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Destroyed on the airfields “This will be in textbooks”, writes Maria Avdeeva.
Ukraine secretly delivered FPV drones and wooden mobile cabins into Russia. The drones were hidden under the roofs of the cabins, which were later mounted on trucks.
At the signal, the roofs opened remotely. Dozens of drones launched directly from the trucks, striking strategic bomber aircraft.
And — Russia can’t produce these bombers anymore. The loss is massive.
Nothing like this has ever been done before.
In one sense, of course, it has been done before. The military history of the twentieth century contains many examples of large numbers of planes being destroyed on their airfields – by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour, by the Germans at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, and by the Israelis in the first hours of the Six Day War, to name but three.
But such damage being done by itty bitty little drones that were considered little more than toys a few years ago is new.
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There is a lot of disinformation in war, and we cannot rule out (yet) the possibility that the strike near Karelia was not the result of a mix-up for the Finnish Special Forces opening by mistake some long-forgotten Winter War orders.
The strike near Irkutsk was obviously a bit of a Risk, and again, remnants of the Czechoslovak Legion from the Civil War might again have got some mixed-up orders.
I mean it’s obvious The Ukraine couldn’t hit targets that far away in heavily-policed Russia during a war, could they? That would mean that nowhere and nothing in Russia is safe.
PS Does this mean that The Glorious First of June is no longer just a British thing?
A lot of things were hit – the bridges I can understand being destroyed, as one can not really hide a bridge. But what were aircraft doing out in the open? Hardened bunker-hangers should have been ready from the start of the war – for them still not to be ready (or not being used) more than three years into the war, is unacceptable.
This has happened before – both with ships in open port in Crimea (because no one has bothered to bring the Cold War era rock covered ship base back into service) and with aircraft just sitting out in the open rather than in bunker-hangers.
Russia will still, most likely, win the war – but that does not alter the fact that Mr Putin and the Russian military top brass are useless Tosspots.
As are the FSB – who are still concentrating on crushing peaceful political dissent, rather than dealing with enemy saboteurs in time of war.
“But it is NOT a war – it is a special military operation”.
More Tosspot “logic” – of course it is a war.
A little scary. Attacks on Russian strategic assets.
In the not-so-distant past, that would have called for a strategic response.
I suspect leaves are being cancelled at Fort Meade right now.
bobby b
Mr Putin thought he could win a “limited war” which he did not even call a war – hence “special military operation”.
Mr Putin is a sort of Russian Robert McNamara – and I am not being complementary.
At this point Mr Putin needs to either treat this as a real war and win it – or prepare to get a bullet in the back of his head, and it will not be fired by a Ukrainian.
Mr Putin being a robber and a murderer is nothing special – one expects a ruler to be a robber and a murderer, but being a failure is unacceptable – it is treason to the Motherland.
These are the same aircraft used to launch missiles at Ukrainian cities, so maybe if Russia was not using strategic bombers as conventional assets…
The North Vietnamese shot down several B52s.
Kind of like the FBI pre-Kash Patel, coming to think of it.
“But what were aircraft doing out in the open?”
I’d suggest they were in the open because of a fundamental failure of imagination. Flying a drone, even one released from a mothership aircraft, direct from Ukraine to some of the bases struck in this operation isn’t feasible–the base near Irkutsk which was hit is as far from Ukrainian-held territory as Canada or the Congo are. But instead, this was an audacious piece of sabotage work, smuggling drones close to the targets and unleashing them.
Why weren’t these irreplaceable planes in hardened shelters? Because everyone involved on the Russian side failed to consider anything but the direct approach. And three years into a war where Ukraine has frequently been able to confound expectations by striking targets the Russians thought were safe, it speaks to a massive inability to adapt on the Russian part. It’s as though no one throughout their military or intel communities is asking the “what if” questions, or if they are, they’re being ignored.
“either treat this as a real war and win it”
I’d assess that contrary to Putin’s words, in his actions he has been treating this as a “real war”. And he can’t win it, except in this horrific attritional grind. He has few options for escalating further, and they all come with huge risks.
Bobby B
And nukes being loaded on planes in Russia
I’d just like to point out that there is little proof that Russia is winning at present. Sure, it is taking territory, but that is not the same.
Winning is the collapse of one side. At this moment, it is just as likely to be Russia as Ukraine that folds.
Also, Russia is broke. Building hardened bunkers is not cheap for such massive planes, and non-hardened are worse than useless. They may not have been able to afford to build them.
Sure Chester.
Debt as a % of GDP
Russia 16.4
USA 124.0
UK 95.9
Who’s broke?
True. But:
– they shot them down as we were using them over their territory for non-strategic purposes. No alerts were raised for that. And . . .
– They were OURS. We weren’t ruled by a madman. It was safe to predict that we would not respond strategically. Predicting Putin seems like a fool’s game. (And, yes, unfairly, the instability of Putin is a threat enhancement.)
