In what analysts are calling a defining moment in modern warfare, Ukraine launched Operation Spider Web on 1 June 2025 — a large-scale, coordinated drone assault that struck deep into Russian territory, targeting five military airbases.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) claimed the strikes destroyed over 40 Russian military aircraft, including strategic bombers and airborne command platforms.
According to Ukrainian sources, the operation took 18 months of planning and was personally overseen by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Drones were covertly transported into Russia in wooden crates disguised as innocuous cargo, then mounted on mobile truck platforms. At the moment of attack, the containers’ roofs opened remotely and dozens of drones launched toward targets hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine’s border.
Footage of Ukrainian FPV strike drones flying into Russian Tu-95 bombers this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/Dayx6dQgFn
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 1, 2025
The targets — Olenya, Dyagilevo, Ivanovo Severny, Belaya, and Voskresensk airbases — are all home to high-value aircraft assets, including the Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95 Bear bombers, which have been used in long-range missile strikes against Ukraine. Notably, a A-50 airborne early warning aircraft, critical for Russian airspace control, was also reportedly hit. Ukrainian officials estimate the damage at more than $2 billion USD.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has not provided a comprehensive statement, but regional authorities confirmed drone attacks in multiple oblasts. In Irkutsk Oblast, the governor acknowledged a strike near Belaya airbase and released footage of smoke plumes rising from the scene. Russian media also reported drone activity over Olenya and air defence engagement. Engels and Morozovsk airbases, both housing strategic bombers, declared a heightened state of emergency following the attack, though they were not among the confirmed targets.
Ukrainian agents involved in staging the drones on Russian soil were reportedly exfiltrated prior to launch. According to Axios, Ukrainian officials informed the U.S. administration in advance.
While Russian officials have not yet released casualty or damage assessments, the psychological impact of the operation is already being felt. Several Russian Telegram channels reported panic and confusion across air force command structures, and temporary flight suspensions were reported in parts of central Russia.
Military analysts have described Operation Spider Web as a landmark shift in how modern states can conduct long-range precision attacks without conventional aircraft.
Russia’s extensive use of its strategic bomber fleet to launch missiles into Ukraine has been one of the most persistent threats since the full-scale invasion began. By targeting the bases where these bombers are stored, serviced, and launched, Ukraine appears to be shifting from defensive intercepts to strategic disruption.
Now what will you do about RAF Lossimouth, RAF Waddington, RAF Brize Norton, AAC Wattisham, RNAS Yeovilton, RNAS Culdrose, HMNB Devonport, Faslane, and Portsmouth HMG?
High value assets lined up or tied up close together, with next to zero GBAD or CUAS to defend them, just hopes of intelligence led breakthroughs to stop Russian sabotage, ISIS sabotage, anyone’s sabotage, from retaliating in kind.
I don’t include Coningsby or Marham as at least those places have HAS, like Lossi for some of its Typhoon assets.
And lets just ignore shiny toys for a moment, the enablers.
C3 assets, radar, the vital DM and supply hubs like Ashchurch, Kineton and Donnington.
A comprehensive list would be extensive and I suggest financially impossible to protect all beyond general war and huge amounts of GDP spent.
Well we are going to have to invest in coastal air defence and extra defences on all airfields
Spread out our squadrons🤔
I saw a vidéo discribing this kind of attack 2 or
3 years ago, with a Russian Twin copter rising from a truck armed with a canon and attacking an éléphant walk. How ironic is this situation… it would take a night to perform these kind of attack. It can happen anytime.
As much as that sounds logical. At present we simply do not have enough SHORAD to provide air defences, if aircraft are dispersed to other airfields and there’s a deployed overseas need, especially now the RAF Regiment doesn’t have anything beyond handheld Starstreak. In the short term the simplest solution would to be house all fighter type aircraft in Hardened Aircraft Shelters (HAS). Whilst the heavies at Brize and Lossiemouth would need at the very least Sky Sabre support.
Perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel? Recently we have seen both Dragonfire and RFDEW effectively taking out individual drones and drone swarms. Could these two systems be the answer to drone attacks?
