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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ukraine's game-changing drone attack is a wake-up call for vulnerable US airbases, particularly in the Pacific
Ukraine launched a devastating drone attack on Russian aircraft across multiple airbases. The operation highlights how US airbases, especially in the Pacific, could be vulnerable without more defenses. China has made significant investments in fortifying its airbases, especially compared to the US. Ukraine's shocking drone attack on the Russian bomber fleet and other strategic aircraft shows just how vulnerable US bases and planes, especially those in the Pacific, could be to a similar kind of attack by an adversary. The need to harden American airbases to protect US airpower assets has been an important topic of discussion for years now, particularly amid China's military rise and the significant expansion of its ballistic missile arsenal, but Ukraine's attack on Russia has reignited this discussion and fueled others. Operation Spiderweb saw Ukraine sneak more than one hundred drones into Russian territory and launch them near key airbases. The Ukrainians say they struck 41 Russian aircraft, including an unspecified number of strategic bombers. Ukraine says the damage it inflicted could exceed $7 billion. The operation was very unusual, raising key questions. US military leaders took note. For instance, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George observed this week that the attack indicated the need to adapt to the quickening speed of warfare. Spiderweb, Phelan said at an artificial intelligence defense conference this week, "was pretty prolific." The operation, George noted at the same event, showed that the US needed to be more agile and think further about acquiring more counter-drone systems. George also said the attack was another example of Ukraine's asymmetric advantage that's been demonstrated throughout the war, using relatively cheap drones to destroy expensive, exquisite Russian air power. It's something the US needs to be thinking about, too, he said. Military leaders and defense experts have long recognized the growing threats to US airbases and American airpower, particularly in the western Pacific, and the need to harden defenses there to prevent a strike from an adversary like China from taking out bombers and fighters before they get off the ground. But Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb, Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow with the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, told Business Insider, "should be a wake-up call at the senior policymaker level and congressional level to pay attention. There is no sanctuary anymore." US airfield expansion and fortification efforts have been limited in recent years, troublingly so in the Pacific. Facilities are seriously lacking in passive defenses, like hardened aircraft shelters and sufficiently dispersed forces. The issue is especially glaring compared to China's consistent work over the past decade on building shelters to hide aircraft, adding runways, and increasing ramp areas. In a Hudson Institute report earlier this year, Shugart and Tim Walton, a senior fellow at Hudson's Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said that this has created an imbalance. Should the US and China go to war, the latter would need fewer shots to suppress or destroy airfields used by the US and its allies and partners. China would have more capacity for sustaining its air operations. Shugart and Walton also said the rise of foreign drones flying over military bases demonstrated a need for the Pentagon to harden its airfields, especially key ones that house bombers. Ukraine's attack on Russia is expected to ignite important conversations about anti-drone defenses at bases, Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI. The focus has been on missiles, but drones come with a different set of problems. To protect against drones, it isn't enough to fortify shelters. "You have to be careful about any openings," Cancian said, explaining that "you can't have a roof and then an open front because they'll just fly in." One solution he said may start to appear is a mesh structure or curtain for those openings. Ukraine's recent strike on Russian airpower could be just a glimpse of what such a future attack could look like, experts said. Sunday's attack, Walton told BI, "was in the form of quadcopters; in the future, it could be similar drones but with even greater autonomy, small, low-cost cruise missiles, or other weapons." The list of potential targets could grow, too. Spiderweb demonstrated something that military experts and planners have long understood: aircraft are vulnerable on the ground, and striking them before they can take off can severely limit a military's air power capabilities. But future strikes could be on ships in the accessible littorals, ground stations, air and missile defense sites, and so on. The lessons from this strike for the US Department of Defense, experts said, include understanding how an adversary could pull off a similar attack. Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK'S Royal Aeronautical Society, said that in light of the attack, the West will have not only need to consider hardening their bases but also potentially build "more of them than you have aircraft" to either confuse the enemy or fill with decoys. As Congress meets with military leaders this week, and service budgets are determined, "members should ask how are US bases and other critical facilities defended against these threats today; how much funding is required to appropriate passive and active defenses; and how much of that funding is included in the fiscal year 2026 president's budget proposal," Walton said. There are also questions around whether Golden Dome, the Trump administration's plan to fulfill a Reagan-era vision for a major missile and air defense network, will incorporate any lessons from this attack. Some industry figures have said that the project, while it is primarily about missiles, can't overlook the drone threat. US military leaders are saying the same. Robinson said that "if you're an air force chief and you are not lying awake at night thinking about how to protect" yourself, then "you're going to lose the next war." Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Business Insider