In any case, our military readiness has now been boosted. Not action, but readiness.
Anon – if this were 2022 I might agree with you, but it is 2025.
This is NOT the first such attack on Russian airfields (whether it was done by Ukrainians or by special forces from other countries) – there have been several. For the aircraft not to be in hardened bunker-hangers by this time is unacceptable.
True the Russians seem more concerned about the bridge attack (a bridge was blown up as a train was passing underneath it – destroying the train as well as the bridge) – and the Air Force brass are saying “the smoke you are seeing is from tires we put round aircraft to protect them” – but even they have admitted that several aircraft were damaged or destroyed – and that is unacceptable.
Mr Putin is President of Russia – he is Commander in Chief, he must bear responsibility for the failure to protect aircraft – I repeat this-is-not-the-first-attack – there have been several attacks on Russian aircraft, and ships, just sitting out in the open.
Mr Putin made the decision to go to war – an unnecessary war, and he made the decision for it to be a “limited war” a “special military operation” – and that sort of “clever” “Post Modern” nonsense never works (look at Gaza over almost two years).
If you go to war and fail to destroy-the-enemy you are a traitor, a traitor to your own nation, to your own people.
Destroy the enemy or be executed, as a traitor, for your failure to do so – Mr Putin knows this rule, and he knew it in 2022 when he decided to go to war, he has no grounds for complaint.
If some entity exists, which genuinely wishes to promote human advancement and flourishing, and has the capability to influence events, but can not avoid “Realpolitik”, then Putin’s “Special Military Operation” is a master stroke. The weakness of the war fighting power of Russia has been exposed for the world to see. China has been given pause and other world tyrannies have seen the weakness of their main sponsor. Whether or not, such an entity exists, humanity should forever remember and honour the many Ukrainians and Russians whose lives had been sacrificed, for the future benefit of our species.
This attack has overtones of Mossad’s pager attack. Clever and strategic. But the Ancient Greeks still got there first.
Paul: I don’t think we’re really in disagreement. I’d quibble that “unacceptable” isn’t the word I’d choose, since Putin’s the enemy. I’m happy to accept his poor leadership causing horrendous losses to his own military–though as you say, his own side should not be.
He certainly started the war using less than a full commitment of Russia’s forces, but he has escalated to the point that he has almost nowhere to go conventionally. Russian industry has already been stretched to its limits refurbishing, repairing and building tanks and artillery, and they’ve not been able to keep up with losses. New formations could be manned if he mobilises further–but they can’t be equipped any time soon. And manning new formations with broader mobilisation means drawing on the manpower of St Petersburg and Moscow, which he’s avoiding doing as much as possible until now, because of the risk of unrest in his centres of power.
Chemical or nuclear escalation options are obviously fraught with hazards, and I think he fears to tread those paths.
Longrider: The Mossad pager attack was my first thought, too. Again enabled by a failure of imagination on the part of the targetted enemy. They knew that their comms could be compromised but never imagined a complete subversion of their supply chain to the extent that occurred.
I don’t know why attacking people with small flying machines carrying weapons is such a surprise. They often featured in Judge Dredd in 2000AD way back in the late 1970s.
Paul Marks and others: the bombers were out in the open because under the terms of the SALT and START treaties they were required to be so, just as the US ones are. It’s for monitoring purposes, among other things.
No one has aircraft shelters in enough number to protect their aircraft.
Henry Cybulski.
I did not know that – and such treaty provisions are utterly insane. No one should sign such a treaty – unless they are just doing so for public relations purposes (with no intention of actually leaving equipment, such as aircraft, out in the open).
No military should have its aircraft, or anything else, out in the open.
lucklucky – even if Russia did not have enough hardened bunker-hangers for its aircraft in 2022, it is now more than three years later.
Mr Putin has been in command for 25 years.
The Russian Constitution clearly states that Russian law takes precedence over “International Law”, including treaties.
If this attack is anything like as severe as the Ukrainians are claiming, there is a strong case for executing Mr Putin – on the grounds that his negligence amounts to treason.
25 years as Commander in Chief and strategic bombers sitting out in the open?
Sorry – but “it is in treaties, I had to leave them out in the open” is no defense.
Nor should the United States leave military equipment, including aircraft, sitting out in the open – and “it is no treaties, we had to do it” is no defense for leaving American military equipment out in the open either.
These “treaties” are a clear violation of national security.
Russia suspended its membership of START in 2022.
Also Putin has been throwing everything including and up to the proverbial kitchen sink (probably still more effective than a T-34) at Ukraine.
TU-95s have been used to lob over the horizon cruise missiles at Ukraine from inside Russian airspace for years. Ukraine had every right to send them to the scrap yard. The drone footage of the attack was *chef’s kiss*.
