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NDTV
4 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Satellite Pics Of 2 Russian Airbases Reveal Extent Of Damage By Ukrainian Drones
Quick Read Summary is AI generated, newsroom reviewed. High-resolution satellite images reveal damage at two Russian airbases from a Ukrainian drone attack. Belaya and Olenya airbases, targeted under Ukraine's Operation Spider Web, sustained significant destruction. At least ten bombers, including Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22, were reportedly destroyed at the two airbases. Hi-resolution satellite images of two of the five Russian air bases targeted by Ukraine in its audacious drone attack have emerged, giving a glimpse of the destruction caused by the explosive-laden drones. Clear images have taken more than 48 hours after the attack because of cloud cover over these air bases, all of which are deep inside Russian territory. Ukraine, under its Operation Spider Web, targeted the Belaya Air Base in Siberia's Irkutsk, the Olenya Air Base in the Arctic region's Murmansk, the Ivanovo Severny Air Base in Ivanovo, the Dyagilevo Air Base in Ryazan, and Ukrainka Air Base in Russia's Far East. While the nearest of these air bases is located more than 500 km from the Ukraine border, the farthest one is located as much as 8,000 km from the border. The latest post-strike satellite images of the Belaya and Olenya air bases show the damage caused to Russian air infrastructure. At both these airbases, one can see the debris of several military aircraft that were lined up on the tarmac at the time of the attack. At the Belaya air base, located more than 4,000 kilometres inside Russian territory, satellite pictures taken on June 4 show the fuselage and wings of at least two of Russia's frontline bomber - the Tupolev Tu-95 - burnt to ashes. The intensity of the explosions here were so intense that debris can be seen flung nearly 100 meters away where a decoy can be seen painted on the tarmac. Another picture shows four Tupolev Tu-22 supersonic bombers - a mainstay of the Russian Air Force- parked on the tarmac while a fifth is seen completely decimated further down the parking bay. The image suggests that some clean-up activity has happened in the last two days, with parts of the destroyed aircraft removed from the area. The Tupolev Tu-22 is used to target enemy aircraft carriers and other naval assets of the enemy, however, due to its speed, versatility, and adaptability, these sleekly designed bombers have been used for missions to target ground-based military assets deep inside enemy territory. At least 10 bombers at the Belaya airbase can clearly be seen destroyed in the Ukrainian attack | Hi-Res Image Here Several other aircraft - all bombers - parked in a zigzag formation at the Belaya airbase could also be seen completely destroyed. In total, at least 10 bombers at the Belaya airbase can clearly be seen destroyed in the Ukrainian attack, however, due to the clean-up activity by the Russian Air Force over the past 48 hours, it is difficult to predict how many of which type of bomber aircraft were destroyed. At the Olenya Airbase, located in the Arctic region 2,000 km from Ukraine's border, satellite pictures show multiple aircraft standing beside each other on the tarmac now reduced to dust and ash. It is difficult to assume which of Russia's military jets were destroyed here, tough pre-attack satellite images reveal that here too, the Tu-22 and Tu-95 aircraft were stationed. It was from this air base that the first video of the Ukranian drone strike emerged, which showed explosive-laden drones mainly targeting the Tu-95 bombers. The footage shows smoke billowing from these bombers, which were parked side-by-side on the tarmac. There is still a considerable amount of cloud cover over the three other airbases which were targeted by Ukraine and hi-resolution satellite images are likely to come only after the weather clears. While today's satellite pictures show at least ten aircraft being targeted, Ukraine has said that as many as 41 Russian military jets have been destroyed in the Trojan-horse styled attack, where drones were sent secretly concealed in container trucks before being deployed remotely. Moscow was caught off-guard presumably over the fact that these airbases are located so far inside Russia that the sheer distance was enough to keep aircraft safe from a Ukrainian attack. Though western allies have supplied Ukraine with missiles too - the US-made ATACMS and the British-French-made Storm Shadow - neither has the range to hit these air bases located deep inside Russian territory. Despite the successful drone attack, the Russian Air Force, which has an immensely greater aircraft fleet, maintains air superiority over Ukraine. Ukraine's attack though has given a huge boost to Kyiv's morale, while creating a big dent on the morale of Moscow. According to US President Donald Trump, who spoke to Vladimir Putin for over an hour today, the Russian President has vowed to retaliate Ukraine's attack. In a post on social media platform Truth Social, President Trump wrote, "I just finished speaking, by telephone, with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia. The call lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes. We discussed the attack on Russia's docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides. It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace. President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields."
