obiwanbenobi
Active Member
be well and return safe.
Russia and Ukraine Current Events
- Thread starter Mick West
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be well and return safe.
elvenwear
Senior Member.
Sorry for your troubles.
Mendel
Senior Member.
Article: Ukraine conducted a large-scale and simultaneous series of drone strikes against multiple air bases in Russia on June 1. Sources within Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) told various media outlets that the SBU conducted widespread first-person view (FPV) drone strikes that struck four air bases in Russia.[1] The SBU sources reported that Ukrainian forces struck Belaya Air Base in Irkutsk Oblast; Olenya Air Base in Murmansk Oblast; Dyagilevo Air Base in Ryazan Oblast; and Ivanovo Air Base in Ivanovo Oblast. The SBU sources confirmed that Ukrainian drone operators struck 41 Russian strategic bombers, including A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers – fixed-wing aircraft that Russia uses to detect Ukrainian air defenses and launch cruise missiles against Ukraine. [...]
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted FPV drone strikes against air bases in Irkutsk, and Murmansk oblasts, causing several aircraft to catch fire.[5] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled all strikes against air bases in Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur oblasts and that Russian authorities reportedly linked Russian opposition outlet Mediazona reported that Ukrainian authorities planned to conduct FPV drone strikes against an air base in Amur Oblast, and Russian sources claimed that a truck carrying FPV drones near the Ukrainika Air Base in Amur Oblast caught fire before Ukrainian forces could launch the drones.[6]
It's possible that all of the above is true.
I'm not really sure what the practical effect is going to be, because the bottleneck for Russia to attack Ukrainian infrastructure is in the munitions; the cruise missiles can be launched from other platforms as well, and the big attack waves have large numbers of drones. Strategically, though, it's a severe loss for Russia, and it certainly puts some pressure on Russia to end this conflict through negotiations.
I'm also wondering whether foreign volunteers helped Ukraine infiltrate Russia.
Gary C
Senior Member.
Looking across multiple outlets, most are just repeating official press releases from Ukraine and Russia. Only a handful of aircraft have been confirmed as damaged by a second source per the several military sites I follow. Damage to the 40 or 41 aircraft claimed in most reporting has not been confirmed.
The operational effect is that the ranges of this attack complicates Russia's air defense problems. The high tempo of current operations puts some level of strain on resources so Russia concentrates it's best air defense systems around Ukraine and near high value Russian assets in the South West and West of the country. The larger the area that Kyiv can put at risk the more resources Moscow must devote to air and missile defense. In addition to signaling Russia that it has increased its capabilities, Ukraine can also watch to see if any changes Moscow makes in response to these attacks creates a new weakness it can exploit.
FWIW I think the particular bases struck will have only marginal affect on the air war. The targets were likely chosen because air fields are large and easy to locate, aircraft are quite soft targets, and any fuel or ammunition fires simplify the process of assessing damage and generating PR.
As to your question about foreign volunteers, their key contribution would be gathering data on the actual tempo of operations at each base as they simply report on the numbers and types and times of all departing and arriving aircraft. That's much more granular than the snap-shot data collected by satellites.
my two cents
Mendel
Senior Member.
Yes, that's why I limited my quote to what each side released. It's just hard to verify independently, and either side could be exaggerating.
I thought that's maybe why Russia claims it defended Ivanovo and Dyagilevo: these bases are close to Ukraine, and if they can get hit, it'd look bad for Russia.
I don't know how many air defense systems they have, they're defending Moscow and maybe they're defending some other strategic airfields more now, but how much is that going to impact the Ukraine front?
Of course they don't know what kind of installation Ukraine could go for next, and Russia's a huge country.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
The satellites have had a pass, at least over Belaya:
I don't remember any of the videos I've seen being either explicitly from Belaya, or even with a similar layout, so there's little corroboration yet.
The videos from the other sites were pretty unambiguous, but I've not seen satellite imagery of them yet.
From what I've seen so far, I suspect the "40" might be just a total of everything, perhaps including even ground-based support vehicles, rather than a tally of the strategic bombers, but the error bars will narrow as more data comes in.
EDIT: oops, lacking sauce:
Source: https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1929529413190001092#m
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John J.
Senior Member.
I guess there's also the possibility of assistance from pro-Ukraine (or anti-Putin) Russians.
There must be many families/ people in Russia with both Russian and Ukrainian heritage who might be "under the radar" (no pun intended) of the authorities and even their neighbours.