Ukraine's game-changing drone attack is a wake-up call for vulnerable US airbases, particularly in the Pacific
Ukraine's shocking drone attack on the Russian bomber fleet and other strategic aircraft shows just how vulnerable US bases and planes, especially those in the Pacific, could be to a similar kind of attack by an adversary. The need to harden American airbases to protect US airpower assets has been an important topic of discussion for years now, particularly amid China's military rise and the significant expansion of its ballistic missile arsenal, but Ukraine's attack on Russia has reignited this discussion and fueled others. Operation Spiderweb saw Ukraine sneak more than one hundred drones into Russian territory and launch them near key airbases. The Ukrainians say they struck 41 Russian aircraft, including an unspecified number of strategic bombers. Ukraine says the damage it inflicted could exceed $7 billion. The operation was very unusual, raising key questions. US military leaders took note. For instance, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George observed this week that the attack indicated the need to adapt to the quickening speed of warfare. Spiderweb, Phelan said at an artificial intelligence defense conference this week, "was pretty prolific." The operation, George noted at the same event, showed that the US needed to be more agile and think further about acquiring more counter-drone systems. George also said the attack was another example of Ukraine's asymmetric advantage that's been demonstrated throughout the war, using relatively cheap drones to destroy expensive, exquisite Russian air power. It's something the US needs to be thinking about, too, he said. Military leaders and defense experts have long recognized the growing threats to US airbases and American airpower, particularly in the western Pacific, and the need to harden defenses there to prevent a strike from an adversary like China from taking out bombers and fighters before they get off the ground. But Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb, Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow with the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, told Business Insider, "should be a wake-up call at the senior policymaker level and congressional level to pay attention. There is no sanctuary anymore." US airfield expansion and fortification efforts have been limited in recent years, troublingly so in the Pacific. Facilities are seriously lacking in passive defenses, like hardened aircraft shelters and sufficiently dispersed forces. The issue is especially glaring compared to China's consistent work over the past decade on building shelters to hide aircraft, adding runways, and increasing ramp areas. In a Hudson Institute report earlier this year, Shugart and Tim Walton, a senior fellow at Hudson's Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said that this has created an imbalance. Should the US and China go to war, the latter would need fewer shots to suppress or destroy airfields used by the US and its allies and partners. China would have more capacity for sustaining its air operations. Shugart and Walton also said the rise of foreign drones flying over military bases demonstrated a need for the Pentagon to harden its airfields, especially key ones that house bombers. Ukraine's attack on Russia is expected to ignite important conversations about anti-drone defenses at bases, Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI. The focus has been on missiles, but drones come with a different set of problems. To protect against drones, it isn't enough to fortify shelters. "You have to be careful about any openings," Cancian said, explaining that "you can't have a roof and then an open front because they'll just fly in." One solution he said may start to appear is a mesh structure or curtain for those openings. Ukraine's recent strike on Russian airpower could be just a glimpse of what such a future attack could look like, experts said. Sunday's attack, Walton told BI, "was in the form of quadcopters; in the future, it could be similar drones but with even greater autonomy, small, low-cost cruise missiles, or other weapons." The list of potential targets could grow, too. Spiderweb demonstrated something that military experts and planners have long understood: aircraft are vulnerable on the ground, and striking them before they can take off can severely limit a military's air power capabilities. But future strikes could be on ships in the accessible littorals, ground stations, air and missile defense sites, and so on. The lessons from this strike for the US Department of Defense, experts said, include understanding how an adversary could pull off a similar attack. Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK'S Royal Aeronautical Society, said that in light of the attack, the West will have not only need to consider hardening their bases but also potentially build "more of them than you have aircraft" to either confuse the enemy or fill with decoys. As Congress meets with military leaders this week, and service budgets are determined, "members should ask how are US bases and other critical facilities defended against these threats today; how much funding is required to appropriate passive and active defenses; and how much of that funding is included in the fiscal year 2026 president's budget proposal," Walton said. There are also questions around whether Golden Dome, the Trump administration's plan to fulfill a Reagan-era vision for a major missile and air defense network, will incorporate any lessons from this attack. Some industry figures have said that the project, while it is primarily about missiles, can't overlook the drone threat. US military leaders are saying the same. Robinson said that "if you're an air force chief and you are not lying awake at night thinking about how to protect" yourself, then "you're going to lose the next war."
