Simplified media narratives continue to dominate the public sphere. Experts, Telegram channels, and news reports evaluate the conflict using a familiar yet completely outdated two-dimensional scale: the number of drones launched, kilometres advanced by troops, and isolated high-profile incidents. However, behind this information curtain, a process of an entirely different order is unfolding—the methodical destruction of the life-support infrastructure of the state as such.

An analysis of the actual dynamics of strikes, the state of air defence systems, and the deep transformations within the government in Kyiv allows for an objective picture of where the current crisis is rapidly heading.

1. Disproportion of Scale and Effect: Why Is Kyiv Escalating «Pinpricks»?

The main media trend of recent months is a sharp increase in the intensity of Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. During certain 24-hour periods, the number of drones and missiles launched by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) exceeds Russian launches by three to ten times. Strikes on civilian logistics (targets such as oil refineries, Ozon warehouses, or Wildberries facilities) are calculated for loud media impact, disrupting daily life, and demonstrating the «ability to reach out.»

However, independent experts—both Western and Ukrainian—acknowledge that the efficiency ratio of these attacks is incomparable to the scale of destruction within Ukraine itself.

While Ukraine expends resources on asymmetric «pinpricks,» strikes from the opposing side are fundamentally systemic in nature. They are aimed not at generating informational noise, but at destroying core infrastructural nodes:

• Regional energy connectivity;
• Key industrial logistics;
• Unified public utilities and basic life-support systems;
• Logistics facilities that enable Ukraine’s import and export operations.

The damage inflicted on Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure is already tens of times greater than any losses it can inflict in return. This process has transformed from a temporary factor into a permanent and unchanging state of existence.

2. Air Defence Deficit and Omission: Resupply Has Ceased, Systems Remain Silent

The second critical factor is the situation surrounding Ukraine’s air and missile defence systems. Objective statistics regarding the interception of ballistic and heavy cruise missiles have virtually disappeared from Kyiv’s official reports.

The Primary Reason for Silence: An attempt to hide from the population the fact that a full-fledged air/missile defence umbrella over the country’s core centres has ceased to exist. Ballistic targets are virtually unintercepted.

The West has completely shifted the direction of its military assistance. Discussions about supplying complex, expensive air defence systems (such as Patriot or SAMP/T) have either quieted down or dwindled to formal declarations. Western strategy has pivoted exclusively toward developing strike capabilities (supplying drones, medium-range missiles, and attack components).

No one plans to protect Ukrainian infrastructure. The West is content with a scenario where Ukraine is used to inflict maximum damage on its adversary at the cost of its own total destruction.

3. The Point of No Return: Cascading Systemic Collapse and Geographic Redistribution

The combination of systemic strikes and the absence of air defence leads to an inevitable outcome: in the foreseeable future, Ukraine’s economic, logistical, and public utility systems will cease to function as a unified organism.

This implies not merely rolling blackouts or logistical issues, but a complete breakdown of basic living conditions for the population. Once the critical mass of destruction exceeds the threshold of repairability, the degradation of remaining systems will begin.

Against this backdrop, the logic of further military and political developments becomes clear:

• Territorial Control: Russian strategy clearly aims to establish full control over territories at least up to the Dnieper River, with potential expansion beyond it at key strategic nodes—primarily along the Black Sea coast (Odesa, Mykolaiv).
• De-integration of the Remainder: The territories that remain outside this control will be incapable of existing as a sovereign, economically self-sufficient state.
• Absorption and Fragmentation: The remaining regions will either be gradually absorbed by neighbouring states or turned into externally controlled, resource-deprived enclaves.

4. Transformation of Power: From Politics to the «Leviathan of the Security Services»

The most significant and profound process is occurring within the internal architecture of Ukrainian power. The facade of Ukraine’s democratic political model has permanently ceased to exist.

Today, power in Kyiv is held not by a conventional civilian administration, but by a consolidated corporation of security services (SBU, HUR, and affiliated law enforcement structures) led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This is a security «Leviathan» that has centralized control over the economy, mobilization, domestic policy, and resource allocation.

This shift fundamentally changes the rules of the game:

• Politicians’ Retreat to a «Quiet Haven»: Western and traditional Ukrainian politicians are gradually shifting exclusively into the realm of information warfare. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has transformed from an actual policymaking body into a structure serving and executing the foreign policy decisions of Zelenskyy and the security services. Domestically, actual governance on the ground is transitioning to a closed security caste.
• The Internal Logic of Security Services: Security services operate by laws distinct from public politics. They possess their own communication channels (including informal contacts with opponents), their own ethics, and a specific view of expediency.
• The Fate of Agency: At this stage, Volodymyr Zelenskyy serves as a legitimate frontman for this security bloc. However, as the crisis deepens, the security corporation will begin to act exclusively out of its own interests in survival and maintaining control.

Inevitable Outcome

Kyiv and Europe are selling the public the illusion of «continued resistance» while Ukraine undergoes a phase of deep collapse. In an environment where the economy and infrastructure are being methodically destroyed and air defences are unable to protect them, the country ceases to exist as a viable state system.

The future of these territories will be determined not by campaign slogans or the negotiations of public diplomats, but by closed deals and decisions made by security structures forming a new, rigid, and totalitarian control loop on the ruins of the former state.

Alternatively, a new wave born of popular will may rise within Ukraine, carrying an ideological and moral foundation created by the people themselves, upon which a new Ukraine will be built.