If (supposition) the drone operators were largely Ukrainian, and were located within a few miles/ km of the drone launch sites, it must be unlikely that they intend to escape cross-country, special forces style, to a safe neighbouring state. More likely they are dependent on safe houses, perhaps transport, supplied (or at least reconnoitred) by dependable others.
There are many examples of nations/ armed groups recruiting, or being offered the services of, "ordinary" people in enemy (or target) states. The term "cleanskins" has been used in the UK for such operatives; people without known anti-state sympathies in their home country (e.g. not known for involvement in protests or strikes, minority causes, opposition political groups) as well as not having significant criminal records or prior contact with "security services", while conforming to the norms- and outward appearance- representative of the majority cultural group: no unusual clothing, no "foreign"/ minority accent and no obvious interest in the culture / politics of the nation or group they are acting for.
Edited to add: I know this isn't really the place for such comments, but I wish those involved well, and hope they stay safe.
Mendel
Senior Member.
yeah, we don't know that.
all the trucks really needed was a good mobile internet connection.
But maybe that's a misdirection.
I believe the Ukranians when they say all involved were out of Russia before the attack was launched.
Looking at a bunch of different videos looks like some, if not all, of the drones were fully automated. No human control involved.
They used image matching. A drone flys along the area where the planes are parked, with a camera looking straight down. It knows what the target planes look like because that information is easily found. When it detects a plane on the ground whose shape matches one of the target types, hovers over the target at a specific point, descends and explodes on contact. The drones with front looking cameras were for damage assessment and public release, video sent back via cell phone network.
Mendel
Senior Member.
That's what I meant, mobile internet. Ukraine implies they used it to control the FPV drones remotely.
You assume they lied about using FPV drones for the attack, and instead packed enough computing power on these drones to do real-time image recognition. Do you have a precedent that this is possible on drones small enough to be smuggled into Russia?
FatPhil
Senior Member.
Pah! I was doing it on 40MHz TI DSPs in the 90s. Not using modern "AI" techniques, but you can cut corners when you have a limited set of targets to recognise.
If you really want to do it the AI way, and you can't even stretch to a proper full-blown CPU:
https://community.arm.com/arm-commu...e-recognition-on-arm-powered-microcontrollersExternal Quote:
John J.
Senior Member.
Ah, I'd missed that.
Reading @MapperGuy's (post #1249) and @FatPhil's (post #1251) posts, maybe truly autonomous real-time image recognition systems were used, but I would be surprised: I'm not sure any nations have deployed a lethal, wholly autonomous target acquisition system reliant on visual recognition yet (though Ukraine has good engineers and coders, and obviously has incentives to use technologies that might not be considered mature elsewhere- if so in this case, it has payed off).
The visual processing required in uncertain lighting conditions, and with targets parked at uncertain angles, would be formidable.
I think I recall (from somewhere else on this forum?) that the Russians have painted silhouettes of aircraft on the ground of some airfields.
Can't give a checkable lead, so this is essentially anecdotal, but a BBC 1 (TV) news broadcast yesterday (01 June 2025) quoted Ukrainian sources as saying each drone had its own pilot, IIRC.
John J.
Senior Member.
Ah, here you go:
"How Ukraine carried out daring 'Spider Web' attack on Russian bombers", BBC News, Europe: Laura Gozzi & BBC Verify, c. 19:00 UTC, 02 July 2025 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq69qnvj6nloExternal Quote:
As @Mendel has stated, we can't rule out misdirection.
From the same BBC article, this might be of interest:
External Quote:
External Quote:
I'm not sure I follow Steve Wright's theory that manually piloting the drones would overcome jamming, unless he's thinking specifically of GPS jamming. I think we can rule out fibreoptic command lines.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
I guess I'm not getting why Ukraine would show their cards like this. Destroying a few bombers may not be a lot in the grand scheme of the war strategically, but by this point I would think the war is as much perception as it is strategy. With the US being like warm at best to helping Ukraine, showing that they can attack multiple targets deep inside Russia is a serious statement to Russia and other potential allies.
At first glance it would seem a fair amount of local cooperation would have been needed this deep in Russian territory. Instead, there is this elaborate ruse with unknowing guys delivering smuggled cabins to various sights near air bases. Assuming this operation was the success it's claimed to be, why explain how it was done? Yes, maybe the Russians would figure it out and it would be hard to pull off again, but why let them in on it? Just think about trying to explain this, even if true, to higher ups. "It appears smuggled cabins were in fact secret drone launch vehicles that instead of being brought to typical cabin spots, were parked near secure air bases. No, really." Just let the Russians stew in a mire of uncertainty.
