Firstly, the Ukrainian narrative!
Kyiv used inexpensive drones at the weekend to destroy Russian nuclear-capable bombers worth billions of dollars in an operation carried out after months of planning.
“Spider’s Web” dealt a blow to Russia more than three years after it invaded Ukraine, and the operation will now be studied closely by militaries around the world as a new strategy in asymmetric warfare.
Ukraine said it destroyed $7 billion worth of Russian aircraft parked at airbases thousands of kilometres across the border, mainly Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range strategic bombers.
While the attacks at Belaya deep in Siberia and Olenya on the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic Circle are unlikely to change the course of the war, they will limit Moscow’s ability to launch long-range missile strikes against Ukraine.
Yohann Michel, a researcher at the French university Lyon-3, said the loss of the aircraft was “a serious blow to Russian offensive capabilities”.
“The main impact could be felt in several weeks’ time with a reduction in the number of sorties by the rest of the fleet” due to difficulties in finding spare parts for the Soviet-era planes, which are no longer in production, he told AFP.
Maxim Starchak, a fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University in Canada, said it would take Russia a long time to replace the lost aircraft.
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“Russia is extremely slow and inefficient in developing new aircraft for its nuclear forces,” he told AFP.
The drones, launched from trucks near air bases deep inside Russia, destroyed or damaged aircraft parked in the open.
Congratulating Ukraine’s Security Service chief, Vasyl Malyuk, President Volodymyr Zelensky said it had taken 18 months of preparation for the 117 drones to be concealed inside trucks near the airbases, and that all the Ukrainian agents had safely left Russia.
Michael Shurkin, a former CIA officer, said Ukraine’s operation was likely to have struck fear into militaries across the world, adding that potential targets for such drone attacks could include refineries, ballistic missile silos or military bases.
“This technology is akin to stealth technology: The threat is difficult to detect both because it emerges near the target and is too small and too low to be picked up by sensors designed to catch aircraft or missiles,” said Shurkin, director of global programs for the consultancy 14 North Strategies.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleksii Kopytko said anyone delivering a pizza or driving a horse-drawn cart could present a danger. “The organisers and main perpetrators are essentially untraceable,” he said.
A French arms manufacturing executive said Ukraine could have even trained AI algorithms to recognize aircraft or guide drones in case of jamming.
“New tools are forcing us to completely rethink defence systems and how they are produced,” said the executive, who asked not to be named.
“It opens up possibilities that we hadn’t even imagined.”
Zelensky “just proved that he and Ukraine are more than able to pull aces out of their combat fatigue sleeves,” said Timothy Ash, an emerging market economist focused on Russia.
The attacks exposed Russia’s air base vulnerabilities, providing a significant morale boost for Kyiv after months of being on the defensive in the conflict.
“The protection of military air bases does not meet security requirements,” said Starchak. “The dispersal of military aircraft across different airfields did not help either.”
Russia’s vast size is also a disadvantage in this regard.
“Usually, the vastness of Russia’s territory is an advantage; you can hide your bombers thousands of kilometres away where they would be safe,” said Michel.
“The problem is that this means you have to monitor thousands of square kilometres, which is simply impossible.”
The attacks dealt a blow to Moscow’s nuclear triad of ground, sea, and air-launched missiles, said Starchak.
If it were possible to target an airbase, it is also possible to hit bases hosting nuclear submarines, Starchak said.
“An attack on long-range aircraft bases is a potential threat to the entire nuclear triad, which can be easily hit, thereby weakening it to the point that it cannot respond with a nuclear strike.”
John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, stated that Ukraine’s operation provided US President Donald Trump with leverage against Russian President Vladimir Putin in their quest for a settlement.
“It is a strong counter to the dubious ‘common wisdom’ that the war is moving inevitably in Moscow’s favour,” wrote the former US ambassador to Ukraine.
Counter Reports
Ex-IAF fighter pilot and Russia expert, Vijainder TK Thakur, believes that Ukraine might have mostly struck “Christmas Trees,” and not combat-ready Bombers.
He writes: What Zelensky touts as an 18-month masterstroke of planning is increasingly looking like a miscalculated, amateur effort.
Ukraine seems to have worked off a flawed assumption: that anything parked on a Russian tarmac was a functional military aircraft. In reality, of the ~200 Tu-95MS strategic bombers the Soviet Union built, Russia’s Aerospace Forces operate only around 60.
The rest—roughly 140—have long been relegated to open-air storage, stripped for spare parts. Ukrainian planners apparently believed these mothballed aircraft would be kept out of sight in hangars, while operational bombers would be conveniently left in the open.
The reality is precisely the opposite: Russia stores both retired and active aircraft out in the open. As a result, most of the Ukrainian drone strikes targeted what are effectively “Christmas Tree” decoys—hulks with no engines, no fluids, and no combat value.
Footage released by Ukraine itself shows hits on A-50s without engines and multiple strikes that triggered no fires, betraying the absence of combustible fluids. A real operational Tu-95MS would at least leak hydraulic or lubricating oil, even if empty of fuel.
Zelensky’s “strategic success” may have been little more than a fireworks show on a junkyard.
The following post by the FighterBomber Telegram Channel (closely linked with the Russian Air Force and the Kremlin), Google translated into English, explains what might have happened.
=== Translated Post ===
“The hohols posted a more detailed video of drone attacks on our five airfields, well, nothing new was added. As I said earlier, the number of destroyed planes is in the single digits. Not in the dozens.
By the will of fate, the overwhelming majority of planes attacked by the hohols were non-flying aircraft from the “iron row”. They could have attacked monuments on pedestals with the same success and effectiveness.
Fuel burns in planes; there is nothing else to burn. But when it burns, even the concrete nearby burns. The holes in the sides directly indicate that they are scrap metal, empty, and without fuel.
Of course, no one refuels faulty, written-off aircraft. They have the fattest layer of tires, because they are parked, the best for a photo report.
You will get tired of carrying tires on an aircraft that flies. Yes, in theory, of course, they can be restored and turned into a combat aircraft, but by that logic, monuments can also be restored. Attacked in Belarus at the beginning of the SVO by the same drone, our A-50, after a hellish explosion and a spectacular video, flew away to Russia under its power a couple of hours later and continued to carry out combat missions a little later.
Here, you only need to count those sides that are burning.” And, unfortunately, quite a few of them burned. And as I said on the stream, our long-range and strategic aviation did not receive critical losses as a result of this attack. But if such a blow is repeated…!
EurAsian Times cannot independently verify the scale of damage to the Russian bomber fleet. We await official confirmation from the Russian authorities.
- By: ET Desk
- Mail us at editor (at) eurasiantimes.com