One would hope that if we are in a shooting war such as is going on in Eastern Europe we would have already dispersed assets quite widely. One would also hope that there would be a robust plan for defending those dispersed assets. However, bearing in mind that the policy that has been followed for years is to concentrate assets to avoid the costs of dispersion I question whether such a plan is in place. You mentioned Brize, previously there was Lyneham as well, but that has been shut for some years and all the transport eggs are in the single basket. There are numerous other examples. I wonder if tomorrow’s publication will have any hints as to whether such bases might be reopened.
The really major problem that might arise would be if a potential enemy chose to set off a shooting war by having such a coup de main as their first action. That really would put the sticky on the fan.
Hi Nick.
Lyneham was indeed closed as an RAF Station.
Incase you’re unaware, its still in use, home of the REME.
Some taxiways now have REME training aids on them, unsure of the state of the runways.
As examples of your point, Leeming, Kinloss, Leuchars, Chivenor, as but a few examples have operational runways retained.
MoD is not short of runways, when RLG and other minor airfields are added.
Lyneham is one of the biggest solar farms in the UK, the old airline is mostly solar panels now so definitely no longer an Airfield.
Airside not airline!
Ah, thanks Paul.
Interesting, thank you. I hadn’t realised that the Army had moved into Lyneham, I thought it had been sold off.
Like many others I am awaiting tomorrow’s publication with interest, and I suspect with a certain degree of cynicism, we shall see!
Several old RAF Stations have been occupied by the Army.
On the one hand, it keeps vital infrastructure on MoD estate.
On the other hand, Dern has noted before they are not always in the best locations to give soldiers a life.
Leconfield and Abingdon are also now army bases. Stuff brought back from Germany?
@Ensleigh.
No. Abingdon is Dalton Barracks, home to a 3 UK Division RLC Regiment for many years, and was scheduled to close.
Leconfield is the Defence of Transport.
Add North Luffenham, Hullavington, Brawdy, Cottesmore, Wattisham, Woodbridge, Leuchars, Kinloss to the list of Army Barracks at old RAF Stations.
4 Mech Brigade, 7 Armoured Brigade, and 20 Armoured Brigade relocated to the UK post BAOR. 4 Mech went first. 7 Armoured was reduced to an infantry Bde, 20th is centered around Salisbury Plain.
The RAF dusted off cold war plans several years ago for dispersing flights to smaller airfields, it was reported at the time.
It was publicly announced an atlas was carrying out training at Teesside Airport a couple of days ago. Now why would that be useful training? A clue could very well be Teesside Airport was a dispersal site to be used back in the cold war…
Along with the fact that basically no city in the UK has any kind of air defence system from a large scale attack.
Just Bronk from RUSI did a very good interview on this. Very simply hardened aircraft shelters at Lossimouth, Marham and Coningsby with twice as many shelters as aircraft constructed would mitigate almost all the threat (fast jet force) from drones as they rarely carry anything more than light explosives.
Three sky Sabre systems would be sufficient to stop advanced cruise missiles if combined with the shelters as Russian cruise missiles are not accurate enough for direct hit.
UK wide protection provided by E7 and Typhoon loaded primarily with ASRAAM
Typhoon using meteor supported by Voyager and E7 in the Norwegian Sea intercepting bombers launching cruise missiles.
P8 and Merlin sinking any SSGN.
I suspect you will see much of this in the SDR tomorrow based on RUSI submissions to the review.
What is a terrible idea is trying to provide GBAD to large parts of the UK.
Defo agree on expanding HAS.
There are also still several legacy HAS sites from the Cold War at other sites we might be able to utilise.
Wattisham. Boscombe. Leeming. Leuchars. St Mawgan. Woodbridge. Honington.
Yes, good idea especially for reserve aircraft sheltering. Justin Bronk was quite clear that cheap drones won’t penetrate HAS and cruise missiles are expensive and can only launch in numbers.
Decoy shelters presenting multiple targets can dramatically increase the cost of an attack especially if you also have to over come even very limited air defence.
But then you find that HAS has its doors openend…
Cruise missiles are getting cheaper.
RAF Wyton would either need it’s own GBAD or elements there moving within a base that does.
