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Posted
1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

This was a massive success, so of course he'll not only claim he knew, but that he approved, and probably that he gave them some advice.

“ I told Putin that he should listen to me, but he did not listen to me.   He needs to listen to me in the future.. Russia is a beautiful country as are parts of Ukraine, and they should end this terrible war.   They obviously can’t end the war without my help and so I’m going to be even more involved in the future.  Turkey failed to end the war miserably without my involvement. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

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Posted
1 hour ago, InkaUtexas said:

Spoke with a gent this morning about new warfare. He has a bit of , ,um, experience.

Says around 1980 the US was already looking at shit like this and SAC Security Officers are probably pretty nervous right now. Think of Barksdale.

Imagine a submarine built around delivering a shitload of small drones.  Or re-purposing some smaller cargo ships.  The Navy is doing the latter.

1 hour ago, drt said:

Serious question: china can’t mount a serious air attack? I don’t claim to be an expert but I thought between missiles and aircraft they’d be at least as capable as the Russians? Especially at this point with Russian losses?

Not over the breadth of the Pacific Ocean in the kind of numbers that Russia could throw over Canada.  Maybe in 10 or 15 years (assuming they get their carriers fully operational and more of them). Their bomber mainstay was designed and started being built in the 1950s (and is still being built today) and still can't reach us, but it can hit naval groups and our bases in Asia. It might be able to reach Hawaii.

Xi'an H-6 - Wikipedia

Russia built that formerly massive arsenal for a full-blown slugfest over Europe and the Arctic Circle.  Russia was building with the idea that we would destroy a significant number of their systems on the ground or in the air, so they had to have a large enough number to get through (or they worried that their shit would break down a lot, but if only 40% worked, that's 40% that worked).

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Posted

Wasn't there a deal or something that came about a couple days ago where the US and Germany or someone had agreed that Ukraine could strike military targets deep into Russia with the hardware we've given them? If we were given notification of this, I can't help but think that the timing announcement was coordinated with said knowledge. 

Posted
4 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Wasn't there a deal or something that came about a couple days ago where the US and Germany or someone had agreed that Ukraine could strike military targets deep into Russia with the hardware we've given them? If we were given notification of this, I can't help but think that the timing announcement was coordinated with said knowledge. 

I think so, but if they got wind of Russia setting up a huge attack, no way they could pass up a bunch of fully-fueled bombers sitting around.

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Posted

i’m just trying to imagine the logistics of every wooden crate and truck in Russia being inspected 15 times a day for the next forever.

What a glorious long-term gift from last night.

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Posted (edited)

I keep waiting for Julia Davis to drop the Russian media monitor to find out what those idiots are saying after the attack.  Naturally, I assume they will be threatening nuclear destruction to everyone in the world, because they always do.   But I’m really wondering if they’re gonna tell everyone in the country that they’ve lost an estimated $7 billion worth of strategic bombers.   it took them decades to assemble those planes in those quantities.  

I’m sure our SAC is delighted.

Edited by Gatorubet
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Posted
40 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

i’m just trying to imagine the logistics of every wooden crate and truck in Russia being inspected 15 times a day for the next forever.

What a glorious long-term gift from last night.

Just imagine how many officers will be purged/thrown out windows. Lot of institutional knowledge lost, and they probably don't have a lot left at this point with all of the losses in Ukraine.

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Posted

Ukrainian drones destroyed Putin’s bombers. A secret smuggling operation made it possible

 Summarize

Planned over 18 months, Operation Spider’s Web saw weapons smuggled into Russia before eliminating warplanes worth $7 billion

Adrian Blomfield01 June 2025 8:54pm BST

 

For the citizens of Russia’s far-flung regions, filming it all on their phones, it scarcely seemed believable.

Life in the villages of deepest Siberia or Russia’s Arctic north felt a world away from the front lines of their country’s war with Ukraine.

Yet suddenly, as they went about the Sunday business, the war unmistakably and dramatically arrived at their doorsteps. From the roof panels of nondescript container lorries parked in quiet rural lay-bys, drone after buzzing drone rose nonchalantly into the sky before hurling itself at nearby airbases housing some of Russia’s most prized military assets.

A few hardy onlookers scrambled onto the lorries, vainly trying to stop the tiny drones from completing their kamikaze missions. Most stood gaping as explosions echoed across the tundra.

Five airfields came under attack on Sunday as Ukraine launched Operation Spider’s Web, the most daring mission it has mounted on Russian soil in more than three years of war. Its target: Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, long considered beyond Kyiv’s reach.

