Putin Intensifies Missile Attacks Against Kyiv Ahead of NATO Summit
Executive Summary:
- Russia compressed its schedule of mass missile attacks, launching major strikes on Kyiv on July 2 and July 7 after stockpiling weapons during May and June. The campaign comes as Russia faces record casualties, declining public support, worsening economic conditions, and strong European resolve to expand military aid for Ukraine.
- Despite Kyiv’s vulnerability to ballistic missiles, Russia has not dramatically increased their use because Ukrainian strikes have disrupted missile production and supply chains. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s much-publicized Oreshnik missile has also failed to become a regular operational weapon.
- The Kremlin paired the July attacks with exaggerated battlefield claims and messaging aimed at the July North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, portraying the strikes as retaliation while falsely touting the capture of Kostyantynivka.
Massive Russian missile strikes on Kyiv on July 2 and July 7 marked a shortened interval between large-scale air attacks. In 2025 and the beginning of 2026, Russia typically carried out three to four such assaults every month, each comprising about 500 drones, 24 cruise missiles, and 24 ballistic missiles (Re: Russia, June 16). In May and June combined, only four of these attacks occurred, meaning the Kremlin accumulated a stock of weapons for the double strike in July. In all these assaults, Ukraine intercepted close to 90 percent of drones and cruise missiles (TopWar.ru, July 3). Ballistic missiles, however, inflicted major damage. Only U.S.-supplied batteries of MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missiles are capable of intercepting Russian ground-launched Iskander-M and air-launched Kinzhal missiles. Ukraine’s shortage of these interceptors leaves Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities exposed to direct ballistic missile hits (Meduza, July 2).
Moscow is perfectly aware of this vulnerability. Russia, however, has not exploited this advantage by scaling up ballistic missile use. The main Russian producer, the Votkinsk plant, was hit by Ukrainian missiles only once, in February, but its supply chains have been crippled by strikes on plants in Voronezh, Volgograd, and other localities (Volgograd-KP.ru, July 3). Production of other missiles, such as the Bulava sea-launched missile in Votkinsk, is probably paused, so the newest Knyaz Pozharsky submarine, which joined the Northern Fleet in August 2025, has not even performed a test launch (DeepStorm.ru, July 4). Russian President Vladimir Putin used to brag about the destructive power of the medium-range Oreshnik ballistic missile, but admitted that the strike on May 24 was a test rather than a “true combat use” (see EDM, June 15; The Insider, June 29). An anticipated follow-up launch in mid-June never materialized.
Putin has recently described Russian strikes as “retaliation” for Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. In his view, Ukrainian mid- and long-range strikes are attempts to cover up the supposedly relentless offensive operations of Russian forces (Re: Russia, June 30). On July 3, Putin staged a visit to an oddly decorated command center to listen to elaborate reports on the supposed capture of the Ukrainian city of Kostyantynivka, which available evidence suggests is untrue. Mainstream Russian media and jingoist commentators hailed this major “victory” (Rossiiskaya Gazeta; TopWar.ru, July 4). Chaotic fighting in Kostyantynivka is continuing, and the declarations on its “liberation” are as disingenuous and openly self-aggrandizing as the Kremlin’s false claims that it captured Kupiansk last November, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited in mid-December (Novaya Gazeta Europe, July 4). Russia’s spring–summer offensive in Donbas has yielded minuscule territorial gains at the expense of record-high casualties. Putin’s order to sustain attacks and keep the strategic initiative may bring the demoralized Russian “big battalions” to the brink of breakdown (Radio Svoboda, July 2; NV.ua, July 5).
One pressing reason for Putin’s expansive declaratory offensive is the decline of his popularity. Even semi-official opinion polls cannot hide this downturn (Meduza, July 3). Russians may be remarkably indifferent to mounting casualties, but the Kremlin cannot hide black smoke from Russian refineries and long lines of cars at gas stations (Levada Center, July 2). Putin’s claims of strengthening air defense are disproved every day with Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s target-rich energy infrastructure. The widespread understanding of the inevitability of greater damage from further Ukrainian strikes paints a gloomy economic outlook (The Moscow Times, July 1). Russia is sinking into economic recession, and government technocrats no longer appear as hopeful about limiting its depth and duration (Carnegie Politika, July 1).
Putin timed his July 2 and July 7 strikes on Kyiv to make an impression on the July 7–8 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Türkiye (Gazeta.ru, July 5). Putin announced a thorough evaluation of the volume of support to Ukraine from NATO member states, saying, “We need this analysis for possible decision-making in the future” (RBC, July 3). Moscow experts are eager to clarify that this threat is aimed specifically at the Baltic states because of their involvement in military cooperation with Ukraine and alleged help in channeling the drone attacks to St. Petersburg (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, June 29). Other Russian pundits claim that Europe has lost its fear of a direct military conflict with Russia, but that the U.S. intention is to stay away from such a clash (RIAC, June 25).
Russian media is predicting a split in NATO after U.S. President Donald Trump’s call with Putin on July 4 (President of Russia, July 4; Kommersant, July 5). Patriotic commentators argued that the capture of Kostyantynivka prompted Trump to make the long call, without noting that he had first spoken with Zelenskyy (RBC, July 4; News.ru, July 5). Trump, however, has received plenty of insights on Russia’s dire political and economic situation, including from the European allies at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Evian, undermining Putin’s claims that he is progressing from one victory to another (BFM.RU, July 5). Tiny alterations in the wide “kill-zone” are of scant significance for the course of the war, but the crisis in Russia’s finances certainly is (The Moscow Times, July 2).
Contradicting Putin directly is impossible in the rigidly policed Russian public spaces. Various expressions of discontent with the deadlocked war and escalating confrontation with the West, however, are appearing even in mainstream Russian media (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 28). Putin’s rigid course of continuing the war is increasingly perceived not as “more of the same” but as a slide down a steep slope toward disaster. Expectations in Moscow for a break in this downhill trajectory granted by a surge of discord at the NATO summit in Ankara are in the category of a desperate stretch of imagination rather than sober assessments. Large attacks on Kyiv are generating stronger European resolve to deter and extinguish the Russian threat in all its manifestations.