The deadly Ukrainian SBU has humbled Putin. Special Forces can be war winners

Telegraph

2 days ago

The Ukrainians' Operation Spiderweb against Putin's strategic air fleet was a master stroke, executed as part of the Ukrainian strategy to grind Russia down and end the war. This is not only a matter of what it may cost Putin to replace high value weapon systems: in many cases he cannot replace them at all. With sanctions in place the necessary components are often unobtainable. The widening gap between the strategic assets available to Russia and Nato is part of a death dance: not unlike the 'Star Wars' programme which helped bring about the end of the Soviet Union.
In anticipation that West might allow the use of some long-ranging weapons against Russian territory, Putin moved his strategic assets further into Russia to put them out of harm's way (or so he thought). But the Ukrainians had a plan to deal with this.
As in the past, when a nation finds itself with its back to the wall, it it is likely to adopt an unconventional and indirect approach. The Ukrainians deployed the Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny, or SBU, the Ukrainian Security Service. The UK doesn't have a single organisation much like the SBU – it developed out of the Ukrainian branch of the KGB on the fall of the Soviet Union, and like the old KGB it does spying and internal security as well as special operations.
But we in the UK have also had to use our special forces to turn the tide of war. In June of 1942 Axis forces were pounding the British-held island of Malta, vital to the control of Mediterranean shipping to North Africa for both the Allied and Axis armies there. The survival of the British army in North Africa was at stake.
As pressure on Malta grew, a daring plan – Operation Style – was developed to deliver 32 badly needed Spitfire fighters to Malta to defend the island. The danger was that the Axis had air superiority and would destroy the convoy and the vital Spitfires before they could get in range of the island. The solution was SAS and SBS attacks on Axis airfields in North Africa and on Crete. The raids over a couple of nights destroyed a huge number of enemy aircraft, especially the deadly Stuka dive bombers that threatened the convoy. Huge amounts of air power would have been required to achieve the same results – air power which Britain simply did not have available. The raids means that 28 of the 32 Spitfires reached Malta safely and the island was saved. The effect of the raids on both Axis materiel and morale was profound.
Other examples of the daring use of Special Forces tend to be born of desperation also. During the Rhodesian Bush War Rhodesian SAS carried out several daring missions deep inside hostile territory and more recently Israeli special forces have conducted seemingly impossible missions to strike pre-emptively against threats. Russia itself attempted a Special Forces raid in March, sneaking through some disused gas pipelines with mixed results. But Operation Spiderweb, like the SAS raids of June 1942, was a full blown game-changer reliant on lateral thinking and extreme daring.
The most striking aspect of these raids is not only in the asymmetric outcome – Operation Spiderweb would have cost less than $1m to mount, whilst the damage is estimated at around $7bn – but the psychological effect on the enemy, military and civilian.
This may be just the start. Now the Ukrainians have demonstrated that they can and will use an indirect approach, the West may be emboldened to permit the use of long range missiles too – and these will be harder to guard against with one fewer Beriev A-50 to watch for low-flying missiles and drones.
In any case, each strategic strike inflicts expensive damage. The aircraft destroyed on Sunday ranged in value from $100m for a TU-22M supersonic 'Backfire' bomber to $280m for an A-50. The Ukrainians will now be aiming for the premier Russian missile defence systems: an S-400 is $1.5bn and the very latest S-500 is $2.5bn.
It may be that it is the cost of war rather than ferocity on the battlefield that wins in the end. Just as Al Capone was brought down by the tax man it may be that the mighty Russian war machine falls to the precision strike and the daring of the SBU.