PDB Afternoon Bulletin | June 29th, 2026: Ukraine Launches A Major Offensive Against Russia & U.S.-Iran 'Stand Down'

**Mike Baker** (0:12)
It's Monday, the 29th of June. Welcome to The PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Ukraine says that it's entered a new phase of the war, launching a 40 day campaign of deep strikes designed to pressure Russia into ending the conflict. Later in the show, the US and Iran are reportedly putting the brakes on their latest military confrontation, agreeing to halt further strikes while negotiations continue or supposedly continue. Perhaps we'll have the latest. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. For months, Ukraine has steadily expanded its campaign of long range strikes inside Russia targeting oil refineries and fuel depots, air bases and defense factories in an effort to raise the cost of the war for Moscow.
But this week, President Zelensky revealed something relatively new. Those attacks are now part of a 40-day operation designed to pressure Russia into ending the war. Speaking after a meeting with the head of Ukraine's security service, known as the SBU, Zelensky announced that he'd approved a campaign of medium and long range strikes aimed at increasing military, economic and political pressure on the Kremlin. Now, he did not offer a lot of operational details, as you would expect, but he made the objective clear. Rather than relying solely on battlefield gains, Ukraine intends to steadily raise the cost of continuing the war by striking the infrastructure that keeps Russia's military running. In many ways, Ukraine is just codifying existing strategy. Over the past several months, Ukrainian drones and missiles have repeatedly struck key energy and military infrastructure deep inside Russian territory. Those attacks have disrupted fuel production, temporarily closed airports around Moscow and forced Russia to devote increasing resources to protecting infrastructure that was once considered safely beyond Ukraine's reach.
Ukrainian officials also say the campaign is forcing Moscow into difficult strategic decisions. According to Kyiv, Russia has redeployed valuable air defense systems to protect two of its highest priority assets. That would be the capital, Moscow, and the Kerch Bridge connecting mainland Russia to occupied Crimea.
Every air defense battery, of course, moved to protect those locations is one that can't be used elsewhere, leaving other military facilities and industrial sites more vulnerable to future attacks.
Crimea, meanwhile, appears to be a central focus of the operation. As we've reported on the PDB, Ukrainian strikes across the occupied peninsula have damaged railway infrastructure, fuel facilities, electrical systems and military installations. Kyiv says its objective is to isolate Crimea by systematically disrupting the roads and rail lines, ports and fuel supplies that sustain the Russian troops there. Ukrainian officials have even suggested that Russian troops on the peninsula could eventually face what amounts to a logistical siege if those supply routes continue to deteriorate. Early Saturday morning, Ukraine announced that it had struck the Titan Barakady defense plant in Russia's Volgograd region using its domestically produced FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles. Now the facility is one of the crown jewels of Russia's defense industrial base. Producing mobile launch systems for the Yars and Topol-M strategic missile forces, along with launchers for the Iskander missile system and other heavy artillery platforms. At roughly the same time, Ukraine's security service announced a separate drone strike against the Vtorovo oil pumping station in Russia's Vladimir region. According to Ukrainian officials, that facility serves as a key logistics hub for transporting petroleum products across Western Russia and for export abroad, making it another high-value target and keeps effort to disrupt Russia's military logistics and energy infrastructure.
Taken together, these strikes offer perhaps the clearest picture of what Ukraine's 40-day campaign is intended to accomplish. The goal is to steadily force the Kremlin to spend more resources defending its own territory, while making it increasingly difficult and expensive to sustain offensive operations inside Ukraine.
Whether 40 days of sustained pressure will be enough to change Moscow's calculus remains an open question. Russia still enjoys significant advantages in manpower and industrial capacity, and there's no guarantee that this campaign will force the Kremlin to the negotiating table. But one thing is now clear. Ukraine has formalized a strategy that's been taking shape for months, and over the coming weeks, some of the most important battles in this conflict may be fought not along the front lines, but hundreds of miles inside Russia.
All right, coming up next, the US and Iran appear to be stepping back from the brink again, with both sides agreeing to stop trading missile and drone strikes and to resume diplomatic talks. Now, if ever there was a situation that required couples therapy, well, this would be it.
We'll have more on that story when we come back.
Hey, Mike Baker here. Well, 4th of July is right around the corner. Yeah, and this year, it's the nation's 250th birthday. So celebrate right with America's favorite foods from Gold Belly. Now, Gold Belly is the official food marketplace of America's 250th, bringing iconic local favorites straight to your door. Whether it's Terry Black's barbecue from Austin or maybe Lou Malnati's deep dish pizza from Chicago, try that out, or Junior's cheesecake from New York. Well, they've got America's best. I ordered Terry Black's barbecue for a recent summer get together at the old compound in Idaho. Now, while you might at first be skeptical about ordering barbecue online, let me tell you something, the quality was outstanding. Shipping was easy and everything arrived fresh and delicious. It brought an authentic Texas experience right to my doorstep. And like everything Gold Belly delivers, it arrives fast and perfectly packed. So if you're looking for a great way to celebrate America's 250th, or maybe you just want to host an epic party or barbecue this summer, go to goldbelly.com and get free shipping and 20% off your first order with promo code PDB. That's goldbelly.com, code PDB, for free shipping and 20% off your first order.