The Ukrainian security service carried out a large-scale attack on four Russian military airbases on Sunday. The attacks took place thousands of kilometers from the front line. According to Ukraine, dozens of aircraft were destroyed.
Ukraine claims that 34 percent of the Russian bombers have been destroyed and that the damage for Russia runs into the billions. This would amount to 6.1 billion euros. A source within the Ukrainian security service SBU says that 41 aircraft have been hit. Those aircraft would be used to “bomb Ukrainian cities.”
The source mentioned strategic bombers such as the Tu-95, the Tu-22 and the radar detection and command aircraft A-50. The Russian Ministry of Defense has only said that “several aircraft caught fire” after Ukrainian attacks. Russia is said to have repelled other attacks.
Russia says it has arrested some participants of the attacks, but Ukraine denies that. This would include the driver of a truck allegedly involved in the attack.
The Ukrainian president Zelensky, on the other hand, says that the people involved in the preparation of the large attack “have been withdrawn from Russian territory in time.”
The attacks were part of ‘Operation Spiderweb’, the preparations for which are said to have taken a year and a half. The SBU says it will tell more about the operation soon. The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky already shared some details on Sunday evening. “Of course, we cannot reveal everything yet, but these are the Ukrainian actions that will undoubtedly go down in the history books.”
The drones were smuggled into Russia to circumvent Russian anti-aircraft artillery. According to sources, the drones were hidden in wooden containers in Russia. The containers were loaded onto trucks, which were then parked near the airbases. The roof could be slid off via a remote control and the drones could attack the aircraft.
Zelensky says that a total of 117 drones were used. The president also claims that the “office” of the operation was located next to a building of the Russian security service. That has not been independently verified.
The United States was not informed in advance about the operation, a source within the American government reports to CBS. The White House has not yet reacted to the attacks.