#operation spiderweb

BBC piece on the overall operation.

Article on the brilliant and beautiful Vladivostok attack.

I thought about adding something like the Ukrainian national anthem...and then I realized the perfect song for this symphony of strikes already existed...

Idk who this Artyom guy is or if its his real name, but he deserves all the kudos in the world.

Russian investigators have questioned the drivers of the trucks from which drones were launched during a large-scale attack on military targets. From Russian media:

“One of the drivers, a 55-year-old man from Chelyabinsk named Alexander Z., said that the truck belonged to a 37-year-old man named Artyom. Some time ago, Artyom had received an order from a businessman based in the Murmansk region, who requested the transportation of four prefabricated houses from Chelyabinsk to the Kola District of Murmansk.

The two men agreed on a price, and Alexander loaded the "cargo" into the truck and set off. According to him, while en route, an unknown individual contacted him by phone and gave specific instructions on when and where to stop. The final stop was near a Rosneft gas station close to a military airfield in Murmansk. It was from that location that the drones were launched.

A similar story was shared by another truck driver, 61-year-old Andrey M., who said he also worked for Artyom. His task was to transport prefabricated houses to the Irkutsk region. However, when he parked near the "Teremok" café in Usolye-Sibirskoye, drones began to take off from the back of his truck.

Other truck drivers involved in incidents in the Ryazan and Ivanovo regions reported similar experiences. One of them, a 46-year-old man named Sergey, told investigators he was transporting a modular house from Chelyabinsk. While driving through Ryazan, the roof of his Scania truck suddenly tore off, and drones flew out.

The fourth truck, involved in the drone launch targeting the Ivanovo airfield the day before, was also loaded in Chelyabinsk. According to the driver, this truck also belonged to Artyom.

A criminal case has been opened under terrorism-related charges. Investigators are currently searching for Artyom, who is reportedly a native of Ukraine.”

Thank you, Artyom!❤️

When I first glanced at the headline about Ukraine's drone attack on Russian military planes I thought it was similar to times in the past when they took out two or three planes at Russian bases. But when I saw all the details, it was more like: "HOLY FUCK!"

Ukraine not only took out a bunch of Russia's most expensive military aircraft, but they did it in an ingenious and painstaking way. Planning for this apparently began in late 2023.

It's hard to exaggerate the sheer audacity - or ingenuity - that went into Ukraine's countrywide assault on Russia's air force. We cannot possibly verify Ukrainian claims that the attacks resulted in $7bn (£5.2bn) of damage, but it's clear that "Operation Spider's Web" was, at the very least, a spectacular propaganda coup. Ukrainians are already comparing it with other notable military successes since Russia's full-scale invasion, including the sinking of the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, and the bombing of the Kerch Bridge, both in 2022, as well as a missile attack on Sevastopol harbour the following year. Judging by details leaked to the media by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the latest operation is the most elaborate achievement so far. In an operation said to have taken 18 months to prepare, scores of small drones were smuggled into Russia, stored in special compartments aboard freight trucks, driven to at least four separate locations, thousands of miles apart, and launched remotely towards nearby airbases.

The drones were launched inside Russia from modified cargo containers on trucks. The destroyed aircraft included those used to launch missiles against Ukrainian civilians.

"These strategic bombers are capable of launching long-range strikes against us," he said. "There are only 120 of them and we struck 40. That's an incredible figure." It is hard to assess the damage, but Ukrainian military blogger Oleksandr Kovalenko says that even if the bombers, and command and control aircraft were not destroyed, the impact is enormous. "The extent of the damage is such that the Russian military-industrial complex, in its current state, is unlikely to be able to restore them in the near future," he wrote on his Telegram channel. The strategic missile-carrying bombers in question, the Tu-95, Tu-22, and Tu-160 are, he said, no longer in production. Repairing them will be difficult, replacing them impossible.

Russia likes to think it is invincible. These successful attacks, as far north as the Kola Peninsula and as far east as south central Siberia, are a psychological blow as well as a military one to Russians.

This is the best overall description of Operation Spiderweb. The narrator is author and retired US Navy Seal Chuck Pfarrer.

Back to the BBC article...

Ukrainian defence journalist Illia Ponomarenko, posting on X, puts it another way, with a pointed reference to President Volodymyr Zelensky's infamous Oval office encounter with Donald Trump. "This is what happens when a proud nation under attack doesn't listen to all those: 'Ukraine has only six months left'. 'You have no cards'. 'Just surrender for peace, Russia cannot lose'." Even more pithy was a tweet from the quarterly Business Ukraine journal, which proudly proclaimed "It turns out Ukraine does have some cards after all. Today Zelensky played the King of Drones."

That comment from Business Ukraine sparked this meme...

Ukraine has plenty of cards, and it ain't bluffing.

Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo:

Ukraine just pulled off a stunning military operation, its success matched only by its sheer audacity. In one move, Zelenskyy reset the board not only with Russia but the entire Western alliance. He and his team instantly redefined modern warfare and shifted global thinking overnight on the question of nuclear deterrence. For 18 months, Zelenskyy kept the mission secret, even from—or perhaps particularly from—the Trump White House. He personally oversaw what became known as Operation Spiderweb, a secret plan to strike a devastating blow to Russia’s air power, particularly its long range bombers that have been raining hell down upon Kyiv in the form of cruise missiles. The Ukrainians decided back then they wouldn’t attack using conventional means. Knowing they were outmatched in firepower, the Ukrainians decided to fight asymmetrically, and to use the arrogance and false confidence of the Russians against them. The result was a devastating blow to Russia’s air force. Some are calling it Russia’s “Pearl Harbor” moment. This is the story of how it went down.

Russian defense plans never accounted for this

There’s an old saying that it’s better to shoot the archer than to try and shoot down the arrows. But for years, the best Ukraine could do against a constant stream of missiles, many fired from Russian long range bombers too far away to target, was to try and shoot down the “arrows” mid-flight. Many still got through Kyiv’s defenses, with devastating and often deadly results. Russia knew that Ukraine would love to strike its bombers at their most vulnerable, meaning parked on the ground. But the airbases that hosted them were hundreds and even thousands of miles away from Ukraine, too far even for longer range missiles to reach. The sites included

The Olenya Air Base in the Murmansk Region

The Belaya Air Base in the Irkutsk Region

The Ivanovo Severny Air Base in the Ivanovo Region

The Dyagilevo Air Base in the Ryazan Region

Ukraine's strategic dick move is beautiful.