What’s the deal with the stuff on the wings of the Tu-95s?
They look like tyres. Any ideas?
The tires are put there to mess image recognition algorithms.
Which was suspended in 2022, a point noted by various enraged Russian commentators demanding to know why hardened shelters had not been built over the last couple years.
I very much doubt that some of the operators were that remote: they would have needed people nearby to place the drones and ensure their safety. The remote announcement will have been to give those local agents time to get clear.
Andrew,
Debt is not Russia’s financial problem – but cash is. Liquid central bank reserves have been falling fast and relentlessly. At current attrition rates Russia will be out of money in the early winter this year. If Russia is to lose the war it will be because of that driving military collapse.
And the western allies seeking to make exactly that come to pass should focus on blockading the Baltic to Russia’s fleet of shadow tankers. Which is what we are starting to get.
At some point Ukraine may start using its increasing long reach to target crude oil assets as well as refineries to accelerate the bankruptcy – which will come gradually and then suddenly.
Interesting related article: Ukrainian drones are tapping us on our shoulder
Patrick
This has been predicted every year since 2022, along with Putin’s cancer, running out of microchips and having to cannibalize washing machines to replace them, and the imminent overthrow of the hated Putin regime. I’d take it with a bucket of salt.
Besides, at the recent rate of progress on the three major fronts of the real (ie not the flashy and strategically irrelevant fireworks displays that Mr Zelenskyy seems to favour) conflict, it doesn’t look like they need much more time.
Good point Perry – now I remember hearing that the treaties had been suspended. Mr Putin is to blame for this – but, no doubt, he will punish scapegoats to divert attention from his own failure to order the building of hardened shelters for aircraft and other military assets.
Patrick – the Dollar and the Pound are no more “cash” than the Rubble is. All currencies now are fiat – government whim (edict) currencies, and the Credit Bubbles of bankers. You-know-this.
Russia has weak manufacturing, although not as weak as the manufacturing of the United Kingdom (as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer de facto admitted today – with his promises to build munitions factories) – but it is a de facto economic colony of CHINA – which sells Russia manufactured goods in return for raw materials (a classic Imperial relationship – with China being the Imperial power).
Of course, this is treason to the Russian people – but till someone puts a bullet into Mr Putin’s head the subject relationship with the People’s Republic of China will continue.
Mr Putin gets some of his soldiers from the Islamic community (both from Russia itself and from the Central Asian countries), hence the endless anti Jewish stuff on “RT”. And he gets his manufactured goods from the People’s Republic of China – the leading manufacturing power on the planet, twice the output of the United States.
Is the military stuff (either made in Russia or China) of high quality? NO it is NOT – even the basic ammunition can be duff. But Mr Putin does not seem to care about this – perhaps because he is not fighting personally.
On the other hand – at least Russia can feed itself and has lots of raw materials, so its fate will be less cruel than that of the United Kingdom – which can not feed itself, does not have sufficient raw materials, and whose manufacturing is being destroyed by government “Green” taxes and regulations pushing energy prices to insane levels, and ever more labour market regulations.
The fate of the United Kingdom is likely to be truly horrific – I hope I am not alive to see it.
How do you figure that?
“The object of Limited War is to isolate the focus of attack while retaining a home defense that bars an unlimited counter strike” Sir Julian Corbett “Some Principles of Maritime Strategy”
This Putin is increasingly failing to do.
Mike Solent – “limited war” is absurd.
In war you win or you lose – you destroy the enemy or they destroy you.
Real war is NOT like an episode of “Star Trek” where one does clever things in order to make the other side “make a deal”.
Robert McNamara was unfit for high office – and so, it appears, is Mr Putin with his “special military operation”.
And, in case I am accused of bias, I would say the same thing about the Israeli establishment.
“We must conduct limited operations – or we will lose international support” has been a horrible failure, and it has led to the very “loss of international support” it was supposed to avoid.
An operation that should have lasted a few weeks, evacuate the Muslim civilians in Gaza to the Islamic world (which stretches from Morocco to Indonesia – from the Atlantic to the Pacific) and kill the terrorists who refuse to leave (hiding in tunnels and so on), has dragged on for the best part of two years – with international support dripping away (as it was bound to do) and has led to civilian deaths – certainly nothing like the number of civilian deaths that the lying international media claim (their claims are straight from Hamas – the media are shameless), but every civilian death (including Muslim civilian death) is a tragedy – civilians should not have not have been left in a battlefield – which is what the Gaza Salient (“Strip”) is.
Unfortunately when President Trump, and others, suggested evacuating the civilians he was howled down by the same International Community which PRETENDS to care about the deaths of Muslim civilians.
Mr Putin’s defenders claim that he has, finally, learned his lessons – and will launch a proper offensive this month (June 2025) which will end in Russian victory by the end of the summer.
