Russia’s aerial campaign against Ukraine intensified again over the past month, according to fresh monitoring data, with the number of recorded strikes reaching one of the highest levels since the full-scale invasion began.
The conflict-tracking group ACLED logged more than 3,550 air- and drone-strike events across Ukraine, a further month-on-month rise in a year that has already seen a marked escalation. Russian forces launched at least 6,804 long-range drones and missiles over the period, the data showed.
The figures describe a war that, far from winding down, has settled into a pattern of relentless bombardment of Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure. Each monthly tally in 2026 has tended to exceed the last.
The human cost has been visible in individual attacks. A Russian missile strike on Kyiv this month killed at least two dozen people, one of the deadliest single assaults on the capital in recent months.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has defended his own military’s long-range strikes on Russian targets as “entirely justified,” framing them as a necessary response to the scale of the attacks his country is absorbing.
The intensifying air war has unfolded against a diplomatic backdrop crowded by other crises, including the conflict with Iran, which has drawn much of Washington’s attention and military planning.
For Ukrainian civilians, the monitoring data translate into a now-familiar rhythm of air-raid alerts, interrupted power supplies and nights spent in shelters, with little sign of the tempo easing.