It is difficult to exaggerate the pure boldness or ingenuity that led to Ukraine’s nationwide attack on the Russian air force.
While we cannot confirm Ukraine’s claim that the attack caused $7 billion (£5.2 billion) of damage, it is clear that “Operation Spider’s Web” is at least an epic propaganda coup.
The Ukrainians have already compared it to other notable military successes since the full-scale Russian invasion, including the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Mosqueba, and the Kerch Bridge bombing in 2022.
Judging from the details leaked to the media by Ukraine’s military intelligence, the latest business is the most elaborate achievement ever.
In the operation, which is said to have taken 18 months to prepare, numerous small drones were smuggled into Russia, stored in special compartments in cargo trucks, driven to at least four separate locations, thousands of miles away, and launched remotely towards nearby airbase.
View: The footage shows the homing of the attacking drone on the target while sitting in the tarmac.
“We’ve never done anything like this in the world,” defense analyst Serhii Kuzan told Ukrainian television.
“These strategic bombers can launch long-range strikes against us,” he said. “There were only 120 people, so we hit 40 people. That’s an incredible person.”
It’s difficult to assess the damage, but Ukrainian military blogger Oleksandr Kovalenko says the impact will be huge even if the bombers and command aircraft are not destroyed.
“The extent of the damage is unlikely that Russian military industrial facilities will be able to recover them in the near future, in their current state,” he wrote in the telegram channel.
The Tu-95, Tu-22 and Tu-160 bombers carrying the strategic missiles in question are no longer in production, he said. They will be difficult and impossible to repair.
The loss of the supersonic TU-160 is particularly striking, he said.
“Today, the Russian Aerospace Force has lost not only two of the rarest aircraft, but also two truly unicorns in the herd,” he wrote.
Beyond the physical damage that may or may not be as big as the analysts here appreciate, Spider’s web tactics send another important message to not only Russia but also Ukraine’s Western allies.
My colleague Svyatoslav Khomenko has written for the BBC Ukrainian Services website and recalls a recent encounter with Kyiv government officials.
The officials were frustrated.
“The biggest problem is that Americans are sure they have already lost the war, and they are confident that everything else will continue from that assumption.
Posting on X, Ukrainian defense journalist Illia Ponomarenko puts another way of saying that she encountered President Volodymyr Zelensky’s infamous oval office with Donald Trump.
“This happens when a proud country under attack doesn’t hear that “Ukraine has only six months left.” “You don’t have a card.”
Even more pure, he was proud of a tweet from the Quarterly Business Ukraine Journal, saying, “In the end, we found out that Ukraine has several cards. Today, Zelensky played the king of drones.”
This is the message that Ukrainian representatives will carry as they arrive in Istanbul for new ceasefire negotiations with Kremlin representatives. Ukraine is still in battle.
Americans “start to act as if their role was to negotiate the softest possible terms of surrender,” a government official told Svyatoslav Khomenko.
“And when we don’t appreciate them, they get offended, but of course we don’t, because we don’t think we’ve been defeated.”
Despite Russia’s slow, relentless advance through the battlefield of the Donbas, Ukraine has told Russia and the Trump administration not to dismiss Kiev’s prospects so easily.