Not to make light of the situation, but I hear old Inspector Clouseau saying; "Ah yes, the ol' drone-launching-cabin ploy designed to distract us."
Revealing the containers that they drones were smuggled in via containers is no large operational loss. The information was known to Russia unambiguously almost immediately after the roofs popped off and civilians began filming drones flying out.
The advantage of getting to set the narrative as a story of Ukrainian ingenuity and a minor victory is probably deemed to be worth the effort in this case. There is also plenty they left out, no one has a clear idea of how the drones were controlled although there are a bunch of guesses, we have a few confirmed losses in the list of aircraft destroyed, but I don't think it's a comprehensive list. There is also nothing revealed about how the containers or drones were constructed or imported into Russia, Kremlin authorities will have to figure out any potentially useful information to stop another attack from happening with a differently disguised container for themselves.
The observation drones may have been controlled by humans, but the explosive ones that did all the damage seem to be automated drones using image matching.
I would point out that many statements are being issued in Ukranian and then being translated, precise terminology can get lost in the translation. FPV has also pretty much become a generic term for small drones at this point.
Operation Spider Web: Ukraine's Innovative Drone Strikes on Russian Airbases Explained | UNITED24 Media
I have been following the drone wars closely since the beginning of the war.
Technology is advancing very rapidly, on both sides.
Mendel
Senior Member.
Their source is a Clash Report tweet:External Quote:
Source: https://x.com/clashreport/status/1929179925329641862
There's a picture released I've seen variously:
Note it shows 5 airfields.Does that include the Ukrainka airbase in Amur? [Edit: It does.]
The aircraft photos shown might show the museum? But it wouldn't prove AI, they could simply have trained human operators there.
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Mendel
Senior Member.
The SSU press photo is described on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spider's_Web :
I'm guessing the FPV drones were remote controlled, with onboard AI as backup in case the connection was jammed.
That confirms Ukrainka/Amur was a target.External Quote:
I'm guessing the FPV drones were remote controlled, with onboard AI as backup in case the connection was jammed.
Mendel
Senior Member.
Article: Open-source analysts on X assessed that available imagery published on June 2 indicates that Ukrainian special services likely destroyed or damaged four Tu-95 bombers and three Tu-22M3 bombers at Belaya Air Base in Irkutsk Oblast and one A-50 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft at Ivanovo Air Base in Ivanovo Oblast.[33] Open-source analysts on X claimed that available video footage published on June 1 and 2 indicates that Ukrainian special services destroyed or damaged five Tu-95 bombers and one An-22 transport aircraft at Olenya Air Base in Murmansk Oblast.[34] Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation Head Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko, who often reports on successful Ukrainian drone operations in Russia, reported on June 2 that Ukrainian forces destroyed at least 13 Russian fixed-wing aircraft and damaged over 40 aircraft in total during the strike.[35]
[33]
Source: https://x.com/CSBiggers/status/1929328562017886327
;
Source: https://x.com/CSBiggers/status/1929377751686914073
;
Source: https://x.com/Schizointel/status/1929381505710616769
;
Source: https://x.com/Hurin92/status/1929526403113836753
;
Source: https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1929391063128514752
;
Source: https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1929397586911236506
;
Source: https://x.com/3_bm15/status/1929130649962639681
[34]
Source: https://x.com/Schizointel/status/1929391624884539427
;
Source: https://x.com/moklasen/status/1929133316642374068
;
Source: https://x.com/vcdgf555/status/1929416407202087204
; https://x.com/Dmojavensis/status/1929166972228338123
[35] https://t.me/akovalenko1989/9344
Much of the reported damage could be minor.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
They now have to be more vigilant - every truck is now a threat. Did the technological components come in via some sanctions-avoiding side door (.kz?), in which case do they now have to waste a whole lot more time vetting everything that comes across that border?
This might be a "shoe bomber" vs. TSA and the American and then global public moment - and that was a "failure". Disruption has real cost to the victim, so real benefit to the perpetrator.
Could the drones have been controlled manually and remotely over the internet via Starlink Direct to Cell connections?
Mendel
Senior Member.
I'd think it's highly unlikely, for a number of reasons, both political and practical.
