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New Indian Express
5 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Russia's Pearl Harbor? Ukraine's Operation Spider Web an attack of astonishing ingenuity
On June 1, Ukraine launched one of its largest ever drone-based operations on Russia, striking five airbases deep inside Russian territory. Following this, the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement, "Today, the Kyiv regime staged a terror attack with the use of FPV drones on airfields in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur Regions. All terror attacks were repelled. No casualties were reported either among servicemen or civilians. Some of those involved in the terror attacks were detained.' Ukraine, however, stated that at least 40 aircraft had been damaged, specifying that these included nuclear capable Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers earlier used to 'bomb Ukrainian cities'. Russia's Defence Ministry only confirmed that 'several aircraft caught fire.' Two of the airbases struck, Olenya and Belaya, are around 1,900 kilometres and 4,300 kilometres from Ukraine. The first is located in the Russian Arctic and the other in Eastern Siberia. The operation is also one more example of just how rapidly technology and innovative thinking are changing the battlefield. Operation The Ukrainian media claimed that the large-scale special operation was conducted by the SBU, Ukraine's Special Security Service. The planning and preparation started 18 months ago. Russia has highly capable air defence systems and so, it was impossible to strike it from Ukraine. Hence, a plan was made to hit Russia from within Russia, thereby bypassing its air defence wall. The operation has been launched under a special operation, code-named "Pavutyna" or "Spider Web", aimed at degrading Russia's long-range strike capabilities. Ukraine reportedly planned the attack for a year. The drones were packed onto pallets inside wooden containers with remote-controlled lids and then loaded onto cargo trucks, with the crates being rigged to self-destruct after the drones were released. These cargo trucks then smuggled the drones into Russia, blending with normal Russian highway traffic. The trucks were camouflaged with wooden structures, likely posing their payload as cargo shipments, such as lumber or construction materials. Some of these may also have had false license plates or forged documents to pass Russian checkpoints unnoticed. As an added advantage, Russia's vast road network and relatively porous internal transport system make it hard to monitor every vehicle. The trucks were then apparently driven to locations near airbases by drivers who were seemingly unaware of their cargo. Finally, the drones were launched and set upon their targets. Roofs of the wooden cabins carried by the trucks were opened by remote control, with the drones being simultaneously launched to attack Russian air bases. Once launched, these aerial vehicles relied on GPS/inertial guidance systems to fly autonomously toward distant Russian airbases. The drones were adapted to first-person-view (FPV) multirotor platforms, which allows the operator to get a first-person perspective from the aerial vehicle's onboard camera. Apparently, Ukraine used NATO-supplied satellite data and ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) to identify the exact positions of Russian bombers, gaps in radar coverage, and safe launch zones deep inside Russia. Videos circulating online show the drones emerging from the roof of one of the vehicles involved. A lorry driver interviewed by Russian state outlet Ria Novosti claimed that he and other drivers tried to knock down drones flying out of a truck with rocks. "They were in the back of the truck and we threw stones to keep them from flying up, to keep them pinned down," he said. Using 117 drones, Ukraine was able to reach regions thousands of kilometres from the front, compared to its previous attacks,which generally focused on areas close to its borders. Once the drones were launched from within their territory, Russia's defences had very little time to react, as the aerial vehicles bypassed border surveillance. The SBU stated that the strikes had managed to hit Russian aircraft worth $7billion at four airbases. The cost curve, using relatively cheap systems to destroy billions of dollars' worth of Russian combat power, has also been turned on its head. Evaluation The idea behind Operation 'Spider Web' was to transport small, first-person-view drones close enough to Russian airfields to render traditional air defence systems useless. President Zelensky said the attack 'had an absolutely brilliant outcome' and dubbed it as 'Russia's Pearl Harbor', one that demonstrated Ukraine's capability to hit high-value targets anywhere on enemy turf, dealing a significant and humiliating blow to the Kremlin's stature and Moscow's war machine. 'Our people operated across several Russian regions in three different time zones. And the people who assisted us were withdrawn from Russian territory before the operation, they are now safe,' the Ukrainian President stated. Dr Steve Wright, a UK-based drone expert, told the BBC that the drones used were simple quadcopters carrying relatively heavy payloads. However, in his view, what made this attack "quite extraordinary" was the ability to smuggle them into Russia, and then launch and command them remotely. This, he concluded, had been potentially achieved through a link relayed through a satellite or the internet. Although the full extent of the damage from these Ukrainian strikes is unknown, the attacks showed that Kyiv was adapting and evolving in the face of a larger military with deeper resources. As per Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute, '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.' Conclusion This will undoubtedly go down as one of the most sophisticated covert operations of the Russia-Ukraine War so far. Ukraine, though outgunned by Russia, has responded by developing a cheap and sizeable inventory of attack drones. The innovative use of these drones has now been clearly exhibited, showcasing the strategic value of this asset. Nations treat their airspace as sovereign, a controlled environment that is mapped, regulated, and watched over. Air defence systems are built on the assumption that threats come from beyond national borders. Operation 'Spider Web' exposed what happens when countries are attacked from within. The drones flew low, through unmonitored gaps, exploiting assumptions about what kind of threat was faced and from where. In low-level airspace, responsibility fragments and detection tools evidently lose their edge. 