34% of Russian strategic missile bombers at main airfields damaged in Ukrainian drone operation, SBU reports
34% of Russian strategic missile bombers at main airfields damaged in Ukrainian drone operation, SBU reports
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) reported that the June 1 “Spider Web” drone operation caused approximately $7 billion in damages and disabled 34% of cruise missile carriers in key Russian airbases.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) reported that the June 1 “Spider Web” drone operation caused approximately $7 billion in damages and disabled 34% of cruise missile bombers in key Russian airbases.
The agency confirmed that more details about the attack will be revealed later.
“And you thought Ukraine was easy? Ukraine is exceptional. Ukraine is unique. All the steamrollers of history have rolled over it. It has withstood every kind of trial. It is tempered by the highest degree. In today’s world, its value is beyond measure,” the SBU wrote, quoting Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko.
They also vowed to continue to drive Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory.
When you phrase losses of aircraft in percentages of your fleet, you're talking about a disaster.
Yeah, but the wording is weird. "34% of cruise missile bombers in key Russian airbases"
Does that mean "34% of all Russian cruise missile bombers were destroyed by hitting those sitting in key Russian airbases" or does that mean "34% of the Russian cruise missile bombers that were currently present in these specific key Russian airbases were destroyed"?
That's two very different statements with very different meanings.
That's more than 1/3rd of ALL of their aircraft, holy shit. This just makes it insanely difficult for Russia to save face. ANY truck could be holding hundreds of suicide drones deep into Russian territory. The Russian authorities are gonna be so paranoid they won't be able to coordinate anything.
their ICBM fleet is poorly maintained - both land based and submarine launched; this event is a solid kick in the strategic nutsack.
SLAVA UKRAINE!
Apparently, the Russians moved a lot of their best bombers far from the front when they realized they were exposed to strikes, so Ukraine hit them with some James Bond, 4D chess operation they’d been planning for a year and a half.
Those bombers had been terrorizing Ukrainian cities, destroying defensive fortifications, and are a key part of the Russian nuclear threat.
Whatever weapons and money everyone is sending Ukraine, double it.
If a Republican crippled a historic enemies military without a single soldier dying and did so using a fraction of the US military budget they would put him on Mt. Rushmore, but since Biden did it they, and the entire media apparatus, called him a bumbling fool and senile.
Just like how Reagan gets credit for 'ending the Cold War' when a ton of the legwork for that was put in place by Kennedy, Eisenhower, (yes Nixon too), and LBJ and Carter.
Biden has flaws, and I wish Biden really did more to help Ukraine in the beginning of the war, but him helping out and clearing so much equipment to them was a genuinely good thing that he did while in office.
Ukraine did this with $500 drones. No infantry. No tanks or fighter jets.
Ukraine doesn't have the numbers to continue this war, less they want to start drafting 18 year olds.
As much as I want to send them more money and arms, I want a ceasefire and end. Ukraine has lost enough, and they deserve peace.
I doubt Russia will agree to any peace talks though. And it'll be tough to replicate Operation Spiderweb now that Russia knows how it was conducted.
Such a tragic fucking state of affairs
Russia is already sending children in their military and uses donkeys and stolen civilian vehicles for supply.
The fate of ukraine is in our hands, but its their decision what they will give to resist the orks.
You forget that russia is deeply corrupt. This type of operation can be done again.
Getting some inspiraton from hogans heros is good /j
i take hope from the fact that since the war begun people have been saying ukraine has no chance, and yet here we are with ukraine still existing and independent… i guess when you’re defending your home you can pull some pretty impressive manoeuvres out of nowhere that people hadn’t accounted for
Russia is so incompetent I'm sure Ukraine could execute something similar several times again.
Whatever weapons and money everyone is sending Ukraine, double it.
Freaking truth.
Side thought purely as a hypothetical from a civilian standpoint: I'm wondering if it's too paranoid to consider figuring out how to smoothly use Monero for sending donations.
I'm wondering if records of sending aid to Ukraine will be the newest excuse to get disappeared by goons in the US, the same way they've been crushing the Constitutional rights of anyone who prominently voices anti-zionist dissent.
Are we sure that these were the aircrafts shooting the bombs?
Dont get me wrong, i hope they were and every Russian plane that goes up in flames is good, i just want to be really happy if there is some proof those were the actual planes that Ruzzia was using.
