A spectacular drone attack by Ukraine that hit deep into Russia this weekend has shaken the Kremlin and shown the world how technology is changing modern warfare. What remains to be seen is whether it can move Ukraine closer to peace on favorable terms.
The top-secret operation – a year and a half in the making – reportedly damaged 30% of Russia’s long-range aircraft, including planes used to fire missiles at Ukrainian cities and nuclear-capable bombers.
While damage assessments are ongoing, what is clear is that Ukraine has once again redefined modern warfare with cheap drones and exceptional spy craft, dealing a considerable blow to a great power.
Why We Wrote This
The capacity of relatively low-cost drones to damage strategic big-power assets is a lesson that is rippling worldwide, highlighting how technology may rewrite military playbooks in fast-evolving and unexpected ways.
In the process, the audacious asymmetric attack has raised questions among military analysts about everything from the future of air defenses to the nature of nuclear deterrence.
The country’s defiance in the face of stepped-up Russian bombardments and seemingly endless supply of soldiers, analysts say, also reassures Kyiv’s supporters that the democracy still stands – and that it will fight on despite the odds.
“Surprise attacks carry significance in military history,” said Col. Martin O’Donnell, U.S. spokesperson for NATO’s Supreme Allied Command. “They provoke response, can alter attitudes, [and] are known to reshape military tactics and strategies.”
One such attitude that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he hoped to alter is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spurning of peace talks. The hope, Mr. Zelenskyy said, is that such strikes “are what will push [Moscow] toward diplomacy.”
This has not proved to be the case so far: Russia once again rejected a ceasefire in Istanbul on Monday in a meeting that lasted just over an hour.
A message to Russia or the U.S., or both?
But Mr. Zelenskyy’s true target audience could be the United States. After the operation, he urged President Donald Trump to place more sanctions on Russia.
As Moscow continued hammering civilian targets, contrary to Mr. Trump’s stated wishes, the U.S. president expressed some skepticism about Mr. Putin’s good faith. “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war – he’s just tapping me along.”
Vice President JD Vance, for his part, said recently that perhaps Russia is “asking for too much” in negotiations.
Yet many of Mr. Trump’s supporters, who routinely express distrust of Mr. Zelenskyy, warn that the latest Ukrainian attack on Russia crosses Mr. Putin’s red lines. They also worry aloud that it has the potential to be escalatory and, at the extreme, to unwittingly draw the U.S. into a nuclear war.
The U.S. “should not only distance itself from this attack but end any support that could directly or indirectly enable attacks against Russian strategic nuclear forces,” Dan Caldwell, a former Pentagon aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said Sunday in a social media post.
The Kremlin has been largely silent on the Ukraine operation. Newspapers friendly to Mr. Putin describe it as a terrorist attack and say it proves Kyiv isn’t ready for peace.
“I got some cards”
Operation Spider’s Web, the code name for the covert June 1 drone strike, was personally overseen by Mr. Zelenskyy, Ukrainian government sources say.
The attack has “seriously weakened” Moscow’s military operations and will go down “in the history books,” President Zelenskyy said Monday.
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, says he now likes to contemplate Mr. Zelenskyy’s involvement in the operation as he thinks back to the Ukrainian leader’s contentious February meeting in the Oval Office with President Trump and Vice President Vance.
“They were telling Zelenskyy, ‘You’ve got no cards.’ And it’s interesting that Zelenskyy, when he was getting yelled at by these two people, already knew that this plan was approaching,” General Hodges says. “So it’s kind of cool, from a human standpoint, that he’s sitting there listening and thinking, ‘You just wait. I got some cards.’”
The capacity of relatively low-cost drones to damage strategic big-power assets is a lesson that is rippling worldwide. The threat hadn’t been unknown, but from the Pentagon to Beijing, the operation is highlighting how technology may rewrite military playbooks in fast-evolving and unexpected ways.
The drone raid by Ukraine was aimed at stopping incessant Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, like hospitals and electrical grids. While the conflict has been at a stalemate for some time, with Russia controlling roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory, Mr. Putin has far greater reserves of soldiers and firepower.
This latest attack involved dozens of small, first-person view drones. Hidden in large container units with retractable roofs, the drones were designed to circumvent Russia’s sophisticated air defenses. They were reportedly smuggled in, in part by unwitting Russian truck drivers who thought they were delivering building materials and drove their loaded trucks straight onto remote Russian bases.
By keeping its aircraft out of range of Ukrainian strikes, Russia had presumed its air assets – some of which were kept more than 2,600 miles from the border – were safe. There are also indications that the attack’s targets included Russia’s Northern Fleet headquarters, where nuclear submarines are docked.
Echoes of previous stealth attacks
Operation Spider’s Web echoed Ukraine’s 2023 attack using drones and missiles that destroyed an estimated one-third of Russia’s Black Sea assets, forcing Moscow to relocate its fleet farther east.
In terms of its tradecraft, Operation Spider’s Web resembled the Israeli Mossad’s pager attack on Hezbollah last year, in which Israeli intelligence replaced Hezbollah fighters’ regular pagers with devices containing explosives. That attack killed top Hezbollah leaders and sowed widespread uncertainty within its ranks.
“Achieving a surprise effect like this will create so much distrust and uncertainty inside Russia,” General Hodges says. “You can imagine it would’ve been no fun to come into the office in Moscow to explain how truckloads of Ukrainian quadcopters got so deep into multiple bases inside Russia.”
Pro-war Russian bloggers, for their part, have dubbed the attack “Russia’s Pearl Harbor” and are urging that retaliation on Ukraine be punishing.
Despite Moscow’s efforts to downplay the damage, many of Mr. Putin’s supporters, in decrying the operation, could not help but point to its success.
The attack will discredit Russian security services and create “colossal tension” in Russian society, one popular pro-Kremlin blogger predicted.
That is in keeping with Ukraine’s aims, analysts say. It also forges one more potential path, they add, toward an end to the war.
