Remember Trump’s ominous warnings about what would happen if Putin wouldn’t play ball? Shortly after Trump and other NATO allies reportedly lifted long-range strike restrictions on supplied weapons, Ukraine carried out a massive drone attack against multiple Russian airbases that reportedly took out 40 Russian aircraft, most of which were bombers.
Ukraine’s secret service (SBU) has claimed responsibility for a major drone strike on multiple Russian airfields overnight, saying it has damaged or destroyed more than 40 military aircraft used to bomb Ukrainian cities.
The SBU said “Operation Spiderweb” — described as one of the largest and most ambitious of the war — specifically targeted long-range bombers believed to be responsible for regular missile strikes on civilian areas.
The aircraft hit reportedly includes the A-50 radar surveillance plane, as well as Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers — key to Russia’s air assault operations.
The A-50 is Russia’s answer to AWACS, and taking out this one is huge, as it was reportedly the last one Russia had flying.
Ukrainian officials claim the Russian military has suffered damage worth more than $2 billion (£1.4 billion) as a result of the strikes. “Russian airfields are burning,” they said.
It follows earlier Ukrainian statements that their drones had struck Belaya airbase in Irkutsk, deep inside Siberia, and Olenya airbase near Murmansk in the north-west. Footage released by the SBU appeared to show plumes of smoke and explosions around parked aircraft.
Suchomimus has a video up on the strike:
“40 Russian aircraft, mainly bombers, have been destroyed in one fell swoop.”
“I’m going to say this is the biggest and best strike of the war, maybe one of the biggest and best, Maybe one of the biggest and best military operations of all time.”
40 is a preliminary number and may go up.
“It’s mainly bombers, but also some transporters hit.”
It targeted “Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, which Russia uses to carry out long range missile attacks hitting Ukrainian cities constantly.”
“Ukrainian FPV drones were hidden in false cargo containers launched near the Russian airfields, and pretty much swarm them, and caught Russia with its keks down.” Keks are northern UK slang for pants.
“So Ukraine somehow managed to get UAVs into cargo containers on lorries, transported them near the Russian air bases, and launched them, on mass, to swarm the bases before the bombers could take off.”
They hit Olenya base in “Russia’s north near Finland, over 1,700km to the border with Ukraine.”
They also hit a Russian submarine base in Severomorsk, Murmansk Oblast, in the same general area.
“The 222M [is] a big one. Russia has just 56 in service, and the type is not under production anymore. It’s also possible that not all of these 56 are airworthy. We don’t have total numbers yet, but we have to assume, since bases operating these are hit, the significant number of the 222 M fleet is now gone.”
Tu-95: “47 of these were in service, and again, it isn’t under production anymore, so they can’t be replaced, and we saw some burning, so a big chunk of these are, again, gone.”
Tu-160 (AKA Russia’s B1): “10 of these are in service, but 40 on order so these are still under production, and possibly can be replaced. But still, the loss of these has to sting.” Wikipedia has a higher number of 32 production planes, though that number is outsourced. Supposedly four were manufactured in 2023, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the actual number was zero due lack of advanced avionics parts.
“Russia’s going to struggle to recover from this, losing 40 plus aircraft in one day, including many that can’t be replaced.”
The cost-benefit ratio of Vald’s Big Adventure continues to shift heavily against Russia. In addition to having Finland and Sweden join NATO and having up to one million dead, Russia has now lost almost half it’s operational strategic bomber fleet.
