Images from Ukraine’s drone strikes on six Russian airbases, June 1, 2025
Ukraine War, Day 1,194: Kyiv’s Drones Decimate Russia’s Strategic Bombers
I joined India’s WION on Monday to analyze how Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian airbases, damaging 41 strategic bombers and surveillance aircraft, have added to political pressure on Vladimir Putin over his 39-month, full-scale invasion.
Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb on Russia: Russia's military airbases and Russian bombers were severely destroyed by Ukraine using FPV drones@JyotsnaKumar13 brings you all the latest updates@ScottLucas_EA, Professor of International Politics, gives his insight pic.twitter.com/3rE9lc61Ub
— WION (@WIONews) June 2, 2025
I detail the effect of Operation Pavutýna (Spiderweb), assess the military significance, and consider possible Russian responses.
What it says immediately is that Ukraine can strike deep inside Russia.
This type of devastating strike shows the Russian invasion has consequences on multiple fronts. Ukraine is not just defending, but can counter-attack.
This is perhaps the most significant single operation since Ukraine’s sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, in spring 2022.
I set this in the context of the second set of Istanbul talks, as Vladimir Putin continues to reject a ceasefire and presses for his maximal demands to seize Ukrainian territory and keep the rest of the country weak and defenseless.
What Ukraine showed yesterday is “you don’t get it your way. You can’t force us to surrender in these talks.”
“What it says immediately is that Ukraine can strike deep inside Russia.”
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By itself, or with NATO’s help/technical assistance? What is the calculation in Moscow on attacks on strategic intercontinental nuclear bomber aircraft and the earlier attacks on Russian early-warning nuclear launch detection radars? This latest attack was supposedly planned about 18 months ago, in the Biden era. Trump claims to have had no prior knowledge of it. Can/do the Russians believe him?
Was Trump kept in the dark about it? What did Trump know and what did he not know?
Attacking strategic Russian nuclear assets, in order to establish leverage for negotiations in Istanbul, seems extremely dangerous and insane – a threat to global peace and stability. Did NATO plan and provide technical assistance to Ukraine to execute this attack plan? If it did, is Professor Lucas right to think that China and India would condemn Putin for using a nuclear weapon in response to these extreme provocations? I don’t know the answer to that.