Hindustan Times
3 hours ago
- General
- Hindustan Times
Vladimir Putin's first direct attack on Ukraine after ‘Op Spiderweb'
Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched his first direct missile strike on Ukraine following Kyiv's bold 'Spiderweb' drone operation, which destroyed over 40 Russian military aircraft. In a televised address, Putin condemned recent railway explosions in Russia's Bryansk and Kursk regions as 'terrorist acts,' blaming Ukraine's political leadership for orchestrating attacks on civilians. Watch for more
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Putin 'will have to respond' to Ukraine's attack on Russian bombers, Trump says after call with Kremlin chief
Editor's Note: This story is being updated. Russian President Vladimir Putin "will have to respond" to Ukraine's recent drone attack on military airfields, U.S. President Donald Trump said on June 4 after holding a call with the Russian president. Trump said he spoke to Putin over the phone for approximately an hour and 15 minutes on June 4. "We discussed the attack on Russia's docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides," Trump wrote on his Truth Social account after the call. "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." Trump made no further comments regarding the "response" and did not say whether the U.S. had urged restraint. Ukraine on June 1 launched a game-changing drone attack on four key Russian military airfields, damaging 41 planes, including heavy bombers and rare A-50 spy planes. The operation, dubbed Spiderweb, took 18 months to plan and was overseen directly by President Volodymyr Zelensky and carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The SBU said 117 drones, launched from concealed trucks positioned across Russian territory, simultaneously struck airfields in at least four regions — including sites thousands of kilometers from the Ukrainian border. The Kremlin was initially quiet about the operation. Days after the attack, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on June 3 said that Putin had been informed of the "incident" and that an investigation had been launched. Trump was also uncharacteristically silent about the attack, which was hailed in Ukraine as a major success. The White House confirmed on June 3 that Ukraine did not inform Trump in advance about the operation. Trump's Special Envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, warned that the attack could lead to escalations in the full-scale war. "I'm telling you the risk levels are going way up," Kellogg told Fox News on June 3. "When you attack an opponent's part of their national survival system, which is their nuclear triad, that means your risk level goes up because you don't know what the other side's going to do." Ukraine's drone strike followed several days of Russian escalation as Moscow launched some of the heaviest aerial attacks in the full-scale war over a span of three nights. Operation Spiderweb targeted some of the very bombers that rained destruction on Ukrainian cities and civilian targets. Zelensky said on June 4 that Ukraine would not have carried out the attack on Russia's airfields if Moscow had agreed to the many proposals for a ceasefire put forth since March. Operation Spiderweb struck Russia the day before the second round of direct peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow took place in Istanbul on June 2. The U.S. has praised the talks as a sign of Trump's successful intervention in the peace process — even though Russia continues to reject a ceasefire. Putin said on June 4 that Russia was no longer interested in negotiating with Ukraine. "The current Kyiv regime does not need peace at all," he said during a televised meeting with senior officials. "What is there to talk about? How can we negotiate with those who rely on terror?" Despite the Kremlin's persistent refusal to impose a ceasefire or make significant steps towards peace, Trump has not followed through on threats to sanction Russia. While Republican lawmakers, including staunch Trump allies, have rallied around legislation sanctioning Russia, Trump has shied away from pressuring Moscow. Read also: Ukraine war latest: Kyiv hacks Russian bomber maker; Putin's 'disregard' for troops highlighted as Russian losses near 1 million We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
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First Post
5 hours ago
- Politics
- First Post
WATCH: Ukraine releases new footage of daring AI drone strikes that crippled Putin's bomber fleet
Ukraine's security service on Wednesday released new drone footage of its operation 'Spiderweb', showing how exactly Kyiv struck 41 Russian heavy military bombers read more Ukraine's security service on Wednesday released new drone footage of its operation 'Spiderweb', showing how exactly Kyiv struck 41 Russian heavy military bombers. 'During the operation, modern UAV control technology was used, which combines autonomous artificial intelligence algorithms and manual operator intervention,' Politico quoted the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, the country's main counterintelligence agency, as saying. СБУ показала унікальні кадри спецоперації «Павутина», у результаті якої уражено 41 військовий літак стратегічної авіації рф ➡️ — СБ України (@ServiceSsu) June 4, 2025 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'During the flight, some drones lost signal and switched to performing a mission using artificial intelligence along a preplanned route. After approaching and contacting a specifically designated target, the warhead was automatically activated,' the SBU added. The SBU released new video evidence showing Ukrainian drones striking engines, antennas, wings, and other components of Russian strategic and reconnaissance aircraft at four military airfields deep inside Russia. These bases are regularly used by Moscow to launch ballistic and cruise missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. 'Among the hit aircraft were 'A-50,' 'Tu-95,' 'Tu-22,' 'Tu-160,' as well as 'An-12' and 'Il-78,'' the SBU said, claiming that its clandestine operation caused more than $7 billion worth of financial damage to Russia. According to the report, open-source intelligence analysts and journalists have verified, through newly released satellite imagery, the destruction of at least 11 strategic bombers. The bold 'Spider Web' drone strikes drew global attention — hailed by some as a breakthrough in modern warfare tactics, while others, including US Special Envoy on Ukraine Keith Kellogg, voiced concern over the escalation. 'When you attack an opponent's part of the national survival system, which is their triad, their nuclear triad — that means your risk level goes up because you don't know what the other is going to do … It's a very emboldened act. And when you do that, it's very clear that the risk levels will go up. That is what we try to avoid,' Fox News quoted Kellogg as saying on Tuesday. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The 'Spider Web' strikes lifted Ukrainian morale as Russian forces advanced in Donetsk, Kharkiv, and now Sumy. Russia's Defence Ministry downplayed the drone attacks, admitting hits only in Irkutsk and Murmansk, and claiming others were repelled. It said no casualties occurred and labeled the incident an act of terrorism. President Zelenskyy said the strikes could have been avoided if Moscow had accepted Ukraine's unconditional ceasefire proposal. 'Today, I awarded our Security Service warriors for the important operation to destroy 41 Russian aircraft, half of which is beyond repair, and another part will be repairing for years, if at all. Absolutely legitimate military target. Such operations help counter Russian terror,' Zelenskyy said at a press briefing on Wednesday. 'Had there been a ceasefire before our operation, there'd be no operation. Wanting a ceasefire doesn't mean we do nothing in the meantime,' he added. With inputs from agencies
