Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) have struck Russian targets worth nearly $40 billion in the year since the branch's creation, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. On 10 June, the Ukrainian president signed a decree establishing the Day of Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS Day).

The $40 billion cumulative damage figure Zelenskyy cited represents a 57% increase over the $25.5 billion in cumulative Russian losses that Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi reported in April 2026.

The SBS Day decree institutionalizes the unmanned forces as a permanent feature of Ukraine's military doctrine, alongside the army, navy, and air force.

What Zelenskyy said about SBS's achievements

"Only a year since the creation of the SBS group, Russian targets at various levels worth nearly $40 billion have already been hit," Zelenskyy said in his evening address.

He added that SBS is really a model for many other armies, and "these months we are especially grateful for middlestrikes."

"Russian military logistics across the entire depth of the temporarily occupied territory is now accessible to Ukrainian drones. The Russian border zone also experiences our impact," he stated.

The president added that Russia already feels the effect of these strikes, and Ukraine will continue to scale them.

"The most important thing is that these are different types of strikes, and each one adds to our ability to save lives," the Ukrainian president added.

What does middlestrike mean operationally? 

The middlestrike concept Zelenskyy invoked refers to Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian military logistics in the depth of occupied territory and across the Russian border zone. The depth zone covers Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea, and parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts. The Russian border zone reaches Belgorod and Kursk. Middlestrikes sit between the very-long-range deep strikes against strategic Russian infrastructure, such as the Volgograd refineries, and the tactical frontline FPV operations. The SBS is led by Brigadier General Robert Brovdi, call sign "Madiar".

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Military activity has been reported near all Ukraine’s operating nuclear power plants: Khmelnytskyy, Rivne, and South Ukraine, and the Chornobyl site, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). IAEA teams recorded more than 100 drones within observation zones around nuclear facilities over the past two weeks, with some as close as 2 kilometers from the facilities.

The Chornobyl drone strike landed at a centralized spent-fuel storage facility in the exclusion zone, just hundreds of meters from where spent nuclear fuel from Ukrainian operating reactors is kept in containers.

“Attacking a facility with large amounts of nuclear material is extremely dangerous. It must not happen,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said.

What happened at Zaporizhzhia NPP on 30 May 

On 30 May 2026, a drone struck the turbine hall of Unit 6 at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP.

During subsequent inspections, IAEA specialists documented a hole in the wall and local damage to the metal cladding of an empty pipe located several meters from the impact point.

Experts are continuing to assess the condition of the affected area and the potential consequences of the incident.

“This is the first time since April 2024 that military activity has directly impacted the ZNPP site,” Grossi said.

ZNPP has been under Russian military occupation since March 2022 and remains a continuous focus of IAEA monitoring. The IAEA statement does not attribute the drone strike to either Russia or Ukraine.

Legal frame: Geneva Convention Article 56 protection

Nuclear power plants and similar installations containing dangerous forces are explicitly protected under Article 56 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits attacks that may release dangerous forces and cause severe losses among the civilian population.

The IAEA does not formally categorize incidents at Ukrainian nuclear sites as war crimes within this framework, which would require a UN Commission of Inquiry or ICC finding. The IAEA's role is technical and monitoring-focused. 

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