Russia has launched its most aggressive wave of assaults in Ukraine in months and made its fastest territorial gains since late 2024, according to Ukrainian analysts and Western intelligence sources.

Ukraine stunned Moscow on Sunday with its drone strike on multiple air bases deep inside Russian territory. Kyiv claims to have destroyed 41 warplanes as it launched 117 drones in the operation codenamed ‘Spider’s Web’.

The challenge is that Russia has China’s industrial backing, allowing it to scale more effectively than Ukraine. China produces 80 percent of the world’s fiber-optic supply. Russia has far more state finances to allow the purchasing of these supplies, while Ukraine still heavily relies on volunteers to drive some of these efforts .

While the full extent of the damage is still unknown, the operation shows how Kyiv has been able to adapt and evolve over the war using drones.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action. The agreement emerged Monday at the latest peace talks in Turkey, where the two sides met for just over an hour, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian state media said.