Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Ukraine Drones Hit Russian Strategic Bombers
The Ukrainian-Russian War is the first major conflict that has seen significant drone activity. Last night, Ukraine launched a devasting attack on Russia, not on Russian troops at the front line, but Holy Mother Russia. The drones used were Ukrainian-made, and the strikes in "Operation Spiderweb" hit targets in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions. The targets were thousands of miles apart and thousands of miles inside Russia. Some 40 strategic bombers were damaged. Worse, Russia now seems to be unable to defend itself. All the same, the peace talks that start to day in Istanbul will go nowhere for a while.
The operation was a James Bond special. Planned for over a year and a half, the drones were smuggled into Russia in container trucks, and unwitting Russian drivers were hired to take them near the airbases. The drones were then released, they attacked the airplanes that the Russians had not put in hangar and the truck self-destructed. Damage to the Russian Air Force is estimated at $2-7 billion. The Ukrainian drones each cost a few thousand at most.
The scheduled peace talks in Istanbul did occur, and they lasted only half an hour. The Russians were angry, and the Ukrainains expected them to be. A few documents were exchanged by way of the Turkish Foreign Ministry that sat betweent he two sides at a U-shaped conference table. Then, everyone left.
Edward Lucas, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis and a friend of this journal, called it "the most audacious attack of the war" and "a military and strategic game-changer. Battered, beleaguered, tired, and outnumbered, Ukrainians have, at minimal cost, in complete secrecy, and over vast distances, destroyed or damaged dozens, perhaps more, of Russia's strategic bombers."
This does not end the war by any stretch of the imagination. But it creates a new reality for Russian war planners. They have to be asking themselves if the Ukrainians used up their drones or whether there are more lurking inside Russia. If the latter, how can Russia defend against them? Another such attack would destroy what morale still exists on the Russian side.
The Russian war-bloggers are upset with the Ministry of Defense and its inability to put bombers in hangars. And they are annoyed that the attack happened at all. Until this attack, they had been protected by NATO demanding that weapons it provided not be used inside Russia. These were Ukrainian drones, so the Ukrainian needed no one's permission to hit Russia.
The bloggers also was a retaliatory strike, which is probably going to happen sooner rather than later. One expects a great deal of noise but very little real damage to Ukraine. Russia has defaulted to throwing men and materiel at Kyiv and hoping for the best. Hope is not a strategy.
"Russia must feel what its losses mean. That is what will push it toward diplomacy," President Zelensky said Monday in Vilnius, Lithuania, meeting with leaders from the Nordic nations and countries on NATO’s eastern flank.
This journal has been arguing this for three years now. This war will only end when the Russian people make Mr. Putin stop. That will require zinc-coffins for their sons and bombed apartment buildings at home. Finally, it may happen.
This journal does not want one more Russian or Ukrainian killed. This can stop right now. The Russians just have to turn their troops around and go home. In the end, the Russian people can and must act to stop the killing of their kids, and the kids of Ukraine. Russia has suffered enough.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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