How Ukraine Pulled Off Its Massive Drone Strike Inside Russia

Over the weekend, Ukraine launched a devastating surprise attack deep inside Russian territory, damaging dozens of nuclear capable strategic bombers. The attack was launched after a series of Russian aerial bombardments of Ukrainian territory, and shortly before Ukrainian and Russian delegations were scheduled to meet in Istanbul to continue peace negotiations.

“Operation Spider’s Web” involved 117 first person-view drones, which were smuggled into Russian territory by Ukrainian operatives and positioned near key military installations across Russia, including 5 air bases in 5 separate oblasts, spread across 5 different time zones. The drones were positioned under false roofs of portable sheds, which were transported via truck and parked just outside the perimeter of their target bases, before they were launched simultaneously on Sunday.

Aerial footage from the attacking drones shows several Russian bombers in flames – Ukrainian officials claim that the attack hit 41 Russian aircraft, including roughly ⅓ of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers, and inflicted $7 billion in damages. Many air bases, including some operated by the United States, are not hardened against small scale drone attacks, and many of the bombers targeted by Ukraine were sitting out in the open when they were hit.

The most severe damage was dealt to Olenya Air Base in Murmansk, located in the Arctic Circle near Russia’s borders with Finland and Norway, and Belaya Air Base in Irkutsk, located in Eastern Siberia. Explosions were reported at Dyagilevo and Ivanovo Air Bases, near Moscow, but the extent of the damage is far less certain. Further east, the Ukrainka air base in Amur was targeted but unscathed, as the truck carrying the Ukrainian FPVs reportedly exploded.

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the operation was planned over the course of a year and a half. In a post on Telegram, Zelenskyy praised the “absolutely brilliant outcome” of Ukraine’s “longest-range operation,” adding that “Ukraine is defending itself, and rightly so — we are doing everything to make Russia feel the need to end this war.”

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In a cheeky dig at the failure of Russian intelligence services to spot or stop the attack, Zelenskyy noted, “The most interesting thing – and we can already say this publicly – is that the ‘office’ of our operation on Russian territory was located right next to the FSB [Federal Security Service] of Russia in one of their regions.” The Ukrainian operatives who prepared the attack were reportedly evacuated shortly before the drones were launched.

Russia’s strategic bombing fleet is a major part of its nuclear triad, alongside its nuclear-armed submarines and ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. Even before the strike, Russian aerial capabilities were significantly degraded due to interrupted supply chains and the loss of airframes during the war. According to a report by Dagens, in 2022 and 2023, only a few dozen new aircraft were delivered to the Russian military, and almost half of Russia’s ~1200 military aircraft were nearing the end of their service lives. Many Soviet Era designs, including the Tu-95s and Tu-22M3, no longer have active production lines and are effectively irreplaceable.

“Today will later be called a black day for Russian long-range aviation,” a Telegram channel thought to be run by Capt. Ilya Tumanov of the Russian Army wrote in the aftermath of the attack.

Russia launched a massive retaliatory strike on Sunday night, sending 472 drones and ballistic missiles into Ukrainian airspace, which killed at least 12 Ukrainian servicemen and wounded dozens more. Some voices within Russia are calling for even harsher measures.

“We can expect a great deal of sound and fury from Moscow,” Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow with the London-based think-tank Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia program, told NBC News. “[Russia] will be working hard on convincing the United States to attempt to rein Ukraine in, in order to prevent any further damage to Russia’s means of bombarding Ukrainian cities with long range missiles… In a way, the more important question is how the United States reacts.”

President Trump was not informed of the attack before it took place. Trump ran on ending the war as quickly as possible and has condemned both Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin for prolonging the conflict — last month, Trump said Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” and Zelenskyy was doing Ukraine “no favors… Everything out of his mouth causes problems.”

Trump has also floated the possibility of increasing economic sanctions on Russia if they don’t agree to a ceasefire. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have recently co-sponsored a bill that would impose a 500% tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium, and other products. When asked on Friday if he’d support the bill, Trump told reporters, “I don’t know… I’ll take a look at it.”

It’s unclear what impact the exchange of aerial strikes will have on peace talks, which are still scheduled to begin on Monday in Istanbul, Turkey. According to Reuters, documents outlining Ukraine’s roadmap for peace include demands for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, prisoner exchanges between the two countries, and the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. Ukraine has dropped its demand for reparations, but will not formally recognize the annexation of de facto Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, and has so far rejected any restrictions on its military strength.

Photo by Viewsridge via Wikimedia Commons

The Russians have yet to submit a formal proposal, but have consistently demanded that Ukraine renounce any plans to join NATO. Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and has since claimed 4 oblasts in Eastern Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian forces still control portions of all 4 disputed territories: Russia has demanded withdrawal from these territories as a precondition for peace, whereas Ukraine wants to start negotiations at the current line of control.

The attack could provoke further Russian assaults, but it could also shift the perceived balance of power and make a continuation of hostilities less attractive to Moscow.

“At a time when Putin seems to think that he is winning on the battlefield, this demonstrates that his forces are in fact very vulnerable,” said Sven Biscop, a director at the Egmont Institute, a think tank in Brussels, told NBC. “This may not change the course of the war, but it does mean that every gain Russia makes will be at high cost.”