NDTV
4 days ago
- General
- NDTV
Putin Said Very Strongly He'll "Have To Respond": Trump On Ukraine Drone Strike
Washington DC / Moscow: US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for more than an hour during which the Russian leader made it very clear that Moscow will "have to respond" to the daring drone attack launched by Ukraine deep inside Russia. "Putin said very strongly that he will have to respond to Ukraine's drone attack," President Trump said immediately after getting off the phone with his Russian counterpart, however, he deleted the post minutes after sharing it - a screengrab of which may be seen below: On Sunday, Ukraine carried out what has been described by war analysts as the most audacious drone attack in military history, targeting and destroying Russian Air Force jets parked at strategic air bases deep inside Russian territory. The attack left dozens of Russia's strategic bombers, transport aircraft, and airborne warning aircraft decimated. Moscow was caught off-guard presumably over the fact that these airbases are located so far inside Russia that the sheer distance was enough to keep aircraft safe from a Ukrainian attack. The attack has given a huge boost to Kyiv's morale, while creating a big dent on the morale of Moscow. Though peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow went as planned a day after the stunning attack, the conflict has intensified in the last 48 hours. Meanwhile, President Trump spoke with President Putin today. "I just finished speaking, by telephone, with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia. The call lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes. We discussed the attack on Russia's docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides," President Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social. He said that today discussion was "good, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace." "President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields," President Trump revealed. The Russian President's warning comes two days after Ukraine's Zelensky claimed that as many as 41 Russian military jets were destroyed in the Trojan-horse styled attack, in which drones were sent secretly concealed in container trucks before being deployed remotely. The air bases targeted by Ukraine were the Belaya Air Base in Siberia's Irkutsk, the Olenya Air Base in the Arctic region's Murmansk, the Ivanovo Severny Air Base in Ivanovo, the Dyagilevo Air Base in Ryazan, and Ukrainka Air Base in Russia's Far East. While the nearest of these air bases is located more than 500 km from the Ukraine border, the farthest one is located as much as 8,000 km from the border. These attacks are being called the most audacious in military history due to its scale and reach. Though western allies have supplied Ukraine with missiles too - the US-made ATACMS and the British-French-made Storm Shadow - neither has the range to hit these air bases located deep inside Russian territory. During the call on Tuesday, Presidents Trump and Putin "also discussed Iran, and the fact that time is running out on Iran's decision pertaining to nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly! I stated to President Putin that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and, on this, I believe that we were in agreement," President Trump said. "President Putin suggested that he will participate in the discussions with Iran and that he could, perhaps, be helpful in getting this brought to a rapid conclusion. It is my opinion that Iran has been slowwalking their decision on this very important matter, and we will need a definitive answer in a very short period of time," the US President stated.
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Business Standard
5 days ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
With Russia airfield attacks, Ukraine aims for strategic and symbolic blow
While the full extent of the damage is still unknown, the operation shows how Kyiv has been able to adapt and evolve over the war using drones. Ukraine's drone attacks on airfields deep inside Russia on Sunday were strategic and symbolic blows that military analysts said were designed to slow Moscow's bombing campaign and demonstrate that Kyiv can still raise the cost of war for the Kremlin. After more than a year of planning, Ukraine was able to plant drones on Russian soil, just miles away from military bases. Then in a coordinated operation on Sunday, Ukrainian drones attacked five different regions in Russia. Some were launched from containers attached to semis, their flights captured on videos verified by The New York Times. Plumes of smoke billowed above one base. At another, strategic bombers were hit. Although the full extent of the damage is unknown, the attack, known as Operation Spider's Web, showed how Ukraine is adapting and evolving in the face of a larger military with deeper resources. Using drones, Kyiv has been able to push Russia out of much of the Black Sea, limit its gains on the front lines despite Ukraine's own troop shortages, and hamper Russia's ability to amass large concentrations of forces for major offensives. The operation on Sunday, along with extensive bombardments on Ukrainian cities by Moscow, also complicate ongoing efforts for diplomacy. Delegations from both sides met Monday for peace talks in Istanbul, with no breakthrough on a cease-fire announced. After the attacks, there were calls for a swift response across Russian media, and Ukrainians braced for retaliation even as they celebrated an operation that gave their beleaguered nation a much needed morale boost. Both sides have put out assessments that were not immediately verifiable. Ukraine said that 117 drones were used in the attacks and that 41 Russian aircraft were destroyed or damaged. Russian military bloggers played down the damage; the Russian Ministry of Defense said that Ukraine had attacked airfields in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions, and that Moscow had thwarted attacks at three of the bases. The New York Times verified videos that showed successful strikes at Olenya Air Base in the Murmansk region and Belaya Air Base in the Irkutsk region, and damage to at least five aircraft, four of them strategic bombers. Even with limited information, military analysts said the operation ranks as a signature event on par with the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva early in the war and the maritime drone assaults that forced the Russian Navy to largely abandon the home port of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. 'This is a stunning success for Ukraine's special services,' said Justin Bronk, senior research fellow for air power and technology at the Royal United Services Institute in London. 