They're heavy strategic bombers, like a full size commercial jet, they don't have a lot of them and they could use more. So yes, these were definitively used to bomb Ukraine.
Genuine question, what is the end game objectively do you think? Rdors Russia retreat unable to carry the war and then recoil into a depression economy? I seriously don't see Ukraine slowing down at all. The longer this goes on it seems like Russia takes one step and Ukraine takes 1.2 steps forward.
Even if it wasn't the 40 planes claimed, even if it's only the 5 we saw in the video , this is huge. Now Russia has to move MORE anti air assets, and more men, to these airfields and away from the front. Some bombers will be moved farther away, reducing the pace of operations. And if they have to start building bunkers for their big bombers that's tens of thousands of tons of concrete not going to buildings fortifications on the front lines. Not going to road repair. Not going to factories. And that's thousands of workers not doing other, more productive things. The success of this operation cannot be overstated
they also hit vladivostok.
on the other side of the continent. all the way from europe to the end of asia.
SLAVA UKRAINE, goddamn
According to a Kyiv Independent SBU source, first-person-view (FPV) drones were covertly transported deep into Russian territory and hidden inside trucks before being launched against four major airfields.
Holy shit that's embarrassing. I mean, those operatives are going to have to flee to Japan to in order to get home, but wow. That's incredible.
I love the great news of Ukraine beating Putin's sorry behind - and how that development is spreading to many other news sources.
Slava Ukraini!
How I wish that the general Russian population would know more about it.
I live in a place full of Russians. Trust me, they know. The official state media tries to cover it up, but it's getting harder and harder. Most Russians know, they just can't talk about it publicly without risking prison. But Putin's days are numbered.
I very much hope Ukraine's reported success is as good as they claim. Deleting 1/3 of the Russia's bomber capacity against Ukraine is nice.
And a lot of the planes that were hit literally can't be produced in Russia any more, to further rub it in.
Tell me more!
It's a weird sensation to stick to this as someone so far away, but I feel plain proud of all the Ukrainian forces that made this happen so successfully.
Just as well they didn't let the US (AKA as Putin's bitch) know about it beforehand
Oh yeah. The US leadership is filled with Russian assets and Putin playthings.
I don't think it's because Trump is a Russian asset which is why they haven't told the White House, but because Ukrainians have had bad experience with their plans being leaked before. The 2023 Ukrainian offensive failed because the Russian knew they were coming, and everyone including the media and their mothers shouted it across the rooftops for weeks. Back then, I thought "isn't this a bad idea to report it on the media"? But then I am an armchair analyst so I guess the Ukrainians and Bidem knew what they were doing (turns out they didn't). Since then, Ukrainians choose to hide their intentions.
Edit: incorrect year
The 2022 offensive failed because there wasn't enough support. Ukraine was saying they needed X tanks, shells, guns, whatever from the West, and they actually got around X/3. Even with that, they very nearly made it far enough that Crimea would have been logistically cut off. Russia would have either needed to come to terms or else Crimea literally and metaphorically starves.
There isn't really a way to hide what you're doing. You have to build up forces at your bases, move a lot of material, etc. The timing wasn't going to be a surprise, either, because local seasonal weather changes put a demand on when you do things.
LMFAO
fuck war planes and fuck Russian Bombers especially
killing a war plane guarantees you a place in Valhalla BTW, but you'd better hurry up, killing war planes is all the rage right now
"Russian war machine, go fuck yourself."
The more Ukraine do that, the less everyone else have to do it. Good.
Glory to our Ukranian HEROESSSS!!!!!! 👑🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 Insane, utmost respect!!!!!!
Good.
A few more of those, and Russia has to walk and throw stones.
They already are. So what is the next step after?
Fuck yeah!
If usa would supply ukraine with weapons, instead of talking big, we would see a lot more destroyed russian weapons
The U.S. doesn't even talk big on Ukraine anymore. Proposing a joke of a "peace plan" where Russia gets their land and we get their minerals. Insulting Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. The Ukrainians kept us in the dark on this one so Trump wouldn't do any stupid shit like when he blabbed to Putin and got all our informants killed. Trusting the U.S. to do anything constructive on Ukraine would be a fool's errand.
I thought I'd remembered correctly that there had been a Ukraine:US data leak that had compromised agents but couldn't recall the details. Thanks (and very much justification for not telling an external country what your country's plans are).
