The war between Ukraine and Russia is officially now in its fourth year. Now, in what is being called a Pearl Harbour by Russian media, the Ukrainian special forces have managed to land a devastating blow on the Russian Federation by launching a massive drone attack that ended up destroying and damaging air bases and 41 Russian strategic bombers on the ground.
Reports are also calling it one of the biggest single-day attacks by either side since the war began. This also came close on the heels of the planned peace talks that were set to start in Istanbul on Monday, 2nd June 2025. Here, we take a look at some of the most impactful images from what happened after the attack.
What Happened In The Attack?
The attack, executed on 1 June 2025, targeted five Russian air bases located in Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur, utilising 117 drones concealed within modified shipping containers.
According to reports, these drones were launched remotely, catching Russian defences by surprise and resulting in significant damage to over 40 aircraft, including strategic bombers such as the Tu-95 and Tu-22, A-50 radar planes, and A-50 airborne radars. Reports indicate that this accounts for at least 30% of the Russian Federation’s total bomber fleet. The estimated damage amounted to approximately $7 billion, affecting about 34% of Russia’s long-range aviation capabilities.
Once these 100-plus drones were over the Russian airbases, they released pre-programmed vertical lift drones set to their targets.
The sheer scale of this attack has to be marvelled at since two of the air bases, Olenya (Murmansk) and Irkutsk (Siberia), are said to be over 6000 km apart and across three time zones. Experts also claim this to be among the largest special forces strikes in recent times ever carried out.
Read More: What Will The Russia-Ukraine War End Be Like: Denizens Speculate
The Russian Defence Ministry, in its official statement, said that air defences were able to repel most of the attacks, except for Murmansk and Irkutsk, stating, “In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, praised the attack, writing on the Telegram app that it was “An absolutely brilliant outcome. And an outcome produced by Ukraine independently,” and how “This is our longest-range operation.” He also mentioned that the “Spider’s Web” operation took almost a year and a half to prepare and resulted in significant losses to Moscow.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) also confirmed that the economic losses this attack had on the Russian military were around £7 billion. In a social media post, the SBU wrote, “£7 billion: This is the estimated cost of the enemy’s strategic aviation, which was hit today as a result of the SBU’s special operation.”
This attack is also crucial given the location of these airbases, all several thousand kilometres behind the front lines. The Belaya airbase in Irkutsk is around 4,300 km away from Ukraine, while south of Murmansk’s Olenya airbase is located approximately 1,800 km away from the Ukrainian border.
According to Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari’s on-ground report, “According to witnesses on the ground and local officials, these drones were launched from sites near the airbases. That means this was an elaborate operation that involved a number of people inside Russia.”
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera
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This post is tagged under: ukraine drone attack on russia, ukraine, ukraine russia, russia pearl harbour, ukraine drone attack, ukraine russia war, ukraine attack russia, ukraine news, ukraine attack, ukraine drone attack russian bombers
Disclaimer: We do not own the rights to or copyright any of the images used; these have been taken from Google. In case of credits or removal, the owner may kindly email us.
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