Ukraine's drone operation involved smuggling first-person view (FPV) drones into Russia in wooden mobile houses and transporting them by truck close to airfields.
The drones then flew to attack Russia's strategic bombers. On the day of the attack, Russian media outlets shared footage from social media showing the drones rising from the containers.
The trucks themselves calmly rolled up to the most important airfields of the Russian Federation:
Since early in the war, Ukraine has occasionally struck air bases hosting Russia's nuclear-capable strategic bombers, prompting the Russian Air Force to redeploy most of them to regions farther from the front line.
However, as the drones launched on Sunday were launched from trucks close to the targeted bases in five Russian regions, the military's defenses had virtually no time to prepare for them.
How did Ukraine carry out a daring drone attack on air bases deep inside Russia, striking dozens of nuclear-capable long-range bombers?
Pro-Russian bloggers are calling it the country's "Pearl Harbor" and accuse the Kremlin of failing to protect their own. pic.twitter.com/aonk0Yvi1R
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the complex operation was directed from an office located next to the FSB security service office in one of the Russian regions. He did not elaborate on the location of the office in Russia. The Ukrainian side said that all participants left Russia before the operation began.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities added Artem Timofeev, a 37-year-old born in Ukraine who moved to Russia several years ago, to a wanted list. According to the Russian Telegram channel Baza, he is the owner of the trucks that transported the drones to the airfields.
Trump not informed
Both Ukrainian and US officials told media that Ukrainian officials did not give US President Donald Trump's administration advance notice of the attack.
Trump, who claimed that Ukraine "does not have cards" during a fiery exchange with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in February, has not yet commented on the Ukrainian attack.
Since Trump reprimanded Zelenskyy, Washington has temporarily halted military aid, intelligence sharing, and access to satellite imagery in an attempt to push Ukraine to the negotiating table.
Efforts led by the US to push the two sides into accepting a ceasefire have failed thus far. Although Ukraine has accepted a proposal for a temporary ceasefire, the Kremlin has effectively rejected it.
What was the impact of Ukraine's drone strike on Russia?
The audacity and scale of Ukraine's daring drone attack on Russian airfields on Sunday made headlines around the world.
More than 100 Ukrainian first-person view drones launched from trucks struck four Russian air bases simultaneously in three time zones, including Belaya air base in the Siberian region of Irkutsk, over 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Ukraine.
The strikes also targeted Russian airbases in Olenya, in the Arctic near Finland, and Ivanovo and Dyagilevo, both east of Moscow.
Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said it spent more than 18 months painstakingly planning the operation, codenamed "Spiderweb." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy personally oversaw it.
According to Ukrainian officials, the operation destroyed or heavily damaged 41 Russian planes, about a third of Moscow's strategic bomber fleet. The Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers, as well as the Beriev A-50 early warning aircraft, were hit.
Tu-95, code-named "Bear" by NATO, is a four-engine turboprop aircraft. It was designed in the 1950s to rival the US B-52 bomber. Before Sunday, experts estimated that Russia had a fleet of about 60 such aircraft.
The Tupolev Tu-22M, a twin-engine supersonic bomber designed in the 1970s, was given the NATO code name "Backfire." Before Sunday's drone strike, Russia was estimated to have between 50 and 60 Tu-22M3s in service.
Moscow has previously used the Tu-95 and Tu-22M bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine. The A-50s are used to coordinate targets and detect air defenses and guided missiles.
Ukrainian officials estimated the damage from the attack at $7 billion (€6.1 billion).
However, the strike's impact is far-reaching because Russia no longer produces Tu-22 or Tu-95 bomber planes.
This means that destroyed planes cannot be replaced.
Russia also has the Tu-160 supersonic strategic bomber, of which fewer than 20 are in service. The country recently resumed producing them, albeit at a slow pace.
In December, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov announced that the Russian air force will receive four upgraded Tu-160s in 2025. It's not known, however, if they were produced from scratch.
Russia's Defense Ministry acknowledged on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine had launched drone strikes against Russian military airfields in five regions.
The ministry stated that air attacks were repelled in all but two regions: Murmansk in the far north and Irkutsk in Siberia. In these two regions, "the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire."
The Russian state and state-controlled media mostly downplayed the attack. For example, Russia-1 TV channel on Sunday evening spent for a little over a minute on it with a brief Ministry of Defense' statement read out.