Ukraine have managed an underwater strike of the Kerch Straight Bridge
https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...crimea-with-underwater-explosives-2025-06-03/
The timing of these attacks immediately before and after negotiations with Russia in Turkey feels very important. Donald Trump said Ukraine "didn't have the cards" but these attacks both seem planned to demonstrate to Russia, and the US, that they have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to maximise punishment for Russia.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...crimea-with-underwater-explosives-2025-06-03/
This is another high-profile target that should have been well defended by Russia. 1100 Kg of explosive underwater also suggests to me a pretty sophisticated and well-planned operation.External Quote:
The timing of these attacks immediately before and after negotiations with Russia in Turkey feels very important. Donald Trump said Ukraine "didn't have the cards" but these attacks both seem planned to demonstrate to Russia, and the US, that they have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to maximise punishment for Russia.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
I see no reason why they couldn't have just used russian gsm networks as their physical layer. Starlink + last hop routing could leave traces of the receivers/bridges, even though the trucks self-destructed. With cellular, there's nothing that they can shut down, embargo, or use to put political pressure on others. Of course, it leaves a bigger data trail in russian hands, but as they're already boasting about many of the details of the plan, there's probably very little left to discover. Maybe they'll trace all the sims to a discount outlet in chelyabinsk, or whereever, but so what? "They used our GSM network" isn't that worse a "discovery" than "they used our roads". What are they going to do? Apparently there's already chaos on trucking routes in Irkutsk - do that for phone networks too, please ;-). Asymmetric warfare is asymmetric.
Hmmm. I had initially thought that each drone might have its own Starlink DTC connection, but maybe all they need is one Dishy McDishface in the truck and a few WiFi routers to the drones, or even a 5km spool of fibre to each drone? Many possibilities.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
DTC is just 4G with an extra hop via a satellite and a groundstation. More points of failure, and more latency. OK, AI can fix the latency issue by basically being an aim-bot (in FPS gaming terms, and I suspect that's how it might have been used), but still, adding points of failure violates the KISS principle.
Gary C
Senior Member.
re: GPS jamming
US/NATO GPS is only one of the available satellite navigation systems available to choose from.
The most important is GLONASS the Soviet/Russian system that Moscow uses to manage its own forces. For that reason if needs to be left operational over the bulk of Russian Federation territory in order to be of use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS.
Europe has an independent system of its own, Galileo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
China operates the BeiDou system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeiDou
There are other non-GPS methods of navigating as well that would enable autonomous attacks and be largely proof against damage. TERCOM is the one that comes most readily to mind.
Given the existential stakes for Ukraine, we cannot discount the possibility that they've made a major investment in one for more of the methods developed during the Cold War but since displace by cheap and ubiquitous GPS.
I also don't think AI level autonomy is necessary. There are many device resident apps like Merlin Bird ID https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
that don't require an internet connection to function. If the navigation subsystem successfully gets the drone or other weapons over the correct target area, the target recognition software does not have to be quite so robust. If you are over an "air base" and damage "an aircraft" it will probably be to your net benefit even it you did not hit the single most valuable plane on the entire facility.
US/NATO GPS is only one of the available satellite navigation systems available to choose from.
The most important is GLONASS the Soviet/Russian system that Moscow uses to manage its own forces. For that reason if needs to be left operational over the bulk of Russian Federation territory in order to be of use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS.
Europe has an independent system of its own, Galileo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
China operates the BeiDou system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeiDou
There are other non-GPS methods of navigating as well that would enable autonomous attacks and be largely proof against damage. TERCOM is the one that comes most readily to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERCOMExternal Quote:
Given the existential stakes for Ukraine, we cannot discount the possibility that they've made a major investment in one for more of the methods developed during the Cold War but since displace by cheap and ubiquitous GPS.
I also don't think AI level autonomy is necessary. There are many device resident apps like Merlin Bird ID https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
that don't require an internet connection to function. If the navigation subsystem successfully gets the drone or other weapons over the correct target area, the target recognition software does not have to be quite so robust. If you are over an "air base" and damage "an aircraft" it will probably be to your net benefit even it you did not hit the single most valuable plane on the entire facility.
Mendel
Senior Member.
But they do jam it when they think they're under attack. It's the reason why AHY8243 couldn't land in Grozny last December, got shot at, and crashed in Aktau.
John J.
Senior Member.
Fibreoptic drone control lines have become "a thing" in Ukraine, used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces.
If approx. 20 such drones were launched from a relatively small area in a brief period of time, would there be a risk of entanglement?
Maybe, TERCOM is used for missile guidance and Ukraine has received TERCOM-equipped Storm Shadow/ SCALP-EG missiles (blue text= Wikipedia links).
