S8000 Banderol cruise missile was used for the first time in this attack; it carries a 114-kilogram warhead.

Three Major Mistakes

Another major attack on Kyiv followed on the night of Sunday, July 5, into Monday, July 6. One apartment building partially collapsed after being hit, killing nine people, including an entire family. Another 60 people were injured in the building. The attack claimed at least 17 lives in total. However, the first major Ukrainian mistake of the period under review also contributed to this to some extent.

The Russians, of course, do not attack only civilian targets. When they identify a valuable military target, they attack that as well. And on this night they hit an ammunition warehouse in the Vyshneve district. However, it had been located, in violation of all regulations and common sense, in the middle of a residential area, only about 20 meters from the nearest houses. The subsequent secondary explosions destroyed a number of surrounding buildings and killed seven residents. Another 29 people were injured.

Certainly, the Iskander missile that struck the warehouse was Russian, and without Russian aggression none of this would have happened. But war is a reality, and basic caution should reflect that reality. A preliminary investigation into the incident showed that the ammunition was not being stored there by the military, but by an arms-manufacturing company. It was using facilities that were neither protected in any way nor intended for storing explosive substances, let alone for long-term storage. Ukrainian regulations also prohibit any storage of ammunition in built-up areas. The company’s director and his deputy were therefore taken into custody without the possibility of bail.

As if that were not enough, similar reprehensible and senseless negligence occurred again less than two weeks later. On Friday, July 24, a private company organized a weapons exhibition in Kyiv, focusing primarily on drone technologies. The invitation to the event was circulated on social media and, naturally, the Russians noticed it as well. In the afternoon, they struck the venue with two ballistic missiles. At least 12 people were killed, including an employee of a Polish arms company. Another 100 were injured. According to unofficial sources, the death toll from the attack was even higher. The exhibition organizer was arrested, and a court ruled that he would remain in pre-trial detention for at least 60 days without the possibility of bail.

The third serious mistake occurred on the political scene. Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov had been in office for only half a year, since January 2026. He launched audits that uncovered unnecessary spending, and by introducing open tenders instead of direct contracts, he managed to reduce the prices of purchased ammunition. He was also a supporter of new technologies (having previously served as Minister of Digital Transformation) and sought reforms in the area of military mobilization. Fedorov gained popularity among the population through his results, but some of his efforts encountered resistance from more conservative generals, and he became involved in an open dispute with Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Such a dispute is certainly unhealthy even in peacetime, let alone during a war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decided to resolve the situation by dismissing Fedorov as defense minister. Despite the war, demonstrators took to the streets of Ukrainian cities in support of him. Zelenskyy was ultimately forced to dismiss Syrskyi as well. He offered Fedorov another position in the government, but Fedorov rejected it, and the political dispute continued.

The only positive aspect of this situation is that Mykhailo Drapatyi became the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. He is a relatively young officer (43 years old) who has been fighting on the front since 2014. He therefore has enormous first-hand experience and is not burdened by the Soviet military school of thought. Russian channels immediately began recalling his role in the fighting for Mariupol in 2014, when, as an infantry fighting vehicle commander, he was the first to break through the barricades at full speed, with other Ukrainian vehicles following behind him. There is a general consensus on Russian military channels that Drapatyi’s appointment is very bad news for Russia.

An ammunition depot explosion in the Vyshneve district of Kyiv.

The aftermath of the attack on a weapons exhibition in Kyiv.

Ukrainian Attacks

During the period under review, the Ukrainians also continued their attacks on oil refineries and had already knocked out more than 40 percent of Russia’s fuel-processing capacity. Refineries in Omsk and Syzran, for example, were hit. Moscow was forced to begin importing gasoline from abroad, including Kazakhstan and India.

There was also one relatively small-scale operation that nevertheless has major historical significance. On the Kinburn Spit at the mouth of the Dnipro, which is controlled by Russian forces, a Ukrainian naval drone, for the first time ever, deployed a ground drone equipped with a machine gun onto the shore. The ground drone then attacked Russian positions from the rear. We are witnessing a robotic revolution in real time!

