The parts of Russia that once felt too far away to worry about are now on Ukraine's strike map, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after a meeting with his top military commanders on 26 July. Kyiv will press ahead with its long-range campaign and has updated which sites to hit first, he added. The commanders did not reveal the targets themselves.

Kyiv's commanders sign off on the next phase

Zelenskyy convened Ukraine's military leadership to review the long-range strikes. He left with two decisions—keep the operations going and refresh the priority list. 

Photos the President posted showed new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Mykhailo Drapatyi, acting Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara and Chief of the General Staff Ihor Skybiuk among those at the table. Kyiv chose the new priorities by one measure: how much each site damages Russia's ability to keep waging the war.

Zelenskyy once again called the effort Ukraine's plan of "long-range sanctions," carried out along set priorities.

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Russia's depth stops being an advantage

Ukrainian strike distances now run past 3,000 km, Zelenskyy noted, saying Kyiv keeps building the range to reach further. For years, Russia's size kept its factories and fuel plants out of harm's way. 

"The strategic depth of the rear, which for a long time was a Russian advantage, is now becoming a particular problem for Russia's political and military leadership," he said. 

Most of Russia's air defense, he noted, sits bunched around Moscow, state residences, the Kerch Strait Bridge and St. Petersburg. Ukrainian drones, he added, have shown they can reach targets in the Urals, in Siberia and in other lands far from the capital.

What Ukraine has hit—and what it still targets

Since the plan began this year, Ukraine has run more than a thousand fire missions, striking oil sites, critical military production and key nodes of Russian logistics, Zelenskyy said. Several parallel deep- and mid-range campaigns run at once. They target:

• oil and fuel sites in Russia and occupied territories
• military factories
• ships in the Azov and Black seas
• the power grid in occupied Crimea
• air defense, logistics and military bases across the occupied areas
• Wildberries, a Russian Amazon-style retailer that also moves non-lethal military gear and drone components

Zelenskyy did not name the specific new targets. Neither has he reiterated all the well-known ones.

The goal is a push toward talks

The point of all this pressure, Zelenskyy said, is to force Russia toward negotiations. He wants the strikes to make weapons components harder to build, pile up oil and economic losses, and, in his words, bring the war back to its "home harbor." Ukraine has handed Russia's leadership everything it needs to end the war on decent terms, he said, and its partners know what that takes. 

"Our precision is working effectively to create conditions for real diplomacy," Zelenskyy said.

Recent long-range hits

Several notable long-range strikes occurred in the days before the meeting. On 24 July, an FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile hit the Avitek military plant in Kirov, about 1,200 km from Ukraine. The next day, drones hit the Tyumen oil refinery some 2,000 km out and set fire to a Wildberries warehouse in Yekaterinburg roughly 1,800 km away.

Ukraine struck deep inside Russia on the morning of 24 July 2026, hitting a defense plant in the city of Kirov with a Flamingo cruise missile, according to monitoring channels. The target builds ejection seats for Russia's fighter jets, along with anti-aircraft missiles and other aviation gear. The Ukrainian company that makes the Flamingo indirectly confirmed the strike.

A Flamingo missile hits Kirov

Ukraine's Defense Forces struck the Avitek plant in Kirov on the morning of 24 July, some 1,200 km from Ukraine. Residents woke to explosions and a fire, Russian news Telegram channel Astra reported. Monitoring Telegram channel Exilenova+ published videos of a thick black column of smoke rising over the city, and wrote that a missile may have hit the plant. 

Astra, citing open-source analysts, identified the burning site as Avitek, and Russians filming the strike said the hit landed on the factory. 

Fire Point confirms the strike

Denys Shtilierman, co-owner and chief designer of Ukrainian missile maker Fire Point, confirmed the strike on X, posting a flamingo emoji beside a cited tweet. 

He later posted footage of the launch. 

Monitoring channels noted that the missile hit one of the plant's central buildings.

What the Avitek plant makes

Avitek — formally the Vyatka Machine-Building Enterprise — belongs to Russia's Almaz-Antey air-defense concern, according to tracker OSINT Varta. It is the country's only serial producer of ejection seats for every fighter and attack aircraft in Russia's fleet. The plant also turns out anti-aircraft guided missiles, target missiles, and air-target simulators, plus winches and beam holders for warplanes.

The works supplies engines for Tor air-defense systems and parts for the Kh-101 and Kh-59 missiles that Russia fires at Ukrainian cities. It also builds, repairs, and modernizes the K-36DM ejection seats used in the Su-34 and Su-57 jets. Ukraine's military intelligence project War & Sanctions lists Avitek as a maker of surface-to-air missiles tied to Tor production. 

Where the Flamingo has struck before

Ukraine's Flamingo campaign has widened through the summer. 

• On 27 June, the missile destroyed parts of two buildings at the Titan-Barrikady plant in Volgograd, a launcher maker inside Russia's Roscosmos space corporation, after at least five Flamingos struck the site that day. 

• On 10 June, the missiles hit the VNIIR-Progress plant in Cheboksary, which makes satellite-navigation antennas for the Russian army.

• On 1 July, drones hit the Mayak plant and a physical-measurements institute in Penza, both involved in equipping the Su-57. 

• The day before the Kirov strike, one of Russia's Su-57 stealth fighters crashed near Moscow, possibly downed by its own side's air defenses.