Ukraine drone attack: Which aircraft were damaged and how much loss did Russia incur?
In a stunning attack, Ukraine on Sunday bombarded air bases deep inside Russia and either damaged or destroyed at least 40 fighter and bomber aircraft. The attack, which Volodymyr Zelensky described as meticulously planned, entailed a barrage of drones that had been stashed in trucks. The trucks were sneaked into Russia and taken close to Russia's strategic airfields, as far as eastern Siberia, before the drones were launched in what is being described as the most daring Ukrainian onslaught thus far.
Bloomberg, quoting a Ukrainian operative, reported that more than 40 Russian aircraft, including the Tu-95 and Tu-22 M3 long-range bombers capable of deploying conventional and nuclear weapons as well as the A-50, were reportedly damaged in Sunday's operations.
The attack triggered Russian losses amounting to at least $2 billion, said the operative.
Ukraine's national security and defence council official said on Monday that Ukraine destroyed at least 13 planes. Many other planes were also damaged, it added.
Revealing the details of the operation, Zelensky said Ukraine had started planning the attack "one year, six months, and nine days" ago.
"Our most long-range operation. Our people involved in preparing the operation were withdrawn from Russian territory in time," he said.
117 drones attacked Russian bases, he said, adding that '34% of strategic cruise missile carriers at the airfields were hit.'
Also read: Drones hidden in trucks: How Ukraine carried out Operation Spider's Web in Russia
Russia confirmed the attack in a statement, saying five military bases were targeted; however, only a few aircraft were hit.
The attacks 'were repelled at the Ivanovo, Ryazan and the Amur regions,' the ministry said.
Earlier, Russia attacked Ukraine in one of the longest barrages of missiles and drones. The sirens in Ukrainian cities lasted for more than 9 hours, and at least 12 people were killed. Ukraine Ground Forces Commander Mykhaylo Drapatyi resigned in the wake of the attack.
The incidents occurred just as Moscow and Kyiv prepared to send delegations to Turkey for a second round of peace talks on Monday.
With inputs from Reuters, Bloomberg
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
29 minutes ago
- Mint
How the Houthis rattled the US Navy—and transformed maritime war
The evening of May 6, an F/A-18 Super Hornet was coming in for a landing on the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea. An onboard mechanism to slow down the fighter jet failed, and the $67 million aircraft slid off the carrier's runway and into the water. It was the third fighter jet that the Truman had lost in less than five months, and came hours after President Trump surprised Pentagon officials with the announcement that the U.S. had reached a truce with the Houthis in Yemen. The Truman had arrived at the Red Sea in December 2024 to battle the Iran-aligned militants—joining a campaign filled with heavy exchanges and close calls that strained the U.S. Navy. Officials are now dissecting how a scrappy adversary was able to test the world's most capable surface fleet. The Houthis proved to be a surprisingly difficult foe, engaging the Navy in its fiercest battles since World War II despite fighting from primitive quarters and caves in one of the world's poorest countries. The Houthis benefited from the proliferation of cheap missile and drone technology from Iran. They fired antiship ballistic missiles, the first-ever combat use of the Cold War-era weapon, and they innovated how they deployed their weaponry. The latest technologies have transformed maritime warfare, much the way they have rewritten the script for land wars in Ukraine—forcing militaries to adapt in real time. The U.S. is developing fresh ways to intercept the newest drones and missiles but still relies largely on expensive defense systems. Some 30 vessels participated in combat operations in the Red Sea from late 2023 through this year, around 10% of the Navy's total commissioned fleet. In that time, the U.S. rained down at least $1.5 billion worth of munitions on the Houthis, a U.S. official said. The Navy was able to destroy much of the Houthis' arsenal—but it has yet to achieve the strategic goal of restoring shipping through the Red Sea, and the Houthis continue to regularly fire missiles at Israel. Military and congressional leaders who have begun scrutinizing the campaign for lessons worry about the strain of such grueling deployments on overall force readiness. The Pentagon is also investigating the lost planes and a separate at-sea collision—incidents that all involved the Truman strike group—with results expected in the coming months. Central Command—also known as Centcom, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East—declined