'If even half the total claim of 41 aircraft damaged/destroyed is confirmed, it will have a significant impact on the capacity of the Russian Long Range Aviation force to keep up its regular large scale cruise missile salvos against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, whilst also maintaining their nuclear deterrence and signaling patrols against NATO and Japan,' he said in an email. Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general and fellow at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based research group, said that 'the proliferation of drones, open-source sensors and digital command and control systems means that long-range strike is now a commodity available to almost every nation state, and nonstate actor, with a few million dollars and the desire to reach out and strike their adversary.' Mr. Zelensky, in comments on Monday at a NATO meeting of Baltic and Nordic countries, said the operation showed Russia that it is also subject to serious losses, and 'that is what will push it toward diplomacy.' However, Mr. Ryan and other analysts cautioned that despite the nature of the attacks, they are unlikely to alter the political calculus of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who remains bent on achieving his war aims. The operation is part of an evolving campaign Behind Ukraine's operation was a basic goal: Kill the archer instead of trying to stop the arrows. It is part of an ever-evolving campaign by Ukraine to play offense rather than defense, by targeting Russian missile platforms on land, air and sea. In December 2022, nine months into the war, Ukraine executed one of its first ambitious attacks on Russian territory, targeting two airfields hundreds of miles inside the country using long-range drones. As the drone strikes expanded over the years, Russia adapted, building protective structures around fuel depots at the bases, bringing in more air defense assets and routinely repositioning its fleet. Ukraine needed a new plan if it hoped to inflict serious damage. They came up with 'Operation Spider's Web,' which Ukrainian officials said was overseen personally by Mr. Zelensky and managed directly by the head of the S.B.U., Vasyl Malyuk. The idea was to bring small, first-person-view, or FPV, drones close enough to the airfields to render traditional air defenses systems useless. The Ukrainians on Monday offered an unusually detailed public account of the operation. Over the course of many months, they said, dozens of FPV drones were transported into Russia; the scale of the operation could not be independently verified. Mr. Zelensky claimed they set up a base of operations at a warehouse close to a regional headquarters of Russia's domestic intelligence agency, known as the F.S.B. Once the drones were smuggled into Russia, they were packed onto pallets inside wooden transport containers with remote-controlled lids and then loaded onto trucks, the S.B.U. statement said. There was no indication that the drivers of the trucks knew what they were hauling, Ukrainian officials said. Mr. Zelensky said that all of the Ukrainian agents involved in the operation had made it safely out of Russia before the operation commenced, a claim that could not be independently verified. The Russian government, in a statement on Sunday, said that some of those involved in the attack had been detained. Ukraine planted drones inside Russia One video verified by The Times shows a drone approaching Belaya air base before a strike. Other verified footage shows two drones launched from containers mounted on the back of a semi-truck less than four miles away. They fly in the direction of large smoke plumes now rising from the base. Footage recorded shortly afterward shows the same containers ablaze, their tops beside them on the ground. Ukrainian officials said in their account that the transport crates were rigged to self-destruct after the drones were released. Another video verified by the Times shows drones flying less than four miles from the Olenya air base. The man recording it suggests that the drones had been launched from a truck parked just down the road. The Times could not confirm that the drones in the various videos were part of the assault. In its assessment, Ukraine said the 41 planes accounted for 34 percent of the strategic cruise-missile carriers at air bases across three time zones. The Times was able to verify that four TU-95 bombers and one Antonov cargo plane were hit. Russian military bloggers claimed the Ukrainian damage estimates were inflated. One influential Russian military blogger, Rybar, run by Mikhail Zvinchuk, put the number of damaged Russian aircraft at 13, including up to 12 strategic bombers. Another one, Fighterbomber, believed to be run by Capt. Ilya Tumanov of the Russian Army, said in a post on Monday that only 'a handful' of strategic aircraft were hit, but even such a loss was 'huge for a country that doesn't make them.' Col. Markus Reisner, a historian and officer in the Austrian Armed Forces, said that the best Western estimates suggest that Russia had slightly over 60 active Tu-95s and around 20 Tu-160 bombers. 'Replacing losses will be very challenging,' he said. Ben Hodges, a retired general who commanded the U.S. Army Europe, said the available evidence suggests that the operation put a 'real dent' in Russia's ability to launch large salvos of cruise missiles. 'The surprise that they achieved will have a shock on the system as the Russians try to figure out how these trucks loaded with explosives got so deep inside of Russia,' he said. The attack raises new risks Mr. Zelensky said the attack was not only designed to undercut Russia's ability to bombard Ukrainian cities but to increase pressure on the Kremlin to accept an unconditional cease-fire. 'It was the Russians who chose to continue the war — even under conditions where the entire world is calling for an end to the killing,' he said in his nightly address to the nation. 'And pressure is truly needed — pressure on Russia that should bring it back to reality.' There was no indication that the attack had changed the Kremlin's belief that it holds an advantage over Ukraine, counting on the weakening resolve of Kyiv's allies and its ability to grind down vastly outnumbered Ukrainian forces. There was also the risk that Ukraine's allies would be rattled by the attack and the general pattern of escalation in recent weeks as Russia steps up its own bombardments. But Mr. Ryan said the strikes also show how Ukraine is evolving so that it is less reliant on U.S. intelligence in the event of 'shut offs' like earlier this year. The operation, he said, demonstrates 'how success in war is biased toward those who learn and adapt the quickest.'