Yes, MoD Wyton to be exact. Though it’s quite possible things like Pathfinder ( the main building development at Wyton with numerous intell orgs within it ) have a degree of hardening that might defeat an FPV?
Explosives didn’t make a dent at VX, nor would they at Benhall.
On the intelligence side, God help us, many here will be aware of various buildings vulnerable.
I’d like to see more Covert sites developed.
Yes I’ve spent many a long hour in PF. It’s an invaluable asset in many ways.
Ahhh, in that case my apologies, rmj.
Nothing I say will add when you have first hand knowledge. 👍
Well listed. We’ll have to see if anything substantial happens with GBAD now. Something more than just Shorad.
We are going to have to have very efficiently secure borders and start deporting all Russian Assets pronto including unwelcome boat arrivals.
I suggest Ireland is now a massive risk and we need to start talking some sense into those that will listen there with the aim of them joining a European Defence. The past must be the past.
Military assets wouldn’t have prevented what happened in Russia for us. Unless we’re calling the army out to patrol streets and check HGV’s. This is a counter-terrorism/Police matter.
My god! That is bloody terrifying. I’m so impressed with the ingenuity and the daring of the Ukrainian armed forces.
And whilst Ukraine strikes military targets, Russia continues to hit cities.
Well, it’s been a hell of a day on twitter
Operation Spiderweb has taken over the chat!
And fundraising is stalling a bit for now…
The footage from the attacks on the russian airfields, no anti-air, soldiers stood watching and recording as drones guided by AI hit the jets
Footage of the trucks and drones
Bigger and better than the pager attack💯
We are all trying to analyse the OSINT and messages from Ukrainians and russians
Up to 41 targets hit
SBU: 34% of strategic aircraft at the main airfields of the Russian Federation were hit.
As of 18:00 Ukrainian time, the destruction of 7 strategic aircraft Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 and 1 military transport aircraft An-12 has been visually confirmed
We believe the A-50 have also been hit at Ivanovo airfield
Hoping we get a proper confirmation later tonight or tomorrow
Excellent news…
👍 mate
They (hezbollah) don’t have strategic aviation, but there is reproductive sistem…(smiley) So naturally, out of circumstance and necessity.
It’s being described as Russia’s “Pearl Harbour”. Which I feel is very apt. If it’s true that around 40 bombers plus an A50 Mainstay were taken out. This is a very large chunk of Russia’s available strategic bomber fleet. Especially when some of these aircraft would have been expected to carry nuclear armed cruise missiles.
I hope these guys get back safely, that’s a big balls operation well behind enemy lines.
I don’t understand why Russia can use X though.
Isn’t Musk on their side?
It is funny to see that long time deemed obsolete Installations like HAS and guns like the Gepard flak Tank (and even Light aided guns like in ww2) have become valuable again while many other high tech weapons are of rather limited use.
However, this strike was a mix of intelligence and pretty modern drones.
As far as I know, they have all returned, so some thread say…
Well, if the russians were stopped from using it, then you would also have to ban the Americans, Chinese, and Africans to prevent the spread of disinformation
It would take the fun out of being on X to “bonk the vatniks” and collect OSINT
They post stuff that can be used against them…
The propaganda war is just as important!
This is fantastic. Clearly the Russian scum have run out of tyres!!
Agree as well as tough netting. Some Station Commanders may be posted to new roles on remote Pacific coast island.
Why now? This was not the only ‘piss the Russians off’ event this weekend. There were also a sabotaged track (no-one hurt) and the demolition of an overbridge in front of a passenger train (at least 4 dead and many injured all civilians). Also about a week ago the Ukrainians published full details of the Russian head negotiator’s family.
I note that there is another Ukraine/Russia meeting in Turkey tomorrow morning. Maybe they want to encourage the Russians to walk away which would be good PR for USA/Ukraine?
Don’t mention the 2/3 nights of all out attack on Ukrainian cities just before the ‘peace’ talks though🤔
It wasn’t ‘now’ – the Ukrainians have been planning this for 18-months according to Zelensky, during which time Russia could have agreed to a ceasefire but chose to continue the war they started.
