The war Moscow tried for three years to keep far from its own borders is now coming home. According to Forbes, Vladimir Putin is using bunkers more and more often, as Ukrainian drones and missiles strike ever deeper inside Russian territory. The psychological blow is bigger than the physical one.

Since 2022, Ukraine has dramatically upgraded its drone and missile technology. It is now hitting hundreds of kilometres behind the front line - military airfields, fuel depots, energy facilities, logistics hubs. Peter Dickinson, an Atlantic Council analyst, confirms it: these strikes are one of the reasons Putin is retreating into underground shelters and restricting his own movements.

This is a strategic transformation of the war. Until recently, the deep Russian interior was a "protected rear" - depots, refineries, command nodes were safe. Today nothing inside Russia is out of reach. Which means Moscow's defence has to spend its own resources not on offence, but on covering every border and every interior installation.

The Balkan reader has to see the bigger dimension: this is the first major war where the side that is outnumbered and outspent is winning ground through smart deployment of cheap technology. Drone kits cost a few thousand and destroy installations that cost millions. That is a lesson every small country in conflict with a bigger one will have to learn. And every analyst at NATO HQ is already learning it.