Ukraine's drone attack on Russian air bases is a lesson for the West

The targets were Russian warplanes, including strategical bombers and command-and-control aircraft, worthy hundreds of millions of dollars.

The weapons were Ukrainian drones, each costing nether $1000 and launched from woody containers carried connected trucks.

“Operation Spiderweb,” which Ukraine said destroyed aliases damaged complete 40 craft parked adjacent aerial bases crossed Russia connected Sunday, wasn’t conscionable a rustle to nan Kremlin’s prestige.

It was besides a wake-up telephone for nan West to bolster its aerial defense systems against specified hybrid tactics, subject experts said.

Ukraine took advantage of inexpensive drone exertion that has precocious quickly successful nan past decade and mixed it pinch outside-the-box reasoning to people a morale-boosting triumph successful nan 3-year-old warfare that lately has turned successful Moscow's favor.

How profoundly nan onslaught will effect Russian subject operations is unclear.

Although officials successful Kyiv estimated it caused $7 cardinal successful damage, nan Russian Foreign Ministry disputed that, and location person been nary independent assessments.

Moscow still has much craft to motorboat its bombs and cruise missiles against Ukraine.

Still, nan cognition showed what “modern warfare really looks for illustration and why it’s truthful important to enactment up pinch technology,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Where nan West is vulnerable

For Western governments, it's a informing that “the spectrum of threats they’re going to person to return into information only gets broader,” said Douglas Barrie, elder chap for subject aerospace astatine nan International Institute of Strategic Studies successful London.

In nan past decade, European countries person accused Russia of carrying retired a sabotage run against nan West, pinch targets ranging from defense executives and logistics companies to businesses linked to Ukraine.

Unidentified drones person been seen successful nan past twelvemonth flying adjacent subject bases successful nan US, nan UK and Germany, arsenic good arsenic supra weapons factories successful Norway.

High-value weapons and different exertion astatine those sites are “big, juicy targets for some authorities and non-state actors,” said Caitlin Lee, a drone warfare master astatine RAND successful Washington.

“The clip is now” to put successful anti-drone defenses, she said.

Low-cost options to protect craft see utilizing hardened shelters, dispersing nan targets to different bases and camouflaging them aliases moreover building decoys.

U.S. President Donald Trump past period announced a $175 cardinal “Golden Dome” programme utilizing space-based weapons to protect nan state from long-range missiles.

Not mentioned were defenses against drones, which Lee said tin beryllium challenging because they alert debased and slow, and connected radar tin look for illustration birds.

They besides tin beryllium launched wrong nationalist borders, dissimilar a supersonic rocket fired from abroad.

Drones “dramatically increase” nan capacity by a dispute authorities aliases group for important sabotage, said Fabian Hinz, a rocket master and investigation chap astatine IISS.

“How galore targets are location successful a country? How good tin you take sides each azygous 1 of them against a threat for illustration that?” he said.

Ukraine's resourceful, outside-the-box thinking

In “Operation Spiderweb,” Ukraine said it smuggled nan first-person view, aliases FPV, drones into Russia, wherever they were placed successful nan woody containers and yet driven by motortruck adjacent to nan airfields successful nan Irkutsk region successful Siberia, nan Murmansk region successful nan Arctic, and nan Amur region successful nan Far East, arsenic good arsenic to 2 bases successful occidental Russia.

Ukraine’s Security Service, aliases SBU, said nan drones had highly automated capabilities and were partially piloted by an usability and partially by utilizing artificial intelligence, which flew them on a pre-planned way successful nan arena nan drones mislaid signal.

Such AI exertion almost surely would person been unavailable to Ukraine 5 years ago.

SBU video showed drones swooping complete and nether Russian aircraft, immoderate of which were covered by tires.

Experts suggested nan tires could person been utilized to confuse an automatic targeting strategy by breaking up nan plane's silhouette aliases to connection primitive protection.

“The measurement successful which nan Ukrainians brought this together is imaginative and evidently caught nan Russians wholly disconnected guard,” Barrie said.

Satellite photos analysed by The Associated Press showed 7 destroyed bombers connected nan tarmac astatine Irkutsk's Belaya Air Base, a awesome installation for Russia’s long-range bomber force.

At slightest 3 Tu-95 four-engine turboprop bombers and 4 Tu-22M twin-engine supersonic bombers look to beryllium destroyed.

Since nan opening of Russia's full-scale penetration successful 2022, nan outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian subject has adopted a imaginative attack to warfare.

Its forces deployed woody decoys of costly US HIMARS aerial defense systems to tie Russia's rocket fire, created anti-drone units that run connected pickup trucks, and repurposed captured weapons.

Experts compared Sunday's onslaught to Israel’s cognition past twelvemonth successful which pagers utilized by members of nan militant group Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously successful Lebanon and Syria.

Israel besides has utilized small, exploding drones to onslaught targets successful Lebanon and Iran.

The U.S. utilized Predator drones much than a decade agone to termination insurgents successful Afghanistan from thousands of miles away.

Developments successful exertion person made those capabilities disposable successful smaller drones.

Hinz compared nan authorities of drone warfare to that of nan improvement of nan tank, which made its debut successful 1916 successful World War I.

Engineers sought to activity retired really to champion merge tanks into a moving battlefield script — contemplating everything from a mini conveyance to a elephantine 1 “with 18 turrets” earlier settling connected nan type utilized successful World War II.

With drones, “we are successful nan shape of figuring that out, and things are changing truthful quickly that what useful coming mightiness not activity tomorrow,” he said.

How nan onslaught affects Russian operations successful Ukraine

The Tu-95 bombers deed by Ukraine are “effectively irreplaceable” because they're nary longer successful production, said Hinz, nan IISS expert.

Ukraine said it besides deed an A-50 early informing and power aircraft, akin to nan West's AWACS planes, that coordinate aerial attacks. Russia has moreover less of these.

“Whichever measurement you trim nan barroom for Russia, this requires expense," said Thomas Withington of nan Royal United Services Institute successful London.

"You tin spot nan billions of dollars mounting up,”

Russia must repair nan damaged planes, amended protect its remaining craft and amended its expertise to disrupt specified operations, he said.

Experts besides suggested nan strikes could unit Moscow to velocity up its programme to switch nan Tu-95.

While underscoring Russian vulnerabilities, it’s not clear if it will mean reduced airstrikes connected Ukraine.

Russia has focused connected trying to overwhelm Ukraine’s aerial defenses pinch drones passim nan war, including nan usage of decoys without payloads.

On immoderate nights past month, Moscow launched complete 300 drones.

“Even if Ukraine was capable to harm a important information of nan Russian bomber force, it’s not wholly clear that nan bomber unit was playing a linchpin domiciled successful nan warfare astatine this point,” Lee said.

Ukrainian aerial unit information analyzed by AP shows that from July 2024 done December 2024, Russia utilized Tu-22M3s and Tu-95s 14 times against Ukraine but utilized drones almost each night.

Sunday's cognition mightiness temporarily trim Russia’s expertise to motorboat strategical rocket attacks but it will astir apt find ways to compensate, Lee said.