NDTV
5 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Satellite Pics Show How Russia Tried To Avert Ukraine Drone Strikes, But Failed
Moscow / Kyiv: Hi-resolution satellite imagery of air bases deep inside Russia, taken before Ukraine carried out what's been described as the most audacious drone attack in military history, shows several Russian Air Force jets parked on the tarmac. These include strategic bombers, transport aircraft, and airborne warning aircraft. Ukraine, under its Operation Spider Web, targeted five Russian air bases after infiltrating its territory. Some of these bases are located hundreds of kilometres inside Russia, while the farthest one is located some 8,000 km from the Russia-Ukraine border. The air bases targeted by Ukraine are: Belaya Air Base in Siberia's Irkutsk - More than 4,500 km from the border Olenya Air Base in the Arctic region's Murmansk - More than 2,000 km from the border Ivanovo Severny Air Base in Ivanovo - More than 800 km from the border Dyagilevo Air Base in Ryazan - More than 520 km from the border Ukrainka Air Base in Russia's Far East- More than 8,000 km from the border The Russian airbases targeted by Ukraine in its Operation Spider Web. At each of these five air bases defensive measures had been observed presumably in an attempt to protect these military jets from drone attacks. A pre-strike image of the Belaya Air Base shows the Tu-160, which is the mainstay of the Russian Air Force, with tyres on its wings and fuselage - an attempt by the Russian military to keep the jets protected. Tyres seen on aircraft wings and fuselage suggest defensive measures by the Russian Air Force. Satellite images also show how replicas of the military aircraft were also painted on the tarmac to give the illusion of an actual plane being parked there. These act as decoys in order to deter drone strikes. But these could not avert the Ukrainian drone attack which was meticulously planned and flawlessly executed. A video from the Belaya Air Base shows plumes of black smoke and soot rising from the strategic airbase. Decoys painted by the Russian Air Force on the tarmac at air bases deep inside Russia. At the Olenya Air Base located in the Arctic, satellite pictures show several Russian Tu-22 aircraft - again a mainstay of the Russian Air Force - used to target enemy aircraft carriers. Besides this, there were Tu-95 bombers that were parked on the tarmac and were the jets which were primarily targeted by Ukraine. The Olenya Air Base located in the Arctic region as seen in this pre-drone strike satellite image. The Tupolev Tu-95 are frontline bombers of the Russian Air Force. These large, four-engine turboprop-powered intercontinental bombers are nuclear-capable and act as a strategic missile platform. A video of the Olenya Air Base shows smoke billowing from these bombers, which were parked side-by-side on the tarmac. Several other platforms were destroyed as well in the audacious and daring attack. Images from the Ivanovo Severny Air Base show Russia's advanced A-50 AWACS or airborne early warning aircraft. These are considered precious assets for any military. Russia however, had already lost several of these aircraft during the years-long war in Ukraine. With only a limited number of these AWACS left, if the ones seen in this picture were indeed hit, as Ukraine has claimed, Russia's air force would have reason to worry. At the Dyagilevo Air Base in Ryazan, satellite images show the Ilyushin IL-78 tankers, which are a four-engined aerial refueling jet based on the IL-76 strategic airlifter. The photos show how decoys of the aircraft are painted on the tarmac to give the illusion of an actual jet. In the air base in Ukrainka, located the farthest from the Ukrainian border, satellite images show the Tu-95 bombers parked there as well. Post-attack satellite images are awaited to reveal the extent of damage caused to these platforms and the strategic airbases. Ukraine has said that as many as 41 Russian military jets have been destroyed in the Trojan-horse styled attack, where drones were sent secretly concealed in container trucks before being deployed remotely. Moscow was caught off-guard presumably over the fact that these airbases are located so far inside Russia that the sheer distance was enough to keep aircraft safe from a Ukrainian attack. Though western allies have supplied Ukraine with missiles too - the US-made ATACMS and the British-French-made Storm Shadow - neither has the range to hit these air bases located deep inside Russian territory. Despite the successful drone attack, the Russian Air Force, which has an immensely greater aircraft fleet, maintains air superiority over Ukraine. Ukraine's attack though has given a huge boost to Kyiv's morale, while creating a big dent on the morale of Moscow.