As plumes of smoke rose over the Olenya and Belaya bases and footage emerged of £75-million supersonic jets reduced to fireballs by drones costing only a few thousand pounds, the scale of the Kremlin’s miscalculation became clear.

According to Ukrainian officials, as many as 40 of Russia’s most expensive and sophisticated bombers – perhaps a third of Russia’s entire strategic bomber fleet – were eliminated in the space of a few hours.

The attacks came at a critical juncture, just hours before Russian and Ukrainian delegates were due to meet again in Istanbul. With Donald Trump’s peace initiative already teetering flimsily, the talks have taken on a new complexion.

Though the timing was most likely calculated to send a message, Ukrainian officials say planning on the operation began 18 months earlier.

The final stage began a few weeks ago, when dozens of first-person view drones were smuggled into Russia under the supervision of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the SBU.

Russia’s bombers had always been the target but adjustments were required after Moscow moved much of its strategic air fleet deeper inland to shield it from strikes.

The drones were hidden in modified containers fitted inside commercial hauliers whose roof panels retracted at the push of a remote-control button.

By all accounts, the drivers had no idea what cargo they were carrying.

Residents near the Olenya base in Russia’s far north – one of the targets – described watching as a panicked driver ran in circles as drones launched, one after another, from the back of his lorry.

 

The drones concealed inside shipping containers

He later told police that he had been instructed to park his vehicle in a lay-by near the town of Olenegorsk where somebody would meet him.

Not all of the lorries made it to their destinations, with videos showing at least two “self-destructing” en route.

It was not the first time trucks had been used in the war. In 2020, a lorry carrying explosives was remotely detonated during an attack on the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland.

But this was rather more sophisticated. Reports suggest the drones had been trained using artificial intelligence to strike aircraft at their weakest points. The attack came so swiftly no Russian airman is believed to have reached the relative safety of the skies.

Just weeks earlier, Russia had relocated many of its strategic bombers to bases deeper inside its territory. Olenya, located within the Arctic Circle, is more than 1,000 miles from the Ukrainian border; Belaya, in Siberia, 2,500 miles. Until Sunday Ukraine had never struck more than 1,000 miles inside Russia.

 

A Russian man enters one of Ukraine’s drone trucks, and moments later a self-destruction mechanism ignites and the vehicle explodes

The aircraft based at Olenya and Belaya were among the jewels of the Russian Air Force: the Tu-95 “Bear”, a long-range bomber capable of carrying nuclear or conventional warheads; the Tu-160 “Blackjack”, the largest combat aircraft in the world, and the Tu-22M3 “Backfire”, a supersonic workhorse.

The Russians had not counted on Ukraine’s Mossad-like ingenuity – or its desperation to retaliate against the bombers that had rained destruction on its cities.

Operation Spider’s Web did not rely on long-range drones or missiles, but on small, hand-held FPV drones – relatively simple devices that have proved devastating on the battlefield.

 

Ukrainian drone uses AI to pick the weakest spot of a Russian strategic bomber and then destroys it

Russian military bloggers were quick to liken it to the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. An exaggeration, certainly – yet in terms of chutzpah, scope and possibly damage, the operation marked an unprecedented moment in the war.

Ukraine’s security services had “set a new bar of skill in conducting large-scale combat operations on enemy territory,” Iryna Vereshchuk, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, wrote on Telegram. “This is not a knockout, but a very serious knockdown for the enemy.”

According to Ukrainian officials, as many as 40 of Russia’s most expensive and sophisticated bombers were eliminated in the space of a few hours.

That claim awaits independent verification, yet whatever the finally tally, Ukraine has inflicted a humiliating blow on Russia – and sent a powerful signal to its Western allies.

In the days leading up to the strike, Ukraine’s cities had endured some of the most intense Russian bombardment of the war. Dozens had died, children among them. The Kremlin has shown no sign of relenting and is likely to take its vengeance in the coming days.

As his envoys prepared for a second round of negotiations in Istanbul, Vladimir Putin seemed determined to project military dominance. Confident of victory, he ignored requests Kyiv’s requests to share his peace terms in advance.

But hours before the talks began, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, delivered a pointed message of his own.

There had been coordinated attacks on Russian airfields before. On August 13 last year, Ukraine targeted four airbases in Kursk, Voronezh and Nizhny Novgorod. But all were within a few hundred miles of the Ukrainian border.