On Tuesday, July 14, the Ukrainian Navy sank the Izumrud, a patrol vessel belonging to Russia’s FSB Border Guard Service, near Novorossiysk using a Sargan-3000 naval drone. Several crew members were killed. For Ukraine, this was a major act of retribution. In 2018, during a period of official peace, the Izumrud had participated in the attack on three Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Strait.

Toward the end of the period under review, the Russian army attempted a major mechanized assault in the area of the village of Dobropillia. In an era when drones dominate the skies, such operations are highly unusual. The attack lasted almost four hours, and the Russians suffered heavy losses without achieving anything. At least seven tanks, two rocket launchers that were providing cover for the attack, and 47 other vehicles were destroyed. More than 120 Russian soldiers were killed.

An oil refinery in Syzran, Russia, on fire.

Attacks on Russian military logistics continued as well.

The FSB patrol boat Izumrud sunk.

Missile in Poland

At the end of the period under review, Russia also escalated its provocations against NATO countries. In Romania, three Russian drones were shot down over the course of three days, from July 24 to July 26. Italian Eurofighter Typhoon fighters, which are participating in the NATO mission to protect Romanian airspace, were involved, as were F-16 fighters belonging to Romania and NATO. Moscow denied that the downed drones were Russian, so the Romanians “presented” the Russian ambassador with the wreckage of a Shahed/Geran drone.

A serious incident occurred in Poland on Thursday, July 30. A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile came down there. It was part of a large-scale Russian attack on western Ukraine. According to Polish officials, at around 3 a.m., as many as 20 Russian missiles were heading toward Poland over Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian defenders managed to shoot down most of them. The Ukrainian pilot also attempted to pursue and shoot down the last remaining missile. However, he had to turn around approximately 20 seconds before the Polish border. He did not have permission to enter Polish airspace, and there was a risk that he could be shot down by Polish air defenses. Those defenses continued tracking the missile and scrambled an F-16 against it.

The missile crashed without being hit by the fighter into a field near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia in the Lublin Voivodeship, 95 kilometers from the border, leaving a large crater upon impact.

Experts believe that the missile was programmed to do this. Before impact, it performed a typical maneuver used when attacking a designated target: it stopped following the terrain at low altitude, climbed higher, and then descended almost vertically onto the target. If this had been a malfunction and the missile had crashed, for example, because it ran out of fuel, it would not have performed this final attack maneuver. Russia was therefore apparently testing NATO’s response once again.

A crater left by the impact of a Russian missile in Poland.

F-16 vs. Su-35

During the period under review, Russia suffered relatively heavy losses of aviation equipment. We will not examine them chronologically, because one incident stands out from the others and therefore deserves to be discussed first.

On Wednesday, July 8, a Su-35S fighter was shot down. It crashed near the village of Mistky in the occupied Luhansk region. The pilot ejected and was recovered by a rescue team. According to available information, the pilot had fallen into a trap set by the Ukrainian Air Force.

The Russian side wrote that this particular pilot had been annoying the Ukrainians for some time, and they therefore specifically targeted him. One Ukrainian aircraft simulated an attack using glide bombs, while two other F-16 fighters waited for a Russian target to appear. A radar from a Patriot system helped them locate it.

Initially, different sources gave conflicting accounts. According to some reports, the Russian Sukhoi had not been shot down by Ukrainian fighters at all, but by the Patriot system. However, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine later confirmed that the shootdown was achieved by a Ukrainian F-16 fighter. This is the first confirmed aerial victory for an F-16 in Ukrainian service.

The first Russian aircraft loss of the period under review had occurred as early as Thursday, July 2, when a Kamov Ka-52M helicopter was shot down. The helicopter was countering a Ukrainian drone attack when it was accidentally hit by a Russian soldier using a Verba man-portable missile. The crew ejected, but one of the ejection seats malfunctioned, killing Lieutenant Danil Trunov. The second crew member survived and was rescued.