'Spider Web' worked, not because of what each drone could do individually, but how the operation was designed. The cost of each drone was low but the overall effect was high. This isn't just asymmetric warfare, it's a different kind of offensive capability for which nations need to adapt. Beyond the battlefield, the impact of this operation is perhaps even more significant. What 'Spider Web' confirms is that the gaps in airspace can be used by an adversary with enough planning and the right technology. They can be exploited not just by states and not just in war. The technology is not rare and the tactics are not complicated. What Ukraine did was to combine them in a way that existing systems could not see the attack coming. Drones in low-level airspace are now a universal vulnerability and a defining challenge. It is difficult to keep out drones with unpredictable flight paths. The operation showed how little the margin for error is when cheap systems can be used precisely. As demonstrated, the cost of failure can be strategic. Though the consequences of the attacks on Russian military capabilities are difficult to estimate at this stage, their symbolic significance is important for Ukraine, as it has been facing setbacks on the battlefront. Ukraine, which has banked on expanding the use of domestically produced drones during the ongoing conflict, has now surprised Russia and the world with this new approach. However, the attacks are unlikely to alter the political calculus of President Putin or change Russia's belief that it holds an advantage over Ukraine, and that it sees a weakening resolve in some of Ukraine's allies. There is no doubt that this attack will go down as one of the finest out-of-the-box ideas of this conflict rendering the entire air defence system sterile and raising huge questions regarding the management of airspace with repercussions far beyond the conflict.
New Statesman
7 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
How Putin will respond to 'Russia's Pearl Harbour'
Back in February, with Ukraine's overstretched military struggling to hold the line and the Russian onslaught grinding into its fourth year, Donald Trump berated Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, telling him that he didn't 'have any cards'. The clear implication was that the Ukrainian president should accept he could not win the war and push for a peace deal on any available terms. But in the three months since it has become clear — perhaps even to Trump — that Vladimir Putin is not seriously interested in peace on terms other than Ukraine's capitulation, and that Zelensky had a stronger hand than his US counterpart understood, with an audacious plan to strike deep inside Russia that was more than 18 months in the making. Shortly after midday on 1 June, secret panels concealed in the roofs of lorries parked near four Russian airfields slid back and a fleet of small quadcopter drones took off towards their targets, flying too low and too close to be intercepted by Russian air defences. Ukraine's SBU security service claims that 117 drones took part in the attack, damaging or destroying 41 Russian aircraft, including several of the country's nuclear capable strategic bombers, at bases ranging from Murmansk in the Russian Arctic to Irkutsk in Siberia, around 4,500 kilometres east of the Ukrainian border. (Those figures have yet to be independently verified but satellite imagery shows clear indications of damage.) Codenamed 'Operation Spider's Web,' the attack is said to have been directed by Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the SBU, and personally supervised by Zelensky. Afterwards, the president congratulated Malyuk in a social media post, calling the operation an 'absolutely brilliant result' which would 'undoubtedly be in history books'. Alongside photos of the two men shaking hands and embracing, Zelensky stressed that the operation was conducted 'solely by Ukraine' and that everyone involved had made it safely out of Russia. (The latter claim has been disputed by Moscow, which claims to have detained multiple suspects.) Zelensky said the operation had taken one year, six months, and nine days to bring to fruition and that it was intended 'to make Russia feel the need to end this war'. Later that day two trains also derailed in western Russia, in separate regions bordering Ukraine, killing at least seven people in suspected acts of sabotage. Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine in recent days, launching multiple large-scale drone and missile barrages of Ukrainian cities, including some of the biggest aerial bombardments since the start of the war in 2022, with swarms of drones intended to overwhelm Ukraine's defences. Russian ground forces have also opened up a new front in northern Ukraine and launched a renewed assault in the eastern Donetsk region towards the strategically important city of Pokrovsk as part of what appears to be a summer offensive. 'I don't know what the hell happened to Putin,' Trump, who has long insisted the Russian president wants to end the war, posted online on 26 May. 