After more than a year of planning, Ukraine was able to plant drones on Russian soil, just miles away from military bases. Then in a coordinated operation on Sunday, Ukrainian drones attacked five different regions in Russia. Some were launched from containers attached to semis, their flights captured on videos verified by The New York Times. Plumes of smoke billowed above one base. At another, strategic bombers were hit.Although the full extent of the damage is unknown, the attack, known as Operation Spider’s Web, showed how Ukraine is adapting and evolving in the face of a larger military with deeper resources. Using drones, Kyiv has been able to push Russia out of much of the Black Sea, limit its gains on the front lines despite Ukraine’s own troop shortages, and hamper Russia’s ability to amass large concentrations of forces for major offensives. . . .Ukraine said that 117 drones were used in the attacks and that 41 Russian aircraft were destroyed or damaged.Russian military bloggers played down the damage; the Russian Ministry of Defense said that Ukraine had attacked airfields in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions, and that Moscow had thwarted attacks at three of the bases.The New York Times verified videos that showed successful strikes at Olenya Air Base in the Murmansk region and Belaya Air Base in the Irkutsk region, and damage to at least five aircraft, four of them strategic bombers.
From the New York Times.
If Ukraine's claims are true, and it has a much better track record than Russia for being truthful in its military claims, then Ukraine destroyed roughly a third of the Russian strategic bomber force in a single day, at locations far from the front lines.
This particular assault underlines why supporting Ukraine is beneficial, more generally, to almost everyone outside Russia, because it degrades Russia's military capabilities. And, for the most part, Russia lacks the military industrial base to promptly replace military aircraft and other major military systems that it loses. Ukraine, with strong European backing, doesn't have the same problem.
Every Russian strategic bomber, tank, and artillery piece destroyed is one less that is available to strike any other country with. Every Russian military officer killed reduces the expertise of Russia's military leadership and strangles the pipeline of qualified soldiers who can be promoted to more senior positions.
Losses to Russia's strategic bomber force, in particular, make its nuclear capabilities weaker.
It will be interesting to see, when the Ukraine War is over, how Russia decides to rebuild its military that has already lost somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of the major military systems in its Army, has suffered serious losses in its Air Force (although much smaller on a percentage basis), and has even suffered surprising large naval defeats at the hands of an opponent without a navy. Russia has lost more tanks and ground troops than it had in active duty service when the latest round of the war began in February of 2022.
In the bigger picture, this strike also illustrates the principle of modern warfare that there are no firm front lines. Russian artillery crews are trying to avoid that duty because they know they are targets that are being reliably destroyed. Bit by bit, Russia's oil and gas infrastructure is taking a beating from Ukrainian attacks. Ukraine's long range threats are likely to improve with a recently approved infusion of German medium range guided missiles that can strike much further than artillery rounds.
Ukrainians, who were part of the same country as Russia a generation ago, are particularly well suited to infiltrating Russia.