to comment on ongoing investigations or on the campaign's performance and impact. The effects of the deployment will be felt for years. It drew resources from efforts in Asia to deter China and pushed back maintenance schedules for carriers. That could create critical gaps in the second half of the decade, when the giant warships will have no choice but to dock for service. Despite the wear and tear, Navy officials said the fight with the Houthis offered invaluable combat experience, and the Red Sea conflict is viewed inside the Pentagon as a warm-up for a potential 'high-end" conflict with China. The Houthis have gained considerable power since the group—combatants in Yemen's long-running civil war—conquered much of the country a decade ago. They later fought off a campaign led by Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to roll them back. At the start of the war in Gaza, the Houthis, who chant 'death to America, death to Israel" and cast themselves as defenders of the Palestinians, began attacking Israeli cities as well as ships transiting the Red Sea. The USS Carney destroyer was in the Red Sea when the Houthis launched their first barrage of drones and missiles on Oct. 19, 2023, catching the sailors aboard off guard. By the end of the 10-hour engagement, the crew had endured the most intense combat a U.S. Navy warship had seen in the better part of a century, shooting down more than a dozen drones and four fast-flying cruise missiles. With the Houthis pledging to intensify attacks, U.S. military officials scrambled to solve a logistical problem: Destroyers like the Carney were out of the fight for as long as two weeks as they traveled to and from the Mediterranean to rearm, and nearby countries were wary of themselves becoming Houthi targets. The Pentagon eventually secured access to what one official called a 'game-changing" port in the Red Sea that allowed warships to reload without leaving the theater. In December of that year, Biden cobbled together a multinational coalition to protect one of the world's busiest shipping lanes and then launched a U.S.-led campaign of airstrikes. For much of the campaign, the Pentagon kept two carrier groups in the region, each comprising at least five ships and around 7,000 sailors. Throughout 2024, the Houthis launched dozens of attacks on commercial shipping, and the U.S. struck back in Yemen to prevent imminent attacks or degrade the militants' arsenal. In February, a British-owned bulk carrier was struck and later sank with its cargo of fertilizer. Three people were killed on board a Barbados-flagged ship after it was struck in March. Two more ships were abandoned in June after being struck by Houthi missiles. The pace of operations took a toll on sailors, who were constantly within range of the Houthis and needed to remain vigilant around the clock. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier made just one short port call during seven months of fighting. On a particularly busy day last November, Navy ships defeated at least eight one-way attack drones, five antiship ballistic missiles and four antiship cruise missiles launched by the Houthis, without incurring any injuries or damage. At a recent naval symposium, Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. military command in the Middle East, described one night late last year on the USS Stockdale. As the destroyer sailed through a chokepoint in the southern Red Sea, the crew switched off the lights, charted a zigzag course and braced for attack. Just past midnight, the Houthis launched four ballistic missiles. The 509-foot destroyer accelerated and fired surface-to-air missiles in defense. One Houthi missile, traveling at nearly 4,000 miles an hour, was so close when it was intercepted that falling debris had to be shot down as well. Ten minutes later, the Houthis fired an antiship cruise missile, which was taken out by fighter jets from a nearby aircraft carrier. Jets downed another cruise missile and multiple drones loaded with explosives, while the carrier struck Houthi targets inside Yemen. Around 2 a.m., another Houthi drone was picked up flying low and slow directly at the Stockdale. The only option was to open fire with an automatic artillery gun mounted on the deck. When the drone dropped into the sea, the crew erupted in cheers and high-fives. The battlefield favored the militants. In the Red Sea's confined waters, barely 200 miles at the widest point, large ships have limited ability to maneuver and spend long periods in view of the coastline, where Houthi spotters can help target ships. Crews usually only picked up drone and missile launches a minute or two before impact and had to decide how to respond within about 15 seconds. They intercepted hundreds of attacks by the Houthis. 