Ukrainian drone strikes hit 41 aircraft at Russian airfields, media report
Ukrainian media report that the country's security agency has launched drone strikes on airfields in Russia and struck 41 strategic aircraft, including bombers. Moscow has confirmed such attacks.
The media on Sunday quoted sources as saying the operation was conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine.
A photo that purportedly shows the agency's head, Vasyl Maliuk, directing the operation was also published.
The media reported that it took more than 18 months to prepare the operation. The sources explained that the agency concealed drones in truck-mounted wooden mobile cabins inside Russian territory.
They added that the roofs of the cabins were remotely opened to allow the drones to take off to launch the attacks.
The security agency said on social media that it carried out an operation codenamed "Spider Web." It estimated the value of the damage to Russian strategic aircraft as 7 billion dollars.
The agency also claimed that 34 percent of the strategic cruise missile carriers at Russia's main airfields were hit. It stressed that Ukraine is doing everything it can to drive the enemy out of its homeland.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to social media, saying the "most long-range operation" conducted by his country produced an "absolutely brilliant result."
Zelenskyy wrote that the people involved in the mission had been "withdrawn from Russian territory in time." He added that the operation "will undoubtedly be in history books."
Meanwhile, the Russian defense ministry acknowledged on Sunday that the Ukrainian military mounted drone attacks on airfields in five regions of Russia.
The ministry said several aircraft at airfields in the eastern Siberian region of Irkutsk and the northern region of Murmansk caught fire, but no casualties occurred. It added that some people involved in the "terrorist attacks" were detained.
The governor of Irkutsk said on social media that the drone attack was the first of its kind in Siberia.
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