Warfare has changed. The tactics are different. The technology is different. The ability to wage asymmetric warfare in your enemy’s camp has never been greater.  Enemies can hit multiple strategic targets deep in our homeland – including parts of our nuclear deterrence capabilities. I sure as heck hope our military planners are paying attention.

Ukraine says it completed its biggest long-range attack of the war with Russia on Sunday, after using smuggled drones to launch a series of major strikes on 40 Russian warplanes at four military bases.

 

President Volodymyr Zelensky said 117 drones were used in the so-called “Spider’s Web” operation by the SBU security service, striking “34% of [Russia’s] strategic cruise missile carriers”.

 

SBU sources earlier told BBC News it took a year-and-a-half to organise the strikes, which involved drones hidden in wooden mobile cabins, with remotely operated roofs on trucks, brought near the airbases and then fired “at the right time”.

 

[…]

 

Sources in the SBU earlier on Sunday told the BBC in a statement that four Russian airbases – two of which are thousands of miles from Ukraine – were hit:

• Belaya in Irkutsk oblast (region), Siberia
• Olenya in Murmansk oblast, Russia’s extreme north-west
• Dyagilevo in central Ryazan oblast
• Ivanovo in central Ivanovo oblast

 

The SBU sources said that among the hit Russian aircraft were strategic nuclear capable bombers called Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, as well as A-50 early warning warplanes.