'You make it a sitting duck out there and within range of Houthi weapons," Bryan Clark, a former Navy strategist and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said of deploying a carrier to the area. The Navy is used to operating in a similar environment in the Persian Gulf, where the Iranians are at close range. But militias like the Houthis are harder to deter than a regular government—and such groups have become more dangerous with the proliferation of antiship ballistic missiles and attack drones. 'We used to be able to operate close to shore like this, because the expectation was that adversaries would not attack a carrier out of concern for the repercussions," Clark said. Sailors often had radar systems tuned to high sensitivity to give them time to intercept drones and missiles. Reviewing and refining radar settings to avoid picking up false positives while still spotting threats at a useful range was one of the most difficult tasks and a key source of stress for shipboard operators, according to an officer who spent six months in the Red Sea. The USS Truman's three lost fighter jets are now under investigation by the Pentagon. 'It's unprecedented," said a Navy official. 'Perhaps it's just pure coincidence or bad luck—or there are some underlying issues." Two Navy SEALs, or sea-air-land special-operations forces, were lost at sea early last year while boarding a boat at night that officials said was carrying ballistic and cruise missile components from Iran to Yemen. One of the SEALs fell into the water while trying to climb into the boat and the other one jumped in after him. The Navy searched for them for 10 days before declaring them dead. The fatalities occurred off the coast of Somalia in the Arabian Sea, hundreds of miles from Yemen's shores. 'Over the past year, the Navy has operated under intense and sustained combat conditions in the Red Sea—the most active maritime conflict zone in a generation," Rep. Ken Calvert (R., Calif.), who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee on defense, said at a hearing on May 14. 'But this persistent operational tempo comes at a cost. Ships and crews are being pushed hard, deployments are being extended, and readiness for other global contingencies is being strained." While the Houthis never successfully hit a U.S. vessel, they did get better at tracking moving targets. Early on, the Houthis would often fire one or two missiles and drones at a time at relatively high altitude, which the Navy was capable of intercepting, Navy officials said. Later, the militants launched attacks at night and sent projectiles skimming just above the waves, making them harder to trace. They also mixed up missile and drone strikes in changing patterns. The Houthis were also able to down more than a dozen U.S. Reaper drones, each worth around $30 million. When the Houthis began attacking Red Sea shipping in 2023, senior officials at Centcom wanted to act aggressively to degrade their capabilities, according to a U.S. official, but the Biden administration was wary of escalation. By the time strikes were approved, the Houthis had changed tactics or moved their assets, and U.S. officials often found their planning and intelligence outdated, the official said. After Trump took office, he gave Gen. Erik Kurilla, the head of Centcom, authority to approve strikes, enabling the U.S. to act more quickly on targeting intelligence for missile launchers and drones. Centcom declined to comment on presidential decisions. The U.S. poured resources into the effort in mid-March, launching an operation dubbed Rough Rider, including a second U.S. aircraft carrier, half a dozen B-2 bombers, a squadron of advanced F-35 fighters and a host of destroyers armed with guided missiles. An area hit by a U.S. airstrike in San'a, Yemen, in March. After 53 days of bombardment, the Houthis were battered but not broken. U.S. airstrikes killed hundreds of fighters, including several senior officials, and destroyed a critical fuel port and large stocks of weapons and war materiel. The Houthis failed to hit any U.S. ships. Hundreds of Yemeni civilian casualties were reported after the U.S. intensified strikes, according to the Yemen Data Project, an independent monitoring group. Centcom said it was conducting an inquiry into the claims of civilian casualties in Yemen. A week before the truce was announced, an officer familiar with Houthi operations expressed amazement at the militants' resolve and ability to adapt. 'Their missiles are getting more advanced, which is crazy," he said. 'So far the U.S. Navy is batting a thousand [on interceptions], and I expect that to continue, but for how long?" Ultimately, Trump settled for a cease-fire on the most basic terms: The Houthis would stop shooting at American ships, and the U.S. would pause its bombing. As the Truman transited the Suez Canal and steamed out of the Mediterranean, the Houthis kept lobbing ballistic missiles at Israel. Write to Stephen Kalin at and Shelby Holliday at