'He has gone absolutely CRAZY.' Against this backdrop it is no surprise that the latest round of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on 2 June broke up after just over an hour with little discernible progress. The two sides agreed to exchange around 1,000 wounded prisoners of war, along with those aged 18 to 25, and to return the remains of 6,000 soldiers respectively. But reports in Russian state media indicated that the Kremlin has not backed down from the maximalist demands it has held out since the start of the war, insisting that in order to halt the fighting, Ukraine must agree to reduce the size of its military, forswear membership of Nato, and withdraw its troops from the four Ukrainian regions Russia claims to have annexed but does not fully control. In other words, the only terms Moscow is prepared to accept amount to Kyiv's de facto surrender. The ongoing talks, such as they are, seem designed more to mollify Trump, with both sides seeking to demonstrate that they are not the obstacle to peace, rather than bringing the war meaningfully closer to an end. In truth, the conflict is escalating — and the latest round of attacks signals a new, more dangerous phase of mutual brinkmanship. It is unlikely that Ukraine's mass drone strikes will persuade Putin that he must now abandon his war aims and seek an expedited peace. On the contrary, in response to what some commentators are calling 'Russia's Pearl Harbour' – a reference to the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet in December 1941 during the Second World War – Putin will surely be even more determined to punish Ukraine's recalcitrance. Russia's day of infamy must be seen to be met with resolve and strength, not defeat. It is ironic that Putin has succeeded in creating a genuine threat to Russian territory where none existed at the start of this war. Through his aggression he has transformed the phantom enemy that he conjured to justify his invasion of Ukraine in 2022 into reality. (Although, of course, that threat would disappear, and the attacks on Russia would stop if he ceased his assault.) He may well now seek to exploit the Ukrainian drone strikes to drum up more domestic support for his war, shoring up his claim that Russia is fighting a new 'great patriotic war' — just as their ancestors did during the Second World War — to defend the motherland. He is unlikely to believe Zelensky's claims that this attack was authored solely by Kyiv, and will present it instead as further evidence of the wider war he insists Russia is fighting against a hostile West. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe This is not the first time Russia has suffered serious military setbacks since the start of the war – the sinking of the Moskva, the failure of the assault on Kyiv, the attack on the Kerch bridge to Crimea, and the forced withdrawal from Kherson and Kharkiv, to name just a few. But Putin's consistent response has been to regroup and double down, often accompanied by nuclear sabre-rattling intended to unsettle Ukraine's Western allies. The Russian president will likely lean on the same strategy now, playing on Trump's oft-repeated fears that the conflict risks spiralling into 'World War III' in the hope that the US will pressure Kyiv to back down, or Trump will come to view the war as hopelessly intractable and follow through on his threats to walk away. Yet the other consistent feature of this conflict has been Ukraine's repeated capacity to defy expectations. From the very first hours of the Russian invasion, when Western intelligence reports assessed that Kyiv would be overrun within a matter of days, Ukraine has fought back instead, defending itself, as this latest operation exemplifies, with ingenuity against its much bigger, better armed adversary. The resulting tactics — such as the crucial role played by indigenously produced drones — are transforming the nature of modern warfare. Just as Putin is unlikely to be cowed into offering major concessions and suing for peace, so too is Zelensky likely to be further convinced that Ukraine can still win this war, or at least secure a peace deal on acceptable terms, with or without US support. The end of this war appears further away than ever, but it turns out that Ukraine still has cards to play after all. [See also: Putin's endgame] Related
Daily Mail
29-04-2025
- Daily Mail
Terrifying moment man runs for his life from rampaging polar bear after his desperate attempt to shoot the beast failed
Terrifying footage has captured the desperate charge of a man running for his life from a lumbering polar bear on a remote Arctic island. Residents of the tiny village of Pyramiden had been trying to scare off bears after one was spotted sniffing around residents' snowmobiles. But a harrowing clip from the island of Svalbard showed the moment one brazen creature, undeterred even by a volley of gunshots, turned and gave chase. A Russian mining manager was seen bounding through the snow as onlookers shouted out 'No! Go away!' at the nearing bear. The animal, capable of running at speeds of up to 25mph, charged at the man who, in his panic, dropped his rifle as he leapt onto a snowmobile. The bear was seen just feet away from the lucky Russian as the snowmobile came to his dramatic rescue. The alarm at the Pyramiden came as the mining manager was trying to scare away polar bears from the village, which is popular with tourists. At the time, there were about 80 people in the settlement, who were staying at the Tulip Hotel, said a source at Arktikugol, a Russian Arctic coal company operating in the settlement. 'Bears frequently enter Pyramiden because their migration route runs through the area. 'Some bears are aggressive, while others are more timid and skittish.' The manager made a lucky escape as the bear closed in with ease. While bears are not active predators of humans, they will attack if especially hungry or threatened. Only last year, two polar bears killed a worker at a remote Arctic radar station in Canada's Nunavut territory. 'Employees of the trust undergo training and monitor the safety of tourists, among other duties,' the Arktikugol source explained. 'Both the man and the bear are currently fine,' he said of the undated scare in Pyramiden. 'No-one was injured.' Voices were heard in the clip admiring how the production manager had risked his life to scare the bear. 'Very brave guy……Damn, that guy is brave.' Residents of the island had been trying to scare off bears after one was spotted sniffing around residents' snowmobiles There are around 300 polar bears on Svalbard. The same bear had been seen two days earlier 'inspecting snowmobiles'. Eyewitnesses said food had been left in the snowmobiles, which attracted the predator.'
