‘Operation Spiderweb' Was Also a Message to Ukraine's Doubters

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2 days ago

The operation mounted by Ukraine last Sunday was nothing short of spectacular. Using ordinary-looking tractor-trailer trucks on Russian highways whose cargo actually concealed Ukrainian-made drones, Kyiv struck Russian military aircraft parked at airbases thousands of miles from the front lines of the war.
The drone attack took the war deep into Russian territory, damaging or destroying at least a dozen strategic bombers in bases as far away as Murmansk, high in Russia's Arctic, and Irkutsk in Siberia.
This was not a conventional military rout. Rather than a battlefield success, the ingenious Operation Spiderweb, as it was dubbed by Kyiv, was reminiscent of Israel's exploding pagers gambit against Lebanon's Hezbollah last year, which helped transform the security landscape of the Middle East.
Will Ukraine's drone feat carry a similar punch, changing the trajectory of this conflict?
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The short-term impact, beyond the considerable psychological effect on both sides, will not be dramatic. But the drone attacks have sent shockwaves that could change the contours of the war.
The blow is not going to bring an end to the fighting or produce an immediate shift in the balance of power between the warring sides. But the knock-on effects have the potential to significantly alter how Russia and the U.S. think about the conflict.
This was not only a symbolic victory for Kyiv. It was a considerable tactical one and, most importantly, a powerful messaging success with far-reaching implications.
The damage and destruction of the Russian bombers—including its nuclear-capable Tu-95s and Tu-22s, crucial in the event of an all-out war with the West—by a buzzing fleet of long-distance drones leaves Russian President Vladimir Putin with egg on his face. But it also creates some tactical complications. Not only will Russia have fewer bombers available but, as it just learned, it will have to divert resources to protect its military assets across its vast territory.
Importantly, the success of the operation helps answer a looming question, a constant source of anxiety for Ukraine and its supporters: If U.S. President Donald Trump decides to end Washington's military support for Kyiv, can Ukraine survive?
Operation Spiderweb, at the very least, suggests that Ukraine can put up a strong fight against a much larger Russia and inflict a great deal of pain.
Remarkably, this harsh blow against Moscow was carried out without using weapons supplied by the West, indicating that even if Kyiv loses international support, there's much it can still do. Ukraine's drones, each at a cost of a few hundred dollars, can destroy hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of sophisticated weaponry. And Ukraine can count on virtually unlimited drone supplies.
It's a message to multiple audiences from Moscow to Washington. Russia may have thought that Trump's return to office would mean an end to U.S. backing for Ukraine followed by a swift Russian victory. Confidence in Russia's success is the main reason Putin has rejected Trump's pressure to end the war.
But in the three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Ukraine has built what may be the world's largest drone manufacturing operation, while developing drone tactics second to none. By some estimates, Ukrainians will produce some 4 million more drones in 2025.
Drones will play a pivotal role in the future of this war and all others, and Ukraine has proved its mastery, whatever happens to international support.
After Sunday's attack, Putin won't immediately change his stance, but he may have to change his calculus. The cost of continuing the fight has just climbed. Ukraine's drones may not be enough to win the war, but Kyiv just showed it has the power to make Russia continue to pay dearly. Putin may not be terribly concerned about Russia suffering 1 million casualties—mostly due to drones—in the meatgrinder of Ukrainian battlefields. But if the war comes home, things will change.
The message to Washington is equally clear. In their cringeworthy meeting in the Oval Office, Trump shouted at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 'You don't have the cards.' Zelenskyy just showed his hand, and it was a straight flush. That's a message to Trump, undoubtedly raising his estimation of Zelenskyy. Perhaps he'll also reconsider his certainty that Ukraine is doomed to lose.
In addition, Ukraine's strong showing has injected momentum into a push in the U.S. Senate to impose stiffer sanctions on Russia, including a 500 percent tariff on Russian oil buyers.
The Ukrainians say they destroyed 41 strategic Russian aircraft, including 34 percent of Russia's cruise missile carriers. So far independent analysts have put the number of verified hits much lower. But if the Ukrainian assessment ends up being accurate, it would be the biggest one-day loss for Moscow since World War II.
Russia has unsurprisingly downplayed the attack. In a Telegram post, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that Ukraine struck at airfields in the regions of Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur. While it claimed to have repelled what it characterized as 'terrorist attacks,' it acknowledged that 'several units of aircraft caught fire' in a couple of the bases.
Some of Russia's influential pro-military bloggers were less sanguine, calling it 'Russia's Pearl Harbor,' even as state-controlled television barely covered the news.
By contrast, in Ukraine, the news was just as unsurprisingly everywhere. The successful operation gave a shot in the arm to a beleaguered population that has endured relentless Russian attacks on civilian targets. Ukrainians have also fretted about the consequences of the chill in relations with the U.S. since Trump returned to power. Since then he has humiliated Zelensky in the Oval Office, demanded that Ukraine make all the concessions in so-called peace talks with Russia and cast doubt on future U.S. support for Kyiv.
'The enemy bombed our country from these planes almost every night,' said Gen. Vasyl Maliuk, head of Ukraine's intelligence agency SBU, in describing the attack. 'Payback,' he declared, 'was inevitable.' But the operation amounts to more than revenge.
Much like Israel's intricate hit on Hezbollah, Ukraine spent a long time preparing the strikes. Some 18 months, they said, with Zelenskyy personally supervising the planning, according to Maliuk.
Two days after the drone attack, the Ukrainians surprised Russia again, with an underwater strike on the Kerch bridge that links the Russian mainland to Crimea, which Moscow captured from Ukraine in 2014. Putin personally opened the bridge in 2018, triumphantly driving a huge truck across its expanse.
In the past few days, as negotiations between the two sides make no progress toward peace, Kyiv has sent a powerful message deep inside Russia to those who think it is doomed to lose the war: Don't count us out just yet.
Frida Ghitis is WPR's senior columnist and a contributor to CNN and The Washington Post. Her WPR column appears every Thursday. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads at @fridaghitis.
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