Mint
42 minutes ago
- Mint
Oil Extends Drop as Saudi Arabia Seeks More Major Output Hikes
(Bloomberg) -- Oil extended declines on signs Saudi Arabia is seeking another big production increase at next month's OPEC meeting, in a bid for market share that could worsen a glut expected later this year. Brent traded below $65 a barrel after losing 1.2% in the previous session, while West Texas Intermediate was under $63. The kingdom wants the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies to continue to add at least 411,000 barrels a day of output in August and potentially September, according to people familiar with the matter. 'Once Saudi Arabia takes the lead in accelerating output increases, historical experience suggests that the market could face the risk of a price war, which would be highly unfavorable for oil prices,' said Gao Jian, an analyst at Qisheng Futures Co. In the US, crude inventories fell by 4.3 million barrels last week, the most since November, data from the Energy Information Administration showed. The drawdown was bigger than an earlier estimate by an industry body. Crude has fallen about 13% this year on fears trade wars will sap economic growth and energy demand. President Donald Trump has been calling for talks on tariffs with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, who seems to be reluctant to go ahead with high-level negotiations at this stage. Still, oil is up for the week on relief that OPEC didn't go ahead with a bigger-than-expected output increase for July, and some metrics are pointing to near-term strength in the market. The prompt spread for Brent has widened compared with a month ago in a bullish backwardation structure, signaling tight supply. To get Bloomberg's Energy Daily newsletter in your inbox, click here. More stories like this are available on
The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
North Korea's Kim says he'll 'unconditionally support' Russia's war against Ukraine
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told a visiting top Russian official that his country will 'unconditionally support' Russia's war against Ukraine, the North's state media reported on Thursday (June 5, 2025), the latest sign of expanding cooperation between the two nations. In April, the two countries officially confirmed North Korean troops' deployment to Russia for the first time, saying that soldiers of the two countries were fighting alongside each other to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk border region. At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked North Korea's participation in the war and promised not to forget their sacrifices. Also Read | Russia may have helped North Korea with new warship, Seoul says In a meeting with Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu in Pyongyang on Wednesday (June 5, 2025), Mr. Kim affirmed that North Korea will 'unconditionally support the stand of Russia and its foreign policies in all the crucial international political issues including the Ukrainian issue,' the official Korean Central News Agency said. The two discussed how to solidify a strategic partnership between North Korea and Russia and reached a consensus on the Ukraine issue and other unspecified international situations, KCNA said. It didn't elaborate. Russia's state Tass news agency, citing the Russian Security Council's press service, reported that Shoigu and Kim also discussed prospects for rebuilding the Kursk region and outlined steps to commemorate the contribution made by North Korean soldiers. Russia claimed in April 2025 that it had fully reclaimed the Kursk region, though Ukraine insists it still has troops present there. Ukraine's top army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi reiterated Saturday that Ukrainian forces were still holding territory in Russia's Kursk region. Shoigu last visited North Korea in March for a meeting with Mr. Kim. North Korea and Russia haven't said how many North Korean troops are in Russia. But U.S., South Korean and Ukraine intelligence officials earlier said North Korea dispatched 10,000-12,000 troops to Russia last fall in its first participation in a major armed conflict since the 1950-53 Korean War. South Korean authorities recently said North Korea sent around 3,000 additional troops to Russia earlier this year. North Korea has been supplying a vast amount of conventional weapons to Russia as well. South Korea, the U.S. and their partners believe Russia has provided economic and military assistance to North Korea in return. They worry Russia might also transfer sophisticated technologies to help North Korea enhance its nuclear weapons program targeting its rivals.
