Ukrainian forces destroyed more than 40 aircraft and struck five separate Russian air bases in a surprise assault Sunday that represented one of the most devastating, embarrassing blows to Moscow’s war machine since its war with Kyiv began more than three years ago.
One prominent Russian military blogger dubbed the assault the “Russian Pearl Harbor,” as Russian military insiders appeared stunned that their country’s military and security services could’ve missed such a brazen, ambitious operation. The attacks came just a day before representatives from the two nations met for another round of ceasefire negotiations in Turkey on Monday.
The assault appeared to borrow from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s playbook: Conduct a major attack on the eve of peace talks in an effort to put substantial pressure on the other side and demonstrate your ability to inflict major damage on the enemy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the planning for the attack, called the “Spiderweb” operation, took 18 months. The operation involved 117 Ukrainian drones hitting Russian military bases across the country, from outside Moscow to Siberia.
“The preparation took over a year and a half. Planning, organization, every detail was perfectly executed. It can be said with confidence that this was an absolutely unique operation,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in a series of social media posts. “What’s most interesting, and this can now be stated publicly, is that the ’office’ of our operation on Russian territory was located directly next to FSB headquarters in one of their regions.”
Indeed, the operation seems to be a monumental blow to the credibility of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. Ukrainian forces reportedly smuggled their drones into Russian territory in the backs of trucks and then parked them near each of the five Russian bases. Positioning the aircraft so close to the Russian military sites allowed the operation to unfold with speed and precision. And, according to Mr. Zelenskyy, all of the Ukrainian drone operators escaped Russian territory safely.
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The 40 Russian aircraft destroyed in the assault represent about 34% of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers, Ukrainian officials said. The cost of the damage to the Russian military is about $7 billion, according to estimates from Ukrainian officials.
Some high-profile Russian military insiders seemed stunned by the audacity of the operation — and their country’s security failures.
June 1, 2025, “is a day that may go down in modern history as the ’Russian Pearl Harbor,’” Russian military blogger Roman Alekhine said in a series of lengthy posts on Telegram. He went on to blame structural problems inside the Russian military and security services for the fact that Ukrainian drone operators were able to carry out the attacks from Russian soil.
“Ukraine has shown that the country’s authorities have prepared as much as possible for a war of any intensity and duration,” he said. “The reasons for their success are the same as before: an extreme shortage of employees in the structures that are related to security inside the country, as well as an overload of paperwork for these employees, and possibly the degradation of special agencies due to low salaries, accompanied by a wave of stupid paperwork and irregular working hours, because that’s what the bosses need, and not because it is necessary for the result.”
• This article was based in part on wire service reports.
