The first satellite images have emerged on social media showing the aftermath of Kyiv’s major drone strike on a Russian airbase more than 2,500 miles from Ukraine’s border.
The imagery appears to show damage to the Belaya air base in Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, which Ukraine said had been targeted in a drone barrage on Sunday, along with three other military bases.
The success of “Operation Spiderweb” hands Ukraine a boost ahead of peace talks in Istanbul on Monday with Russia in an attack that pro-Moscow Telegram users have compared to Japan’s attack on the United States on Pearl Harbor in 1941 during World War II.
The strikes show how despite concerns over continued U.S. military aid to fight Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression and incremental battlefield gains by Moscow, Ukraine’s drone capability is evolving and can penetrate deep inside Russian territory.
Geospatial intelligence consultant Chris Biggers posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday what are likely the first satellite images following the strike on Belaya air base in Irkutsk Oblast, that show damage to Moscow’s fleet of strategic bombers.
The photos captured by U.S. aerospace company Umbra Space, appear to confirm the destruction of at least three Tu-95MS strategic bombers and one Tu-22M3 aircraft, with damage to a Tu-95MS and two Tu-22M3 bombers.
Coordinated, long-range strikes on multiple Russian airbases thousands of miles from Ukraine took out more than a third of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers, according to Kyiv, dealing a stinging blow to Moscow ahead of renewed peace talks.
Ukraine on Sunday launched 117 individually-operated drones at four airbases across Russia, officials said, in an attack branded “Russia’s Pearl Harbor” by observers, referencing Japan’s infamous 1941 assault on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Oahu, Hawaii.
The operation, codenamed “Spiderweb,” inflicted roughly $7 billion in damage as Kyiv struck more than 40 Russian aircraft simultaneously, including nuclear-capable bombers, Ukraine’s SBU domestic security agency said.
Russian and Ukrainian officials are meeting for fresh rounds of ceasefire negotiations in Istanbul on Monday, although there is muted optimism for what the pained talks could produce. Meetings in Turkey last month secured the largest prisoner swap of the war, but failed to yield much progress on a ceasefire deal.
Brokering an agreement to bring Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II to a close has been a core foreign policy pledge for President Donald Trump, although his administration has said it is willing to walk away if a deal cannot be swiftly reached.
Russia has in recent weeks launched its largest-scale aerial attacks of the more than three years of war on Ukraine.
The head of Ukraine’s SBU security service, Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk, said on Monday that Kyiv hit 41 aircraft, including Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers Russia has used extensively to fire long-range missiles at Ukraine.
Ukraine also struck an A-50 spy plane, Malyuk said. The A-50 surveillance aircraft is an expensive and scarce asset for Russia, previously targeted by Ukraine.
Footage widely circulating online appears to show several aircraft in flames or damaged. Andriy Kovalenko, an official with Ukraine’s national security and defense council, said on Monday “at least 13 Russian aircraft were destroyed.”
Ukraine said it had targeted four airfields “simultaneously,” while Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukraine had used first person-view (FPV) drones to target military airfields in five regions — Amur, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Murmansk and Ryazan.
Moscow acknowledged “several” aircraft had caught fire in the strikes in Murmansk, in northwestern Russia, and Irkutsk, in Siberia.
The SBU did not name Ukrainka, an airbase in the Amur region reportedly hit by drones, as a target. An SBU spokesperson declined to comment when approached for clarification.
Igor Kobzev, the governor of Russia’s Irkutsk region, said an unspecified number of drones had struck a military facility near the village of Sredny, close to the Belaya airfield. Kobzev, as well as Russian and Ukrainian media reports, said drones had been launched from trucks parked close to the airfields.
The trucks, stationed near the targets, likely helped Ukraine to avoid Russian air defenses and electronic warfare systems, the U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said on Sunday.
The SBU said it had transported the drones over the border, hiding the uncrewed vehicles in “mobile wooden houses” mounted on trucks with remotely-operated removable roofs.
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said the long-range strikes were a year-and-a-half in the making.
Russia said “some of the participants” in the attacks had been detained by Russian authorities. Zelensky said those who had helped execute the operation were “withdrawn from Russian territory before the operation” and were “now safe.”
A main planning site for the “Spiderweb” operation on Russian soil was “located directly next to FSB headquarters in one of their regions,” Zelensky added. Russia’s FSB is Moscow’s main security agency, the successor to the feared Soviet-era KGB.
“Managing to execute this operation from the Murmansk Peninsula to Far East as one perfectly timed attack in the face of the FSB is a stunning proof of their skill,” said Frederik Mertens, a strategic analyst at Dutch research organization TNO.
While Ukraine has successfully targeted Russia’s long-range aviation fleet in the past, there has been “nothing on this scale,” Mertens told Newsweek.
The strikes were the first time Ukraine had carried out a drone attack on the Irkutsk region, around 2,800 miles from the Ukrainian border. Kyiv has previously targeted the Ryazan airbase of Dyagilevo and the Olenya airfield in Murmansk.
The Ukrainian strikes could have a “real impact” on Moscow’s ability to launch long-range precision strikes at Ukraine, depending on how many of its Tu-95 aircraft Russia has left, Mertens said.
Russia likely has fewer than 90 Tu-22, Tu-95 and Tu-160 aircraft at its disposal, The Economist reported on Sunday.
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a statement on Sunday: “Planning, organisation, every detail was perfectly executed. It can be said with confidence that this was an absolutely unique operation.”
The second round of peace negotiations are underway in Turkey, but it remains to be seen whether renewed, U.S.-brokered efforts will usher in progress towards a deal.
On 24th September 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced significant updates to Russia’s nuclear doctrine in response to what Moscow perceives as increased Western interference in Ukraine. A few months later, on Tuesday 19th November, Putin formalised the changes as official policy of the Russian Federation.
The revised doctrine, titled “Fundamentals of State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence”, N°991, expands Russia’s conditions for nuclear weapon use. Moscow is now prepared to use nuclear weapons in retaliation to nuclear attacks, as well as conventional attacks that threaten the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Russia or Belarus. The policy shift from the 2020 doctrine is evident, as the previous stance also allowed for a nuclear response to conventional weapon attacks, but only under circumstances where “the very existence of the state is threatened.”
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