Call the round early, because Russia’s bell has just been rung. When the great northern bear first roped off the ring in 2022, it counted on demolishing its shorter, slighter cousin in record time. But both the people and leaders of Ukraine have shown an energy, resolution, and an ability to absorb the heaviest body blows that have taken Russian strongman Vladimir Putin by surprise. Even after three years of hard fighting against an opponent far above its weight class, Ukraine has once again delivered a devastating combination of strikes from a position that Russia — and, for that matter, everyone else — failed to see coming.

This past weekend, Ukrainian drones struck four of Russia’s military airports, destroying or damaging more than 40 warplanes. These included “supersonic Tu-22M long-range bombers, Tu-95 flying fortresses, [and] A-50 early warning warplanes,” sometimes known as “flying radar.” The crippled airplanes represent roughly 34% of the aircraft used in Russia’s merciless pounding of Ukrainian cities, according to Ukrainian intelligence estimates.

“By killing the archers instead of intercepting the arrows, it’s a more effective way to degrade Russian capabilities,” assessed Institute for the Study of War analyst George Barros. Such losses are hardly replaceable, and they substantially reduce Russia’s air superiority in Ukrainian skies.

Ukraine invested a year-and-a-half in Operation “Spider’s Web,” as the attack was codenamed. First, Ukrainian intelligence smuggled hundreds of low-cost, “quadcopter” drones into Russian territory. Then, they smuggled in wooden containers, specially designed to both conceal and deliver the devices. Ukrainian operatives loaded the drone boxes into trucks positioned near Russian air bases. Finally, after extricating its operatives from the range of Moscow’s inevitable wrath, Ukraine opened the wooden containers remotely, releasing swarms of drones toward their targets.

“Ukraine has achieved a success on par with Israel’s pager attacks,” exclaimed National Review’s Noah Rothman.

The most astonishing — and, for Russia, alarming — feature of Ukraine’s attack was its geographical reach. Ukrainian drones hit Russian bases as far away as Olenya, 1,300 miles from Ukraine, by Russia’s Arctic border with Norway, and Belaya, 3,000 miles away, near Russia’s border with Mongolia (in Irkutsk, for those familiar with the Risk territory).

“This is exactly what wars of the future will look like,” cheered Ukrainian official Iryna Vereshchuk. “This is not yet a knockout, but quite a serious knockdown for the enemy.”

Nor is this the only blow Ukraine has landed against its brawny belligerent. On Saturday, long-range Ukrainian drones hit a cruise-missile factory, a drone factory, a microelectronics plant, and a chemical plant deep in Russia. Russia claimed that it shot down 296 Ukrainian drones, little expecting the losses it was about to suffer. In another inexpensive technological breakthrough last month, Ukrainian naval drones shot down two Russian fighter jets over the Black Sea, apparently the first time that an uncrewed surface vessel has downed a crewed jet in the history of warfare.

Ukrainians have paired this battlefield MacGyver-ism with a broad adherence to the laws of war. Even when firing deep into Russia, Ukraine limits its attacks to such legitimate targets as military armaments and military production facilities. By contrast, last week Russia launched an estimated 355 drones and nine cruise missiles at Ukrainian population centers, killing at least 12 civilians. The U.N. estimated in November 2024 that Ukraine has suffered a daily average of 16 children — not just civilians, but children — killed or injured.

Meanwhile, Russian ground forces are making painfully slow advances. “For four consecutive months, the Russians gained less territory than the preceding month,” summarized National Review’s Jim Geraghty. “In March, Russia advanced 99 square miles, a land mass roughly the size of the city limits of Sacramento. In April, Russia broke the streak by gaining 166 square miles, a land mass roughly the size of the city limits of Wichita.”

Ukraine stretches across 233,062 square miles (slightly smaller than Texas), and Russia currently controls 20% of its territory. At this rate (using a rough average of 130 square miles gained each month), it would take Russia 120 years to conquer the last of Ukraine’s territory.

It’s good to see the second Trump administration belatedly coming to realize the evil nature of Putin’s regime. And it’s good to see the U.S. continuing to pursue a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

But it’s also good to remember that the West can and should negotiate from a position of strength. “Ukraine’s battlefield successes … provide[s] yet more evidence that America’s partners abroad are not the burdens their detractors make them out to be,” Rothman reflected. “They are clever and brave, ambitious and steadfast. Their fight against our mutual enemies represents a profound contribution to our own safety and the preservation of the geopolitical order we take for granted.”