Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has lauded a highly coordinated, week-long campaign of asymmetric deep strikes against Russia’s domestic military and energy infrastructure, revealing that operations are penetrating nearly 1,000 kilometers behind the front lines. In a video statement published to his Telegram channel on Saturday, May 16, Zelensky referred to the attacks as Ukraine’s “long-range sanctions” on the Kremlin’s war machine. “This is a completely fair response to what the Russians are doing,” Zelensky wrote, promising that both the distance and frequency of these long-range strikes will continue to expand.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. A multi-theater path of destruction The statement follows a massive, unified offensive executed overnight on Friday by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), the Security Service (SBU), the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR), and the newly formed Unmanned Systems Forces (USF). According to USF Commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, drone operators executed 55 confirmed strikes hitting 23 high-value strategic targets across mainland Russia and occupied territories. The confirmed tally of targeted hardware includes a rare Be-200 Altair amphibious aircraft and a Ka-27 naval anti-submarine helicopter, both struck at a coastal staging ground in Morskoy near Yeysk, a Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile system in the occupied Luhansk region and a Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft system in Crimea. Brovdi noted these represented the 16th and 17th Russian air defense units eliminated in the first half of May alone.