At roughly the same time, on July 1 and July 3, Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, carried out repeated drone attacks on Saky airfield in occupied Crimea. Six aircraft shelters were hit, although it is not known what was inside them. The SBU claimed that it destroyed or damaged seven Su-30, Su-30SM, and Su-24 aircraft.

A video was later published showing an attack on a Russian Navy Su-24M at Saky airfield. In this case, however, the aircraft was a decommissioned airframe that had been serving as a decoy in an open area.

On Wednesday, July 8, the Ukrainian Armed Forces used drones to attack Borisoglebsk airfield in Russia’s Voronezh region. A fuel storage facility was destroyed in the attack.

On Wednesday, July 15, the Russian Air Force sent a Mi-28N helicopter to hunt Ukrainian drones in the Belgorod region. The hunter became the hunted, however, when a Ukrainian FPV drone attacked it from behind near the village of Vyazove. The Ukrainians claimed that the helicopter had been shot down, while the Russians claimed that it had suffered no damage whatsoever. The truth was somewhere in between: the helicopter was damaged but did not crash.

The following day, Thursday, July 16, a Russian air base, Engels-2 in Saratov region, became the target of Ukrainian long-range drones. Russian strategic bombers take off from this base to launch cruise missiles against Ukrainian cities. And one of these bombers will never launch its missiles again. A Tu-95MS was destroyed in the attack, and satellite imagery showed that it had lost the entire rear section of its fuselage behind the wings.

On Tuesday, July 21, Ukrainian drones attacked the Russian Kursk air base. A MiG-29 was hit, although it was a decommissioned aircraft—one of a pair that had been parked at that location since the beginning of 2024 (and had apparently spent a long time parked elsewhere before that).

The next losses occurred in accidents. On Thursday, July 23, Russia’s newest fighter, the Sukhoi Su-57, crashed near Odintsovo, a suburb of Moscow. It happened during a training flight, and the aircraft was not carrying any weapons. The pilot successfully ejected before the aircraft crashed.

A bizarre theory later emerged claiming that Ukrainian hackers had convinced a Russian air-defense unit that the aircraft was an enemy aircraft, causing the unit to shoot it down.

During training on Monday, July 27, an Aero L-39C Albatros from the 797th Training Regiment also crashed. The aircraft was performing aerobatic maneuvers in the area of Kushchyovskaya air base in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai. Neither of the two airmen aboard survived the crash.

A Su-35S burning on the ground after being shot down by a Ukrainian F-16.

A Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian Su-24M at Saky airbase. It was a decommissioned aircraft that was being used as a decoy.

A fire at the Russian Borisoglebsk airfield.

A Ukrainian FPV drone attacking a Russian Mi-28N helicopter.

A Tu-95MS destroyed at Engels-2 airbase.

One of a pair of Russian MiG-29s was hit at Kursk airbase.

The crash site of a Russian Su-57 fighter jet that crashed during a training flight near Odintsovo.

Ukrainian Losses

The Ukrainian Air Force also suffered losses during the period under review. Around the turn of June and July, the Ukrainian air base at Myrhorod in Poltava region was hit. Satellite imagery later emerged showing a burned area at the location where a decommissioned Su-27 fighter had been parked since September 2025.

A much more serious loss was an F-16 that was destroyed on Wednesday, July 29, while repelling a Russian attack. The pilot, from the 107th Separate Wing, reported that the aircraft had been damaged and ejected. The aircraft crashed near the village of Sushky in Poltava region, and the pilot was rescued.

Several holes were found in the aircraft’s wing and tail, suggesting that it was damaged either by a nearby explosion from a drone the pilot was attacking or by a missile explosion.

On the final day of the period under review, Friday, July 31, the Ukrainian Air Force also suffered fatalities. While repelling a Russian drone attack, a Mi-8 helicopter belonging to the Ukrainian Army Aviation crashed in Kirovohrad region. Captain Stanislav Krylov, Lieutenant Zachar Klimov, and Lieutenant Yaroslav Demchevskyi were killed.

The crash site of a Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet that crashed on July 29.

Illustrative photographs of Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters. One such aircraft was lost on July 31, along with its crew.