Last weekend, as Russians were heading to the polls to vote in a meaningless parliamentary election stocked with Kremlin-approved candidates, Ukraine unleashed one of its biggest drone attacks to date. According to Russian authorities, approximately 1,600 Ukrainian drones entered Russian airspace in what appeared to be an attempt by Kyiv to disrupt the voting process. The Russians knocked down the vast majority, but some managed to hit their targets. A few struck the oil refinery serving Moscow, an extension of Ukraine’s monthslong deep strike campaign that aims, in part, to exacerbate Russia’s domestic energy shortages.

Kyiv’s latest strike comes at a time when the war, deep into its fifth year, remains at a standstill on the ground. Any advances at the front have been minuscule. The Russian army continues to lose tens of thousands of troops a month, leading some observers to wonder whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will order another mobilization to compensate for the Kremlin’s recruitment struggles. Ukraine and Russia have spent the year terrorizing each other from the air as both use ever more powerful bombs to sap the other’s morale. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be at the United Nations in New York this week, no doubt using his meeting with President Donald Trump and the Europeans to press them for more air defense interceptors.

It’s the situation outside Ukraine, however, that’s even more concerning. While Russian destabilization campaigns are........

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