Ukraine is about to get more of its best long-range missiles and drones. A lot more, and fast.

At a meeting of Ukrainian and allied leaders on London on Tuesday, German and British officials separately announced major investment in Ukraine’s deep-strike capabilities.

Germany will spend an additional $350 million on long-range munitions for Ukraine. The U.K. will buy “thousands” of one-way attack drones for Ukraine over the next year.

Given that a single Ukrainian attack drone in the class of the Fire Point FP-1 might cost just $50,000—and a heavier Ukroboronprom An-196 might cost a couple hundred thousand dollars—the new German and British spending could put nearly 10,000 deep-strike drones on the tarmac by the fall of 2026.

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That’s … a lot of drones. And most of them are destined to strike Russian soil. “Ukraine is increasingly taking the war to Russia now,” American-Ukrainian war correspondent David Kirichenko wrote in a new essay for The Atlantic Council.

Back in December, Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Ukraine would acquire 30,000 one-way attack drones in 2025. But it’s clear this production will exceed that figure. Fire Point alone claims it’s building 100 FP-1s a day.

Ukraine’s homegrown deep-strike arsenal includes dozens of drone types including pilotless sport planes than can drop bombs and then return to base to reload. It also includes one of the most powerful ground-launched cruise missiles in the world: the new Fire Point Flamingo: a seven-ton behemoth that may range as far as 3,000 km with a 1,100-kg warhead.

Deepening strikes

After two years of escalation, Ukraine’s campaign of deep strikes targeting Russian air bases, factories, and oil refineries can now hold at risk targets thousands of kilometers inside Russia. But the heaviest strikes occur at a range no farther than 1,000 km from the border with Ukraine.

In this zone, no facility is safe. Russia’s air defenses are spread too thin to protect every possible target.

In a series of increasingly destructive raids on Russian oil refineries last month, Ukrainian drones throttled Russia’s refinery output by a staggering 24%. Besides costing the Russian economy billions of dollars, the hits on refineries have also led to gasoline shortages in some Russian regions.

Churning out many thousands of long-range drones and missiles a month at workshops spread across the country, Ukrainian industry is helping the Ukrainian military and special services match Russia’s own drone and missile strikes.

The Russians routinely launch hundreds of cruise and ballistic missiles and Shahed drones at Ukrainian cities, sometimes several times a week. The Shahed is Russia’s main deep-strike munition. Russian forces flung around 6,000 of the explosive drones at Ukraine in July alone.

Soon, Ukraine should be able to fling back roughly as many FP-1s, An-196s, Flamingos, and other munitions.

It gets worse for the Russians. The aims of Russia and Ukraine’s respective deep-strike campaigns couldn’t be more different. Russia’s goal is to inflict terror on civilians. Ukraine’s goal is to inflict military and economic damage.

Ukraine’s Fire Point builds 100 attack drones every day, all day—aimed at Russia

What that means, in practice, is that Russia’s drone and missile campaign mostly targets Ukrainian cities in a country of just 603,400 square km. Ukraine’s drones and missiles target air bases, factories, and refineries in a country of 17 million square km.

Ukraine’s air defense problem is hard but simple. Ukrainian air defenses must contend with nearly daily raids involving potentially hundreds of drones and missiles, but they can concentrate around the biggest cities that are the Russians’ main targets.

By contrast, Russia’s air defense problem is hard and complex. “The Kremlin simply does not have enough air defense systems to protect thousands of potential military and energy targets spread across 11 time zones,” Kirichenko wrote.

Russia’s goal is to inflict terror on civilians. Ukraine’s goal is to inflict military and economic damage.

Ukrainian strike planners already have a lot of options. And these options are only growing as more foreign financing flows into the expanding Ukrainian munitions industry.

It’s possible, as 2025 grinds toward 2026, that Ukrainian strikes on Russia will inflict more lasting damage than Russian strikes inflict on Ukraine. After all, civilian morale is a renewable resource. An oil refinery, by contrast, is a difficult thing to fix once it burns to the ground.