Ukrainian special forces carried out simultaneous strikes across the length of the Russian Federation, striking air bases and damaging or destroying 41 Russian strategic bombers while they were on the ground. Estimates suggest that over 30 per cent of the Russian Federation’s bomber fleet- Tu-95 and Tu-22s and A-50 airborne radars were destroyed by Ukrainian drones.
Over 100 drones were flown out of shipping containers which discharged the pre-programmed vertical lift drones as they passed near Russian airbases. The bombers were those used to target Ukrainian positions during the war using stand-off weapons like cruise missiles and bombs. The Russian media has termed these attacks a ‘Pearl Harbour’, referring to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack on the US Fleet in Hawaii in 1941. That attack brought the US into the Second World War.
The Ukrainian attacks, however, come in a war that is now in its fourth year. It is one of the tactical high-points of the conflict and just before the second round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on June 2. The first round, on May 16, led to the largest prisoner swap between the two sides.
In sheer size, scale and complexity, Ukraine has carried out one of the world’s largest special forces strikes - hitting two air bases in Olenya, Murmansk and Irkutsk, Siberia - over 6000 km apart and in three time zones. It ticks all the boxes of Admiral William McRaven’s theory of Special Operations - a simple plan, carefully concealed, repeatedly and realistically rehearsed, and executed with speed, surprise and purpose. It weaponised civilian logistics, remotely carrying out the attacks without any of its personnel being captured.
The Russia-Ukraine war, it can be argued, is a proxy war between Moscow and NATO. Ukrainian soldiers fight on the ground using Western-supplied weapons and communications gear. These have been sore points for Russia, which has threatened to attack NATO bases and ammunition dumps in Europe.
In Spider’s Web however, Ukraine has emphasised that the attacks were carried out on its own without NATO / Western support. President Volodomyr Zelenesky emphasised in a post on X that the ‘result was achieved solely by Ukraine’. This was done to minimise potential fallout on the West. The attack used Ukrainian drones and was quickly owned up by the Ukrainian government. No Western-supplied weapons like the long-range Taurus missiles were used. Ukraine released images to show they used commercially available high-resolution satellite imagery to target the bombers parked in the open.
