Operation Spider’s Web, which was 18 months in the making, was so secret that it was overseen directly by President Zelensky. It was under the control of Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Ukrainian security service, the SBU.
READ MORE: https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/drone-attack-airbases-enemy-bombers-qfzvrxqst
Hundreds of domestically produced first-person view drones were smuggled across the border into Russia and packed into pallets inside wooden transport containers with remotely controlled lids. The containers packed with drones, photographs of which appeared in Ukrainian media after the strikes, were loaded on to lorries and taken to hidden locations where they could be launched.
“At the right moment, the roofs of the cabins were opened remotely and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers,” an intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent. In a statement, the SBU said at least 41 long-range bombers had been damaged or destroyed, making up 34 per cent of Russia’s strategic bombers.
Ukrainian social media erupted in memes celebrating the attack, including artificial intelligence-generated images of swarms of drones flying from the body of a wooden Trojan horse.
The first reports of the strikes came from pro-Kremlin Russian military bloggers who posted video of long-range bombers in flames at an airbase in Siberia. “It’s the first attack of this sort in Siberia,” Igor Kobzev, the governor of Irkutsk, said, calling on the population not to panic.
While the Kremlin insisted little damage had been done, the highly symbolic raid demonstrated Kyiv’s ability to strike deep into enemy territory on the eve of ceasefire talks resuming on Monday in Istanbul. It also served as evidence of Kyiv’s domestic development of attack drone technology to compensate for a lack of long-range missiles provided by western allies.
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