Russia’s armed forces have bombarded at least nine cities across Ukraine with missiles and drones. Locals describe it as a relentless onslaught that continued through the night of Wednesday, 26 August, and into the daylight hours of Thursday, 27 August, with explosions echoing across the capital, Kyiv, for most of the morning.
Technology and the Ukraine War Merge
Tim Murry, a foreign threats compound contractor, drives a T-72 battle tank into position to serve as adversary targets for a joint service exercise, Emerald Flag, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Nov. 30. Emerald Flag is a multi-service exercise aimed to unify information sharing across joint domain platforms. (U.S. Air Force photo/1st Lt Karissa Rodriguez)
T-72 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Since 2023, Apple iOS-powered phones and iPads, as well as other smart devices, can download an application that sounds a loud air raid siren, what is called the “trivoga” in Ukraine. It sounds an alert on a phone or tablet whenever the city or cities the user selects in the app are under an air alert, or when incoming Russian missiles and drones are spotted on radar.
The voice of Mark Hamill, the famous American actor from the Star Wars franchise, is then heard announcing an air-raid alert, ordering all persons to take cover, and then adding famous lines from the series of films, like “Don’t be careless — Your overconfidence is your weakness.”
When the all-clear signal is given, Hamill then announces that the alert is over and then adds, “May the Force be with you.”
The trivoga app on my iPhone had been going off so often in the past 24 hours – and had continued on into this Thursday evening. Thankfully, I am in Florida at the moment, monitoring events.
It sounded so often that I wondered if it was somehow malfunctioning.
I rang a longtime friend in Kyiv to ask what was happening with so many attacks or if my phone had gone haywire.
He informed me that there was nothing wrong with either my iPhone or the app.
“The alert has been going off what seems like every 15 minutes today,” he explained. “All everyone hears last night and into today is one explosion after another.”
Same Old Problem
The several levels of magnitude escalation in Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities is obviously in full swing, said a former senior US European theatre military officer.
Ukrainian officials explain that the Russian strategy is to build up missile stocks using round-the-clock production lines.
They will then launch attacks with increasing numbers of missiles and drones, as well as in more frequent combined waves of both.
These major attacks occur every few days with the Russian objective of trying to overpower Ukrainian defenses through sheer numbers. In the process, they are also doing their best to exhaust Kyiv’s dwindling supplies of missile defense system interceptors.
Ukraine is therefore confronted with the same problem it has been experiencing for months now – only now on a larger and growing scale. Simply put, Ukraine is desperately short of the made Patriot air-defense interceptor missiles, specifically the Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) model, the only effector in the system capable of countering Russia’s ballistic missiles.
On top of the increased missile threat, Moscow is increasingly using fast-flying, jet-powered drones. These are the Geran-3, Geran-4, and Geran-5 models that are replacing the much slower propeller-driven Geran-2 design.
The latter are propeller-driven models that have become largely ineffective, as Ukraine has become capable of intercepting almost 90 percent of those launched against its cities and other targets.
In June, it was reported that Russia had increased the use of these jet-powered models eightfold and had launched 1400 units as of June 2026. In comparison, there were only 180 such launches in 2025.
Indiscriminate Targeting
Russia’s Defense Ministry has insisted it is targeting military-related sites, including industrial facilities, oil refineries, logistics hubs, and port infrastructure. However, a large number of places hit are civilian population areas, including apartment buildings that are suffering damage almost every day.
According to Kyiv city authorities, a sports facility was damaged, and local Telegram channels reported a fire at the Valerii Lobanovskyi Stadium. This is the home of the Dynamo Kyiv football club, located in the city center and far away from any military-related facility.
One of these recent barrages killed a 78-year-old woman in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and another person in the northern Kharkiv region. No less than another 14 people were reported wounded in other regions, Ukrainian officials said.
“Russia continues to invest in missiles and in expanding its war, and that means more countermeasures are needed,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on social media.
He also mentioned promises made earlier this week by European countries to provide more air defense assistance.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
