In using cheap drones to take out prized Russian bombers, Ukraine sends a defiant message

CBC

2 days ago

Social Sharing
Ukraine's audacious drone attack on Russian airfields on Sunday, including some thousands of kilometres from the front line, was carefully co-ordinated and executed to send a clear message to Moscow, as well as to those who doubt Kyiv's ability to inflict significant damage more than three years into Russia's invasion.
Ukraine may be pushing for a ceasefire, but it is far from ready to capitulate to Russia's demands.
The attack on the eve of peace talks in Istanbul, Turkey, was a reminder that "one can achieve more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word," said Ukrainian political pundit Taras Zahorodniy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the high-tech operation had been planned for more than a year and a half. It demonstrated that Kyiv can successfully launch cheap drones against some of Russia's most valuable military assets: strategic Tupolev bombers, which are used to launch guided cruise missiles over the border, and can be equipped with nuclear weapons.
It was a brazen military manoeuvre that not only rebuffed criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump — who proclaimed in that now-infamous Oval Office meeting that Zelenskyy did not "have the cards" to negotiate in the current conflict — but also showed the evolution of warfare, and the damage that can be inflicted by swarms of drones.
"A brilliant operation was carried out," said Zelenskyy in his evening statement, which went out on social media. "Our people worked in different Russian regions, in three time zones."
Ukraine says 117 drones were smuggled into Russia, and then concealed in the roofs of wooden sheds and later loaded onto the backs of trucks.
Then yesterday, one by one, they were remotely launched.
WATCH | Ukraine launches swarm of drones on Russia military targets:
Ukraine deploys swarms of drones to target Russian warplanes
11 hours ago
Duration 1:57
On the eve of a second round of peace talks, Ukraine launched what it calls its longest-range attack against Russia, using drones to target Russian warplanes. Ukrainian authorities said they had been planning this for more than a year and a half.
Videos circulating on Russian social media showed the drones taking off, as gunfire rang out in an attempt to shoot them down.
In one video, a few men climbed on top of a truck trailer and tried to throw rocks at the quadcopters.
Damage claims not yet verified
It's not immediately clear how devastating a hit it was on Russia's air force. A Ukrainian official initially said 41 planes were hit, and footage released by Kyiv showed Russian planes engulfed in flames.
On Monday morning, Ukraine's national security and defence council said that 13 planes were destroyed in the attack, and others were damaged.
In a statement, Russia's defence ministry confirmed that Ukraine had launched drone attacks against five airfields, including one in the Amur region, which is 5,600 km from the border with Ukraine.
Russia said three of the attacks were "repelled" but that several aircraft on two bases caught fire. The airstrips were at the Olenya airbase, which is above the Arctic Circle, and the Belaya base in Siberia, which lies more than 4,000 km from Ukraine.
"We expect in a day or two to have higher-resolution satellite imagery of those bases," said Jakub Janovsky, who is based in Prague and an administrator of the website Oryx, which tracks Ukrainian and Russian military equipment losses.
In a Zoom interview with CBC News, Janovsky described the attack as innovative and said it highlights the vulnerability of Russian aircraft.
Only specific bases can accommodate these warplanes, and in recent months, Russia has been deploying its aircraft farther back to stay out of reach of long-range drones and Western weapons, like the U.S.-made HIMARS systems.
The drone attacks "won't completely stop Russia from launching more missile attacks, but Russia will have to be way more careful and move additional air defences to the rear," Janovsky said. "It would be an additional strain on their already stretched resources."
Setting stage for peace talks
Influential Russian military bloggers are calling for their country to retaliate.
Meanwhile in Ukraine, there is a sense of pride and even glee that this was carried out just before the second round of peace talks in Turkey.
The first round of direct negotiations ended in Istanbul on May 16 after just a few hours, with Russia still refusing to implement a 30-day ceasefire. Russia had demanded that Ukraine abandon its desire to join NATO and withdraw its military from four regions Russia has laid claim to.
The talks on Monday began late and and wrapped up after barely an hour. But some Ukrainians believe Kyiv already sent its message.
"I would love to see the faces of the Russian delegation members," said Ukrainian aviation expert Valeriy Romanenko in an interview with Reuters.
"After such a slap in the face, in front of the entire world, how could [Russia's delegation] come and say, 'We want not four, but six [Ukrainian] regions now?'"
Glen Grant, a retired British lieutenant-colonel and defence expert with the Latvia-based Baltic Security Foundation, just returned from Ukraine and believes the drone strikes give the country a much stronger hand going into peace talks.
"They will go with a smile on their face and will not be thinking, hey, we're the losers and we have to fight you for all we can," Grant said in an interview with CBC News.
He is pessimistic that anything will come out of the talks, and is concerned by Russian advances across the front line — particularly in Ukraine's Sumy region, where Russia claims that over the weekend it seized a village five kilometres from the border.
A wake-up call
Grant said he is keen to see if Russian President Vladimir Putin, who typically stays quiet about military losses, addresses the drone attacks at all.
Ukraine's strike shouldn't be taken as a wake-up call just for Russia, but for governments everywhere about how easily drones can be deployed, Grant said.
Given that dozens of them were concealed and launched remotely from the back of a transport truck, they could certainly be launched from other vehicles, like container ships or small boats.
"[The attack] actually shows that the game has changed fundamentally with warfare," Grant said.