I observed all day and night how Russia attempted a massive attack. All morning I’ve been pondering how to explain to you what they are doing. Here’s a brief analysis, or rather the logic of Russian strikes over the past day.
In general, this was not a unique attack; such have occurred before. However, it is definitely different from those in winter. In winter, I wrote about three unique attacks that were clearly military. The level of coordination and involvement of command headquarters was visible. Yesterday’s attack was political, not military. I will explain briefly.
In winter, the targets were strategic — electricity, heat, generation. Yesterday — they were scattered, and they’ve definitely moved to summer targets. Water, sewage, logistics. But everything was spread out over time! The attack lasted up to 30 hours, with the missile part of the operation starting with Kinzhals at 8 PM, ending with cruise and ballistic missiles at night.
When I see claims that this was the biggest attack, the hardest night, an overload of air defense, it makes me want to facepalm… Yes, there were many targets, but they were all spaced out over time and, importantly, over territory!
A military objective is to strike/destroy a target. If 700 Shaheds were flying only to Kyiv — that’s where air defense exhaustion and attempts to breach the dome are seen. Synchronizing 700 Shaheds, 35 cruise missiles from strategic aviation, 16 Kalibrs from the sea, and 18 ballistic missiles on Kyiv, all arriving within half an hour — that is the height of military operation, General Staff planning, and utilizing all means to achieve military objectives. We’ve never seen that, and fortunately, we won’t.
Yesterday’s attack was definitely political, not military. To show their leadership — we harassed Ukraine for a day. They gathered missile reserves over a few weeks, collected Shaheds over three days of calm (May 9-11). After the Zircon strike, they stopped launching them from Crimea, utilizing Kinzhals. One definitely flew to Starokostiantyniv, a strike on our aviation before the night attack to reduce its potential. Aviation is now at its peak capacity of intercepting cruise missiles.
Look at this visualization. Over the day, Shaheds arrived across almost all of Ukraine. Every region was affected, meaning they can show a map indicating all regions were hit. This is a brilliant report to the higher leadership!
Traditionally, 18 ballistic missiles were launched at Kyiv, which means 9 Iskander launchers. The task was completed, and by morning official statements came out that the “retribution” strike was carried out, targets were hit. I read all this in the morning. Everything is going according to plan. It doesn’t matter how many we shot down — they terrorized Ukraine for a day. A report to the top, a picture of a destroyed entrance of a nine-story building — clearly for the masses. And for those in the dark: the mustachioed one babbled that they are already thinking about the trip of the big guy to China. They are playing up Trump’s visit to Musk in Xi. All of this is political acts, performances.
At night, I wrote on Telegram that at 3:27 there was ballistic activity, but the cruise missiles had not yet reached Kyiv, there would be more ballistics, because they need to synchronize some wave with the cruise missiles. And so it happened. There was ballistics, and if the cruise missiles hadn’t been shot down, maybe something would have coincided.
I am saying this because they are trying to synchronize something, but it’s not working out for them. And it is definitely to our luck and fortune that this is their situation.
That instead of military objectives, they work with political goals. What to report to the top (how many times Kup’yansk was taken), what to show the masses, how many regions were shelled. Compare, that at night we can only shell Perm, Samara, and Tuapse, and they — launched 1700 aerial targets, terrorized and hit targets in ALL REGIONS OF UKRAINE, they can even show a visualization on the map. Here it is, in this post.
This is their logic. They didn’t take Kalibers and Zircons, this time there was no “fleet” at all, they launched all the savings of recent days on Shaheds, and not even one Kh-101 missile reached/crossed into Ukraine. 35 is an odd number under the wings of the Tu-95MS. And here is our luck.
Even in that today there may be a continuation, because they didn’t use Kalibers, Zircons or Tu-22s with Kh-32 missiles, we also got lucky. They can’t launch all of this together, especially not synchronize it. Yes, 100% interception will never happen, but we still need to be glad that the latest attacks are political, to show and report better, not to destroy.
And we are very lucky to have such air defense forces. Continuously intercepting around 80% — no one in the world can do this. The war in Iran showed it. And the burning from Tuapse to Perm shows us, even without missiles we lower the work rate of Russian air defense far below 80% 😉.
P.S. I veered off topic a bit, when I wanted to explain why I facepalmed at some materials. The main thing is, many people don’t understand that in layered air defense, specific interception means correspond to specific targets. You can’t overload MHG groups against Shaheds, airplanes, and IRIS-T against cruise missiles with ballistics. It’s all different.
Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov / Texty
On May 13-14, the Defense Forces of Ukraine repelled one of the largest Russian air attacks. The enemy used over 1500 aerial attack means.
Russia Failed to Overload Air Defense
The attack occurred in two waves: a massive drone strike on May 13 (almost 800 UAVs) and a combined strike with the use of drones and missiles on the night of May 14 (56 missiles and 675 UAVs).
Beskrestnov emphasized that Ukraine successfully withstood the attempt to overload air defense with strike UAVs.
“More than 1500 in a day. This has never been seen in the world. 95% of the UAVs were shot down and neutralized. This is a fantastic result. A deep bow to all the military of all branches and the Territorial Defense Forces who protected us,” wrote Serhii Beskrestnov.
The expert added that interceptor drones shot down about 30% of all UAVs, which is a significant percentage that continues to grow.
According to him, the proportion of jet-powered “Shaheds” and guided “Shaheds” in this air attack was small. It is evident that the enemy relied on the mass use of regular Shahed-type drones, noted “Flash.”
Repeated Ballistic Strikes
“Missiles caused trouble, especially in Kyiv. There are hits on residential buildings and on the territory of civilian enterprises… Particularly cynical were repeated ballistic strikes in the same places a few hours later. This is how the enemy tried to kill rescuers working on site,” noted Serhii Beskrestnov.
The expert concluded that the goal of the Russian attack also included critical infrastructure objects, Ukrzaliznytsia, and logistics.
Photo: Consequences of the shelling in Kyiv on May 14, 2026. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