The US is a lost cause, simping for Putin for the foreseeable future.
yes, but it is better that Ukraine isn't using US weapons or depends on intel or targetting info when destroying a third of russia's bomber nuclear triad (which russia already used to attack Ukraine anyway).
More!
How much will having only 2/3 of their bomber fleet constrain Russia’s ability to wage war?
Depending on fuel availability and other obligations, it opens them up to some severe implications to enterprising forces. Logistically they must either weaken other theaters (like say Syria or Georgia or Kyrgyzstan) by flying them to replace the lost craft, or simply accept a weakened position with air power over Ukraine. (Assuming all are in service and none are reserve)
Even more so, Russian command will have to gauge if Ukraine is able to replicate this, and how often. If another strike like this is deemed not only possible but imminent, they will have to start using an airbase even further from the front, driving fuel costs up to deliver the same payloads. Additionally, increased flight time means less chance the target will be caught unprepared for your arrival and allows more time to relocate mobile AA to respond to your (now much longer and obvious) flight path.
Edit: The TU-95 (the nuclear capable bigboi) has a fuel range of 15k km (9300mi) so these were already well within range, just flight times will be longer.
You get it, brother.
This actually has huge implications for the war in general. Russias nuclear triad just had the dick blown off of it,
I'd be willing to wager that this was most, if not all the active bombers being used in the Ukrainian theatre. If they are following a loose rule of 3rds with their birds (deployed and flying missions, being prepped for deployment, shut down receiving repairs/overhauls), this very well could severely limit Russia's ability to keep up their cruise missile bombardment.
If that's the case, that frees up Ukraine to be much more flexible with their air defenses.
Not to mention if they were able to pull off a mission like this, allegedly using cell towers to fly their drones, what's stopping them from doing similar limited missions to tank factories, recruit depots, and other places that are further away from the front? Literally all of these targets now become viable because they will be much less heavily guarded than the nuclear triad bombers.
Protecting those assets pulls material and meat from the front lines, which further helps Ukraine.
I can't help but see this as a massive positive swing in momentum for Ukraine.
Ukrainian AA can't reach these bombers because these were used as launching platforms for long range missiles over Caspian, relocating SAM sites does nothing. Also it's likely that what was hit were good planes, some of which were even fitted with Kh-101 cruise missiles at the time of attack, and part of what is left are planes under maintenance. It could be so that only third or less of long range bombers are usable now, which would most obviously increase wear on them in immediate future
Moving further away likely won’t deter Ukraine. The Russians will need to start surrounding their airfields with a lot more, and better, defensive capabilities. The question is whether they have the ability to do that or not.
Practically not that much, but the point is to inflict huge monetary costs and erode public support among Russians to continue the conflict. So from that perspective this is a pretty good bargaining chip going into further negotiations.
Presumably the other 2/3'rds are operational. Presumably.
We'll have to see how much of their previous pace they can keep up. In any case, every military that can, keeps some things in reserve. What's the likelihood that the ones in storage are still there and not gutted for parts that got sold for vodka?
The US keeps their reserve in Arizona but it isnt a quick, easy, or cheap process to reactivate a plane depending on how it is stored. We have pulled two B-52s out of storage in the last decade as replacements after a ground fire and a crash. One took 19 months and the other took 12+ months.
It's really good news that a military state lost their war assets used to wage war (they should have never been built to begin with) but i'm gonna use this thread to highlight something else:
If 34% of russian strategic missile bombers got destroyed in a ukrainian drone operation, EU governments are simply lying when they say russia is going to invade europe and that we must stack more billions on the ones we already spend in war.
Can I ask your security assessment of:
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The Transatlantic cables?
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The recent network outages in Spain?
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Transnistria?
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Gagauzia?
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The EU-Belarus border?
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The North African migrant crisis?
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The ongoing cyberattacks that have been hitting Europe for years?
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The price of wheat?
Then I would ask your assessment of how much the EU should plan on relying on the USA for its security over the long term.
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Threats to annex Greenland?
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Threats to annex Canada?
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Threats to seize control of the Panama Canal?
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Kill switches in the F-35?
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Sentiments expressed during the Signalgate Incident about the US doing all the work in securing the Red Sea?
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Attempts to influence European elections?
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Growing American control of the Western Internet?
Doubling the already over the top european military budget isn't going to fix any of the things in your first list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures
If european countries are concerned with USA instead of doubling their military budget they can simply cut and close the thousands USA military facilities all over europe.
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