But the types of missile that use it, e.g. Tomahawk or Storm Shadow, carry large unitary warheads in the 100's of kilograms
(or in the case of Tomahawk, a submunitions dispenser or a nuclear device) and so have a large area effect.
Storm Shadow is reported to use an IR image-matching system for terminal guidance, and I'd guess newer-build Tomahawks also have non-TERCOM terminal guidance.
TERCOM, terrain contour matching, can establish location but it can't find a moving target. It must be unlikely that the Russian aircraft are routinely parked on exactly the same spots, with the same alignment each time, and that TERCOM is sufficiently precise to land a small explosive charge on them.
I don't know, just my tuppence's worth
Mendel
Senior Member.
Parked aircraft are not moving targets. It would depend on how recent the satellite intelligence is that Ukraine has access to.
But then there's really no need for Tercom: if the starting position was known accurately, then inertial navigation over that fairly short distance would be accurate enough, even with GPS etc. jammed.
John J.
Senior Member.
Agreed, of course, but they're not immovable features like a bunker is. A TERCOM terminally-guided attack with small warheads would have to rely on aircraft being parked in exactly the same positions as when they were observed (if they were observed) before the TERCOM approach was programmed, which, hypothetically, in this case might be some days (weeks?) before the attack.
deirdre
Senior Member.
arent we social media?
Mauro
Senior Member.
An interesting article on how Ukrainian drones may have been controlled
Edit: The War Zone has published an article with the analysis of satellite pictures which have become available. The conclusions:
External Quote:
https://www.404media.co/ukraines-massive-drone-attack-was-powered-by-open-source-software/External Quote:
Edit: The War Zone has published an article with the analysis of satellite pictures which have become available. The conclusions:
https://www.twz.com/air/firm-evidence-of-russian-aircraft-losses-after-ukrainian-drone-strikesExternal Quote:
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Ann K
Senior Member.
As seen here and in @Mauro's video from Ukraine (post 1283, above) those are actually tires stacked on top of planes as a form of "protection" that definitely didn't work. Video and commentary on the vulnerability of nuclear weapons - not limited to Russian weapons:
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow...-nuclear-weapons-rcna210654?icid=nextpost_botExternal Quote:
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Mendel
Senior Member.
strategic bombers are only one piece of the puzzle. ICBMs and nuclear submarines are not vulnerable to drone attacks.
John J.
Senior Member.
Yes.
Since at least the early 1960s it was recognised that airbases are vulnerable to other states with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them; from the early 80's, cruise missiles with 'conventional' payloads added to the threat (and might be more readily used, like the Ukrainian drones, because they don't cross the nuclear threshold).
ICBMs, dispersed in armoured silos, are much (physically) tougher targets, and SSBNs (nuclear-powered submarines with ballistic missiles) are very difficult for an opponent to find. China and Russia also deploy ICBMs on large road-going vehicles.
Rachel Maddow's article doesn't really tell us anything new. Even if (nightmare territory here) the US, Russia or China were subjected to an unexpected large-scale nuclear attack, each would more than likely have enough surviving capability to inflict extreme devastation on any aggressor, and their potential enemies understand this.
Britain and France each rely on having one undetected SSBN on patrol at any one time, capable of a retaliatory response should their homelands be attacked.
A few nations- in practical terms, only the US, Russia, and with a lesser capability (at present) China- maintain strategic bombers, but those nations (as Mendel implies) don't rely on those aircraft for their counter-strike capability.
They give the operator some flexibility- crewed bombers can be recalled or directed to a different target, missiles can't be.
More prosaically, strategic bombers give the user the ability to deploy large 'conventional' payloads over long distances, and they have often been used in that role- by the US in Vietnam and Iraq, Russia in Syria and Ukraine.
Rachel Maddow refers to the US's "impenetrable" nuclear deterrent, but that deterrent capability relies on the deployment of a number of different systems with some likely to survive any conceivable attack, not the inviolability of every individual system or platform (e.g. each plane). US B-52s were lost over Vietnam, but the US nuclear deterrent wasn't appreciably compromised; the loss of Russian bombers to Ukraine's drones would appear to be proportionately more significant, but it doesn't significantly reduce Russia's nuclear capability.
Many might hope the Ukrainian raids will reduce the pace and/or scale of attacks from Russia's strategic bombers, though.
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Mauro
Senior Member.
https://bsky.app/profile/michaelkofman.bsky.social
(LRA = Long Range Aviation, BDA = Battle Damage Assessment)
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