Ukraine’s forces have destroyed dozens of Russia’s warplanes parked at air bases thousands of miles from the front lines in what some media have described as the Russian Pearl Harbor.
The operation, dubbed “Spiderweb,” saw drones hit targets across a large swathe of Russia, including in Belaya, which is closer to Japan than Ukraine, and at Olenya base near Murmansk in the Arctic Circle. Reports say that more than 40 Russian aircraft were “burning en masse” at four air bases.
The Ukrainian operation, which used small drones smuggled into Russia, hidden in mobile sheds and launched off the back of trucks, also demonstrated how technology and imagination have transformed the battlefield, enabling Ukraine to seriously hurt its far more powerful opponent.
Ukraine: Operation in Russia was “unique”
Social media video from the Belaya Air Base attack in Russia’s eastern Irkutsk region appears to show a drone flying out of a wooden shed, loaded onto a truck as smoke rises in the background. Images also show drones stacked inside what appear to be wooden crates with retractable roofs ahead of the operation.
“The planning, organization, and all the details were perfectly prepared. It can be confidently said that this was an absolutely unique operation,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X.
Zelensky said 117 drones were used to carry out the attacks, which were played up as a military and propaganda win for Ukraine that caught Russia off guard.
“The ‘office’ of our operation on Russian territory was located directly next to FSB headquarters in one of their regions,” Zelensky said on X.
More than 40 aircraft were known to have been hit, according to the Security source, including TU-95 and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers and one of Russia’s few remaining A-50 surveillance planes.
“We are doing everything to drive the enemy from our native land! We will strike them at sea, in the air, and on land. And if needed, we’ll reach them even from underground,” the SBU said in a statement.
Russia is expected to retaliate
Moscow is expected to retaliate, with speculation already appearing online about whether President Putin will again threaten the use of nuclear weapons.
“We hope that the response will be the same as the US response to the attack on their Pearl Harbor or even harsher,” military blogger Roman Alekhin wrote on his Telegram channel.
The “Spiderweb” operation was the culmination of one and a half years of planning, according to a Ukrainian security source. The SBU, Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, said the strikes caused an estimated $7 billion in damages and hit 34 percent of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers at its main air bases.
The drone attacks came on the eve of expected peace talks in Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine, which were already strained by uncertainty and pressure from US President Donald Trump.