Operation Spider’s Web was conceived on a much grander scale.

The night before the strike, Ukraine endured perhaps the heaviest aerial support of a bloody week. Kyiv reported that 472 drones and seven ballistic and cruise missiles had struck targets across the country. Twelve Ukrainian soldiers died in a separate attack on a training base on Sunday.

But revenge would follow. Early that day, two transport bridges in the Russian regions of Bryansk and Kursk were blown up as trains passed, killing seven people. Russians officials blamed Ukraine.

Yet those attacks were just a prelude. The main attack came hours later, with far greater effect.

Among the planes destroyed, Ukrainian intelligence said, was an A-50 “Mainstay”, a £230 million Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft. The A-50 is essentially a flying radar and command post, critical to coordinating fighter jets and air defences. Russia only has a handful left. They are considered irreplaceable.

 

Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine’s security service, looking at a map showing a Russian military aircraft base Credit: Getty Images

According to Ukrainian intelligence officials, all those knowingly involved in the operation returned safely – their mission accomplished in the most astonishing way.

This was no Pearl Harbour. The Japanese attack killed 2,403 Americans and destroyed or damaged 347 US aircraft and 15 warships. A better comparison might be the 1942 SAS raid on the Sidi Haneish airfield in Egypt, when British commandos destroyed or damaged 40 Luftwaffe aircraft using machine-gun-mounted jeeps.

It was not a turning point in the Desert War – but it boosted morale, disrupted Axis logistics, and helped forge the legend of the SAS.

Operation Spider’s Web might have a similar impact. Ukraine will now approach the Istanbul talks with renewed confidence. Hours after news of the attack broke, Mr Zelensky confirmed his delegation would attend, naming Rustem Umerov, his defence minister, as its head.

Mr Umerov’s presumed involvement in the operation will no doubt discomfit the Russians seated across from him.

Ukraine’s ability to to strike so deeply and with such apparent ease is clearly an embarrassment. It exposed vulnerabilities at what should have been among Russia’s best-protected military installations.

 

Smoke rises following a drone attack on a military unit in the Sredny settlement Credit: Governor of Irkutsk Region/Reuters

The damage was not just symbolic. Russia’s long-range strike capabilities have been degraded. A significant financial cost has been incurred. It is possible that Ukraine has inflicted material damage of more than £1 billion.

Even in a country where public dissent is not tolerated, such a debacle may well provoke recriminations within the armed forces and Russia’s influential military bloggers.

Granted, Russia still has dozens of strategic bombers. But they may now have to be moved even farther east. Even then, the nagging suspicion will remain that nowhere in Russia is truly safe.

That fear will be felt acutely in the the civilian populations of Siberia and Russia’s far north – regions that, until now, seemed far removed from the conflict. The war has arrived at their doorstep.

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Posted

Some questions:

1) Did these drones target and attach autonomously?  Or were they piloted (at great distance) remotely?)

2) Realistically, what kinda ability does Russia have to protect power now?

3) Was this Russia's Marianas Turkey Shoot?  ie, the embarassing, decisive loss that made ultimate defeat inevitable?

 

 

Posted (edited)

I'm happy to be corrected but as noted in the article I think the Psyops aspects this attack by Ukraine may well do as much damage as the tactical military ones. The power brokers outside the Putin regime in Moscow have to be pissed at the optics and at the same time some concern must be creeping in on their safety. That's not something I see them taking lightly. 

I noted a few pages back that a coupe was really the only way to end this war at this point. I think this effort/attack might have taken a very big step in that direction.

And... our Potus bully minded egomaniac might hopefully be advised that he has a chance to "cement part of his legacy". However, to do so, he can't be sitting in the bleachers. 

Yes, hope.

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted
4 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

I'm happy to be corrected but as noted in the article I think the Psyops aspects this attack by Ukraine may well do as much damage as the tactical military ones. The power brokers outside the Putin regime in Moscow have to be pissed at the optics and at the same time some concern must be creeping in on their safety. That's not something I see them taking lightly. 

I noted a few pages back that a coupe was really the only way to end this war at this point. I think this effort/attack might have taken a very big step in that direction.

And... our Potus bully minded egomaniac might hopefully be advised that he has a chance to "cement part of his legacy". However, to do so, he can't be sitting in the bleachers. 

Yes, hope.

Coup.

 

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Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

I was going to be more of a smart ass and post a similar picture, just with more womenz.

First you get the money, then you get the Supra, then you get the women.