Euronews
02-04-2025
- Science
- Euronews
The Arctic's glaciers are retreating, exposing new coastlines that could trigger tsunamis
ADVERTISEMENT Shrinking glaciers exposed 2,500 kilometres of coastline and 35 'new' islands in the Arctic between 2000 and 2020, new research has found. Scientists examined satellite images of more than 1,700 ice caps in Greenland, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, the Russian Arctic, Iceland and Svalbard over this 20-year period. Their analysis shows that 85 per cent of these glaciers retreated, uncovering an average of 123 kilometres of new coastline per year. This is 'fundamentally altering the nature of Arctic landscapes', according to Dr Simon Cook, a senior lecturer in environmental sciences at the University of Dundee. The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change , links the acceleration in glacier melt to rising ocean and air temperatures. Most of the new coastlines appear in Greenland As global temperatures rise, glaciers are experiencing increasingly rapid retreat. The base of the glacier, known as the 'terminus', begins to melt, shrinking the overall length of the ice cap. Marine-terminating glaciers - which flow into the ocean - often reveal new areas of coastline when they melt. From satellite imagery of 1,704 marine-terminating glaciers in the northern hemisphere, the researchers mapped the 2,466 kilometres of coastline that were exposed between 2000 and 2020. The study shows that the rate of freshly revealed coastline varies significantly between regions. Just 101 glaciers were responsible for more than half of the total additional coastline length, the authors found. Two-thirds of the new coastline was located in Greenland. The retreat of the Zachariae Isstrom glacier in the northeast of the country formed 81 kilometres of new coastline - more than twice as much as any other glacier in the study. Melting glaciers also revealed 35 new islands with areas larger than 0.5 square kilometres, the researchers found. These were completely uncovered or lost their glacial connection with the mainland. Warming ocean and air temperatures - driven by climate change - are the main impetus for marine-terminating glaciers to rapidly lose mass , the study says. Newly exposed coastline increases risk of landslides and tsunamis The researchers warn that 'the retreat of marine-terminating glaciers not only alters the landscape but simultaneously poses an indirect risk to local communities and economic activities in the coastal zone.' The newly uncovered coastlines - known as 'paraglacial' - are more susceptible to landslides, which can then trigger 'dangerous tsunamis '. ADVERTISEMENT The study highlights the tsunami in Greenland in June 2017, which caused substantial infrastructure damage and loss of life. Related Swiss glaciers shrank during Europe's record-hot summer despite high snowfall in June Switzerland and Italy redraw border as melting glaciers shift the frontier 'Paraglacial coasts differ from other established areas of Arctic coastline because permafrost will not yet have had time to develop in these freshly revealed areas, meaning that they are more easily eroded by wave action, mass wasting and other processes because of a lack of icy cement,' environmental sciences lecturer Cook wrote in an article for Nature Climate Change. 'They are, therefore, expected to be highly dynamic.' The authors of the new research note that this also poses safety risks for the tourists that flock to coastal glacial areas for their beauty and abundant wildlife. 'Camping and touristic activities along coasts close to the main iceberg transport routes are threatened by iceberg roll waves,' they write. ADVERTISEMENT 'Apart from health and safety risks linked to extreme wave impacts, the tourism industry may be considerably compromised by the scenic beauty of the landscape when marine-terminating glaciers morph into land-terminating features.'