It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Air bases tend to be poorly defended due to their size and history such as the birth of the sas demonstrates going after them can be hugely beneficial. I always thought a war would start with a sub firing off a salvo against air bases but this is even more effective and a whole lot cheaper.
Drones are currently insanely difficult to deal with as air defences can’t be everywhere and are designed to filter out low slow moving objects to avoid targing birds. It’s going to take a serious revolutionary step to be able to counter them.
The only bit that surprises is Ukraine explained how they did it. You would think they would want to keep that quiet so they could reuse it at a later date.
Brilliant strike. We might also see a reduction in the number of incidents of Russians ‘buzzing’ British & NATO airspace using the Bears.
Has an IMF feel to it. Does anyone know what the black circular objects are, strewn across the wings. You can see them on sat photos at engels here 51° 28′ 52″ N, 46° 12′ 38″ E.
Those black circular objects are road tires. The russians love the smell of burning rubber.
As Richard says below they are road tyres. The ideal is that some of the drones used have limited AI to recognize targets. The varying patterns of the tyres on the wings are said to confuse this AI. However, it doesn’t always work especially if the drones are FPV.
Putin did not let Trump get his peace victory so we have here the “pressure”.
Ukraine and Europe will just have to watch out for any Russian response and hope they can repel that successfully. Like to see Ukraine having some success in flushing out the Russian forces from its own territory in south, south East.
The Ukrainian special forces have also just destroyed two key rail bridges in Western Russia which will impact the flow of war material to the front lines. Most Russian hardware is transported via rail to rail heads close to the Ukraine border to then be off loaded and distributed.
The destruction of these two bridges will potentially interrupt and reduce the flow of supplies to the front lines until they can be replaced. Looking at pictures online both bridges are total loses.
This will go down well with Trump and the Yanks.
They like this kind of derring-do..
Happy for Ukraine to have this big strike success but is it good to show the whole world how you did it just in case you may want to do it again? Hope Ukraine can also have more success in flushing Russian forces out of its sovereign territory before they become even more entrenched.
‘Apparently Ukraine does hold some cards’…the best quote I read today
QRA at Lossiemouth might be a bit quiet this week.
The first excerpt of an interesting article from Theconservativetreehouse.com this morning. A very serious aspect we did not spot. Is a USAF airbase in the US now a valid target?
Quote
There’s an important detail to remember. People are laughing at the long-range Russian bombers being left out in the open, vulnerable to attack. However, the bomber visibility is required as part of several nuclear agreements between the USA and Russia (SALT and START). Our U.S. long range nuclear capable bombers, covered under the same agreements, are also visible.
Ukraine President Zelenskyy is playing with fire by targeting them, which also explains why Zelenskyy never told President Trump in advance.
…………………………………………………….
Think about the ramifications of NATO enabled Ukraine targeting major Russian military assets which are vulnerable only because they are part of a previously agreed U.S-Russia negotiation to remain vulnerable. In essence, an argument can be made by Russia that NATO -and by extension us- have targeted nuclear capable missile systems, and those systems were protected by the SALT/START treaties. How would we respond of an adversary launched a strike against our strategic long-range nuclear capable bombers in the USA?
I cannot imagine how President Trump would address a phone call with President Putin when the leader of the Russian Federation confronts him with the reality that it was NATO and USA military support, actual hardware and technical capability, that has provided Ukraine with the ability to target strategic nuclear weapons.
That’s a simple one to answer- Ukraine didn’t sign that treaty. its up to Russia and America to negotiate any change to their treaty.
What Ukraine, Russia and USA did sign was a treaty to stipulate they would all respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, in exchange for Ukraine decommissioning its nuclear arsenal. That was a mistake as Russia broke that treaty- so as far as I can tell by legal rights Ukraine can pretty much do unto Russia whatever the hell it wants too as pay back for Russia breaking its treaty obligations and starting a war of conquest against Ukraine.
Good points well made. Furthermore I would argue that if Russia didn’t want its strategic assets targeted it should not of used them tactically by using them as conventional bombers. You live by the sword you die by the sword. Russia made these bombers a target and targeted ( quite rightly) they were.
The corrupt system made them more vulnerable than we all thought-