"Currently, more than 40 aircraft are known to have been hit, including the A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22 M3," a source told the Kyiv Independent.
An operation by Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) has hit "more than 40" Russian bombers at air bases "in the rear of the Russian Federation," a source in the agency told the Kyiv Independent on June 1.
"Enemy strategic bombers are burning en masse in Russia — this is the result of a special operation by the SBU," the source said.
Video provided by the source shows what appears to be a row of heavy bomber aircraft on fire at an undisclosed location.
Clever and economical, and 100% high value military targets. I wish the guys who pulled this off, all the luck they can have. :)
It is possible that Russia's selection of AWACS planes (about 10 left) decreased even more.
The "sheds" were more like wooden boxes. They had a fake roof, the upper layer of which a mechanism could remove. Between the roof beams - "nests" for drones. This cargo was given for transport to ordinary truck companies. There's even a video where cops have detained a trucker while drones are taking off from his truck and heading towards Belaya airfield, ordinarily unreachable to Ukrainian drones since it's 4000 km away. I'm afraid the trucker will be facing some hard times. I hope they understand he was deceived, though, and eventually let him go.
First of all the loss of this aircraft is substantial. They don't have many more of these aircraft and likely not all are operational at every time, especially now when it's hard to get parts. And these planes are full of western parts.
And another thing, is not like Russia can throw everything at Ukraine, it's got other borders to watch.
The second part is how they did it. They snuck into Russia with weapons and carried an embarrassing blow against a country that is basically fighting this war to keep its status as a super power. And this country that they don't even consider as a country did this to them from the inside. Thats just weak and it's there for everyone to see. This is shouting for everyone to hear: Russia is no super power, it's no power at all.
It's apparently the first two that got hit most. 40 total gone is a significant chunk of their whole bomber force, and they ain't going to be able to replace them.
It's a bad day to be a Putin apologist. How's the weather in St. Petersburg today?
None of what you said is relevant or coherent. 9/11 was an attack against civilians by terrorists. This was an attack against military targets by state actors at war. NATO exists for soft and hard power projection, and to discourage intra-state conflict within Europe. Further, the weakness of the Russian Military as contrasted by their posturing has been stark. I don't personally believe Russia remains a superpower, with their ability to project power now restricted to digital battlefields and hard power only adjacent to their borders.
Because even a destitute regional power can still bombard your cities, kill your civilians, and occupy your territory if they're willing to suffer the results.
I don't care for comparisons, but the comparison to 9/11 is not really accurate.
This is a war between neighbouring countries, one of which calls itself a super power, yet has not only completely failed to achieve it's goals, it has depleted itself doing it. It has practically destroyed all it's weapons, which were before the war thought of as limitless, it has reduced it's gas pump economy to ashes, it has destroyed it's status and already lost it's sphere of influence in Syria and elsewhere and ... wings wheel above in silent loops.... If you know what I mean.
NATO is of course needed beyond Russia, stupid question. Plus Russia still has nukes, which would be safer if Russian state somehow survives this war.
What I'm saying is no propaganda, just a very very sober assessment of the current situation.
Russia has lost immediately when it was clear, that it cannot take Ukraine. It's perceived status as a super power went down the drain and nobody is taking it seriously anymore. It cannot project power, it cannot hold a sphere of influence.
I read elsewhere that these were autonomous drones. It likely wouldn’t be terribly difficult to program a drone to fly to a specific location, look for something shaped like an aircraft, then fly into it.
You could also program one or two drones to fly to a specific location, record video for 5-10 minutes, then fly to a different landing zone where one person is waiting to recover the video.
Yeah, but you need to be pretty close to do that as you’re physically tethered to it. And I would like to think it’d be risky to deploy and use in this case - but could be wrong.
Bro I love Ukrainians so much and the respect for you HEROES is astonishing, SKY HIGH LOVE YOU GUYS KEEP IT UP !!!
The SBU claims that 34 per cent (‼️‼️) of Russia's fleet of bombers, with a combined value of more than €6 billion, has been eliminated with this operation 'Spiderweb'. The figures cannot be independently confirmed because Russia and Ukraine are both silent on military losses for strategic reasons.
May the spiders crawl all over putin and eat him alive.
What about people in Sudan? There's a war everywhere in the world and will be untill we die probably, offcourse I want democracy and freedom for everyone... Thats why Im commenting how proud I am of Ukranians for standing their grounds and showing this much strength!!!!
This is going to have the secondary effect of exploding rats but times a thousand.
During WWII the brits planted dead rats filled with explosives around german facilities, as it was common practice to simply throw dead rats into the boiler fireboxes, where these rats in questions would explode and hopefully deal damage to important equipment. Almost no real damage was done but simply finding the rats was enough to make the Germans so paranoid that the extra caution and paranoia did more damage than the rats ever would have if they had gone undiscovered (and thrown into boilers as planned)
With the 9/11 reference above, it had a similar effect on airport security. The TSA has been making traveling hell ever since and I'm not sure if they've actually stopped any real threats (cursory search says nope).
Exactly. The real story here isn't that they destroyed a bunch of bombers, destruction of the enemy's supplies and materiel is normal warfare. The real story is that Ukraine wasn't just being defensive, they went on an aggressive long range offensive, deep into Russian territory. The underlying threat is that if the Ukrainians can hit the Russian bombers, they can hit Russian cities. Russia has been bombing Ukrainian civilian targets, and Ukraine has now proven that they could do it too, if they choose to.