-A Message of hope by Tony Montana

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted
15 minutes ago, Deej said:

Keep checking those trucks. That's not where the next wave will be coming from 

I have it on good authority they've been putting the next round in imported Toyotas being sold to members of Putin's cabal.

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Posted (edited)

Why are we teaching students about the Assyrians  and Phoenicians - but not Russian history?

Why can’t we find out what conscript filmed the bombing attack so that we can execute him in front of a formation?

Russia will give its foes options: be stood up against a wall with a blindfold either standing or on their knees….or looking bravely straight into the barrel.  Ukraine must be destroyed to be a buffer between Russia and Europe. Obviously.

Edit: my fave

”After four years of war, who was responsible for this?”

 

 

Edited by Gatorubet
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Posted

The next thing is for Ukraine to "hide" drones and parts in the offices, homes, and cars of Russian higher ups and their family's. Then tipping off the FSB. They can produce their own version of the Night of Long Knives...

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Posted
4 hours ago, Parliament said:

Hope is good.  Hope keeps us warm.  Even in these cynical times, we are allowed to to hope.

You know what else keeps me warm? Russian airfields in flames.

"Budanov, what is best in life?"

"To crush your enemy's strategic bomber fleet, see them smoldering before you, and to hear the lamentations of their media mouthpieces."

 

Also to answer your question about the targeting - reports state that the drones were preprogrammed with attack coordinates. Ukraine intel had everything measured down to a Putin micro penis. That's how they were able to hit without needing any agents in the vicinity. Just a brilliant care package from Ukraine.

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Jameslaw121 said:

The next thing is for Ukraine to "hide" drones and parts in the offices, homes, and cars of Russian higher ups and their family's. Then tipping off the FSB. They can produce their own version of the Night of Long Knives...

Just send them out in boxes like they do in those videos where they spray glitter all over the inside of porch pirate's cars.    Someone opens the box, a half dozen drones just go flying wherever you want them to go.  Or send them to people you know who just go up on a roof and open the box, then walk away.  

Posted
47 minutes ago, dimyh said:

You know what else keeps me warm? Russian airfields in flames.

"Budanov, what is best in life?"

"To crush your enemy's strategic bomber fleet, see them smoldering before you, and to hear the lamentations of their media mouthpieces."

 

Also to answer your question about the targeting - reports state that the drones were preprogrammed with attack coordinates. Ukraine intel had everything measured down to a Putin micro penis. That's how they were able to hit without needing any agents in the vicinity. Just a brilliant care package from Ukraine.

 

So each drone was assigned to take out a parking spot?

I’m gonna presume the USAF keeps a large number of our heavy bombers in the air, partially for this reason.  So a preset drone can’t find it sitting in the same spot all the time.

Posted
2 hours ago, Parliament said:

So each drone was assigned to take out a parking spot?

“Don’t it always seem to go - that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone - 

They paved the tarmac nice, now it’s a large, scorched spot…”

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Posted
3 hours ago, dimyh said:

Also to answer your question about the targeting - reports state that the drones were preprogrammed with attack coordinates. Ukraine intel had everything measured down to a Putin micro penis. That's how they were able to hit without needing any agents in the vicinity. Just a brilliant care package from Ukraine.

At any one time, there hast to quite a few of those aircraft down for maintenance or parts and tucked away in a hangar, which means the ones they hit were probably the working ones, so their capability was probably degraded beyond the 30% of the overall aircraft.  Could have easily been 40-50% of working aircraft easily.

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Posted

I think they're still waiting for the capability to be able to use the Taurus missiles, which are the missiles with longer range. They may have possession of the missiles, or they may be in staging, but I've read the wait now is the aircraft have to be configured to use them.

Posted

I don’t know what it’s going to take to get the admin to admit what Russia is and that it’s not serious. Today in Istanbul, Ukraine gave the Russians a list of 300 children.  Russia has disappeared thousands more, but these 300 are:

1. Identified as alive 

2. Tracked to a place in Russia 

3. Have guardians affirmatively asking for them back. 
 

Russia’s response: “we will take a look at maybe 10.” 

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Posted
Also to answer your question about the targeting - reports state that the drones were preprogrammed with attack coordinates. Ukraine intel had everything measured down to a Putin micro penis. That's how they were able to hit without needing any agents in the vicinity. Just a brilliant care package from Ukraine.
 


I recall reading somewhere that they also used local Russian telecom networks were available to pilot the drones from afar… either way, absolutely brilliant.
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