The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) reported that the June 1 “Spider Web” drone operation caused approximately $7 billion in damages and disabled 34% of cruise missile bombers in key Russian airbases.
The agency confirmed that more details about the attack will be revealed later.
“And you thought Ukraine was easy? Ukraine is exceptional. Ukraine is unique. All the steamrollers of history have rolled over it. It has withstood every kind of trial. It is tempered by the highest degree. In today’s world, its value is beyond measure,” the SBU wrote, quoting Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko.
They also vowed to continue to drive Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory.
You get it, brother.
This actually has huge implications for the war in general. Russias nuclear triad just had the dick blown off of it,
I’d be willing to wager that this was most, if not all the active bombers being used in the Ukrainian theatre. If they are following a loose rule of 3rds with their birds (deployed and flying missions, being prepped for deployment, shut down receiving repairs/overhauls), this very well could severely limit Russia’s ability to keep up their cruise missile bombardment.
If that’s the case, that frees up Ukraine to be much more flexible with their air defenses.
Not to mention if they were able to pull off a mission like this, allegedly using cell towers to fly their drones, what’s stopping them from doing similar limited missions to tank factories, recruit depots, and other places that are further away from the front? Literally all of these targets now become viable because they will be much less heavily guarded than the nuclear triad bombers.
Protecting those assets pulls material and meat from the front lines, which further helps Ukraine.
I can’t help but see this as a massive positive swing in momentum for Ukraine.
I assume the cell tower thing was exploiting an oversight or other vulnerability that can only be exploited once before Russia plugs the hole. Maybe they can do it again but it would be relying on enemy incompetence, which is in plentiful supply these days but still not a good idea to rely upon.
Could be. It could also be as simple as using an actual Russian phone, and having an app on the phone that flies the drone.
We don’t know, and I don’t want to know so they can keep doing it.
But how can Russia jam waves of bodies into an electronic hole?
The big change will be if they can’t fire as many missiles at once then they can’t use the saturation technique that lets them get past AA. A bunch of missiles fired over a longer period of time are less effective.
Totally. This is fucking huge for the war.