June 3, 2025. On June 1st, Ukrainian forces struck deep inside Russia in Operation Spider-Web.

117 drones, each operated by its own pilot, hit airfields in five regions.

Ukraine says the drones hit 41 strategic bombers that had been attacking Ukrainian cities

and destroyed at least 13 of them.

Russia does not have the industrial capabilities to replace them. The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, head, Vazl Malyuk,

emphasized that military airfields and the aircraft that are bombing Ukraine

are absolutely legitimate targets, according to the laws and customs of war.

The SBU estimates the drones did $7 billion of damage,

hitting 34% of the aircraft that delivered cruise missiles.

The operation took more than 18 months of planning.

It apparently involved sending trucks loaded with wooden cabins that had detachable roofs that could be opened remotely.

Unsuspecting truck drivers hauled the cabins to locations near airbases where the drones launched.

Once the drones were in the air, the vehicles carrying the cabins exploded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the people who helped with the operation from within Russia had been withdrawn and are now safe.

Russia denied that the damage was that extensive, but there is no doubt that the attack was a significant blow to Russia's war effort,

demonstrating as it does does that Ukraine can bring

the war home. As Katerina Bonder of the Washington, D.C. think tank Center for Strategic

and International Studies notes, June 1st was military transport aviation day in Russia, a significant

holiday for the armed forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin frequently ties operations to significant dates,

as when he hosted a number of American lawmakers in Moscow on July 4, 2018,

and the choice of this date for an attack on military aircraft through that habit back at him.

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