Well I will make a prediction of my own – if Mr Putin does not successfully do this, he-is-a-dead-man.
Mr Putin will either have won the war by September – or he will be dead. That is my prediction. And it will not be Ukrainians who kill him – he knows this.
The basic idea behind the decline of the West has been around for donkey’s years if anyone had been inclined to look.
William Rees Mogg wrote a fantastic book 40 years ago called ‘Blood on the Streets’ where he accurately described the decline of Western power down to the fact that the cost of defensive weaponry had declined massively. For example, you have an F-15 jet costing 100 million, I can take it down with 4 stinger missiles costing 30 thousand each. And so on and so on. Now we have seen that the cost of OFFENSIVE weaponry has declined in a similar manner. Aircraft carriers are obsolete. So are tanks. Have been saying this for years.
@ Paul Marks
The aircraft were in the open because these airfields are DEEP inside the huge country that is Russia in a remote location.
It is not completely naive to have had them in the open because it was a very strange and daring operation that had the drones launched from a truck nearby.
As per my post above, the cost of offensive weaponry has now declined but the method of delivery in this particular case was still very primitive and clunky, albeit against an enemy that was totally unprepared for this type of attack. And why should they have been prepared, the imagination behind this operation is fantastic and totally unheard of in my experience.
In war you win or you lose – you destroy the enemy or they destroy you.
There is another option: it drags on for a long time and ends in stalemate. (Ends in the same place it began). It destroys both sides. (See WW1). Or – see the Vietnam war…
If you can win the war rapidly, you do that. If you can’t – you do what you can.
Only if the F-15 is for some bizarre reason operating down at 3000m (about 10,000ft) rather than dropping JDAMs or whatever from three times that altitude. The end of the fast jet is not in fact at hand & certainly not from MANPADS
tim.
As I have said several times – this was NOT the first attack.
There have been other attacks on Russian airfields, and on other things in Russia (such as bridges and railway tunnels) hundreds, indeed thousands of miles away from Ukraine.
There was no excuse for keeping the aircraft out in the open – stop trying to pretend there was an excuse.
You do NOT have aircraft, or any other military equipment, just laying about in the open.
Especially not when you have been at war for years.
“But it is not a war – it is a special military operation”.
If anyone comes out with that drivel, they can jump off the nearest cliff.
@ Perry De Havilland
ManPads are effective at dropping low flying aircraft but yes high flying aircraft take a bit more work.
Considering what we have seen with drone tech there could be (or already are?) round the clock drones flying with air to air missiles that could take out high flying jets. You could also send up drone swarms (cheap) in large amounts to put into the path of incoming high flying jets. As we have seen, the possibilities are endless and a lot cheaper.
Or of course you could just send in some drones from nearby and destroy the planes on the ground. It’s been done apparently:)
Who know that the cost of going on the offensive was now dropping to match that of defensive weaponry. Fascinating stuff.
@Paul Marks
This attack has shown that Russia’s geography is not a problem for drone strikes. Russia clearly thought that it was enough for the amoubnt of tinme they were outside and vulnerable.
I’m not going to pretend having their aircraft out in the open is a great idea but where do you put operational aircraft exactly? They do have to go outside sometimes don’t they?
You could assume that as active aircraft they have to take off etc, that does require going outside.
Do you know if they were parked there all day? For two days? Or was it just an hour?
Maybe they were inside for most of the time.
But unless you have some sort of air craft style elevator system that takes them below ground ( does anybody do that on airfields?) then all planes are going to be at risk at some point.
I’d like to think that the Russians aren’t so incompetent that they didn’t just leave their planes parked outside like someone who commutes into a city and leaves their car outside all day. But maybe they did.*
Either way this attack has changed warfare once again, although I think this conflict has done quite a lot of that already. I don’t think too many people will be wanting to sit in a tank anymore that’s for sure.
*Doubtful.
Tim, weapons can be cheap & low performance (drones), or expensive & high performance (missiles). You need expensive sensors to achieve fire control solutions on expensive agile fast moving high flying aircraft. No matter how cheap your drones, for high altitude fast jets with stand-off weapons (even stand-off bombs like JDAMS etc. let alone missiles) there is more sky than you can possibly saturate with cheap stuff. Cheap numerous drones are a threat to expensive fast jets on the ground.
@ Perry De Havilland
Agreed, High flying jets are far harder targets but not impossible with a drone swarm. Just get an epprozimate vector and put thousands of cheap drones up in the approximate area all buzzing about in loose staggered formations and you have a very hstd to bypass wall . No payload required. Pretty cheap.
But yes it would he better to destroy jets whilenthey are low/in the ground.
I seem to remember that the Meschersmitt jets that were developed and used late in ww2 were constantly followed back to their airfields and shot down while they were landing.