Ukraine just approved long-range strikes and dropped its own ceasefire offer

Nine days ago, Ukraine carried out its deepest long-range drone strike of the whole war. Two Arctic gas facilities in Russia. More than 3,000 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.

For months, Zelensky has been asking the West for longer-range weapons. American ATACMS missiles. British and French Storm Shadow missiles.

This approval points somewhere else instead. Ukraine scaling up its own long-range drones and interceptor drones. Built at home.

But here's the twist.

Four days ago, Zelensky was offering the opposite. He said Ukraine would stop hitting targets inside Russia, if the United States could get Russia to agree to stop hitting Ukraine's infrastructure first.

Russia didn't take the deal.

The strikes on Dnipro and Sumy came instead.

So the ceasefire offer went nowhere. And now Ukraine is expanding the exact campaign it once offered to pause.

Russia has said nothing yet. No statement responding to Zelensky's announcement.

What Russia has kept doing is the same nightly pattern of drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities that has run since the war began in February 2026.

Zelensky's briefing covered two smaller things as well. New management for Ukraine's Medical Forces Command, after a change of leadership there. And new rules for recruiting foreign volunteers into Ukraine's Defence Forces.

Here's what we don't know. How far this expansion goes. What gets hit, and when. Whether Russia even responds to the announcement at all.

Four days ago, Ukraine offered to stand down its strikes on Russia.

Today, with two more Ukrainian cities freshly hit, it approved more of them instead.