Ukraine’s security agency, the SBU, just pulled off a daring daylight drone operation targeting bombers on bases across Russia:
Apparently hijacking Russian tractor-trailer trucks and loading them with specially-prepared containers housing short-range first-person-view attack drones, the SBU attacked Olenya and Belaya air bases — respectively 1,200 and 2,700 miles from Ukraine — with more than 100 drones and destroyed or damaged potentially scores of Russian warplanes, including Tupolev Tu-95 bombers, Beriev A-50 radar planes and transports.
The SBU claimed it hit more than 40 planes. The agency circulated videos, relayed across the Russian telecommunications network by the explosives-laden quadcopter drones, of four Tu-95s burning at Olenya.
The Russian air force operates 118 bombers including 15 Tupolev Tu-160s, 47 Tu-95s and 56 Tupolev Tu-22Ms. If the SBU’s claim is accurate, Ukraine may have eliminated a third of the force. Only the Tu-160 is still in production, albeit slowly and on a small scale.
“The blow to strategic aviation is not only a hit to Russia’s nuclear triad, but also a major setback to its power projection and geopolitical decision-making,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight observed. “With no easy or quick way to restore the loss, Russia may be forced to reassess the war’s cost-benefit ratio.”
To grasp the scale of this blow, John Spencer says, consider the cost:
A single Tu-95 “Bear” bomber — designed to carry nuclear or cruise missiles — can cost up to $150 million. Russia’s newer Tu-160 “Blackjack” bombers, also stationed at these bases, cost more than $250 million apiece, with program and infrastructure costs pushing the total value of the strategic bomber fleet into the billions of dollars. The bombers struck today aren’t just expensive — they represent long-range deterrence, psychological leverage, and deep-strike capability. Ukraine may have just degraded one of Russia’s most strategic military assets at a fraction of the cost.
The fact that Ukraine went after some of Russia’s most prized aerial capabilities, many of which are directly tied to its nuclear deterrent, ups the ante:
While these aircraft have rained destruction on Ukraine from afar and are legitimate targets, they also underpin a leg of Russia’s nuclear deterrent. This will undoubtedly provoke a unique response from the Kremlin who has warned that widespread attacks against its strategic capabilities would be a red line.
The threat of wide-scale, low-end, localized drone attacks against prized aircraft sitting at airfields — including in the U.S. homeland — has been a brewing threat, as TWZ highlighted repeatedly for many years, which includes the exact scenario that occurred in Ukraine in the last 24 hours. Drone technology has proliferated dramatically since, and the threshold requirements for executing such an attack have dropped considerably. At the same time, defenses against these types of threats still lag behind, both in wartime Russia and most everywhere else.
This is also a glaring case of how the lack of any kind of hardened shelters leaves aircraft totally exposed to attack, which is another reality TWZ has highlighted for years, but still has not changed the U.S. investment strategy in this kind of infrastructure, even at forward locales in the Pacific. Meanwhile, drone incursions of U.S. bases at home and abroad — another issue TWZ reported on exclusively for years — have shown just how vulnerable even the Department of Defense’s most prized and critical aerial assets are.
There is also artificial intelligence-enabled low-end drones now becoming a reality. This would allow these aircraft to fly much farther without any radio control and hit targets they recognize autonomously.
All is proceeding as I have foreseen.
Total losses turned out to be 8 aircraft.
Russia’s Pearl Harbor. Does anyone in Washington remember what ensued?
The number of aircraft destroyed is less important than the fact that they were part of Russia’s nuclear triad. Also, this attack could not have occurred without some degree of American foreknowledge and participation. A nuclear strike on part of America’s nuclear triad is well within the range of possible reprisals.
Trump appears to have lost control of the US’s military and intelligence services. The lunatic Kellogg appears to be in charge of our peace negotiations with Russia. We may be in for a wild ride.
All strategic aircraft are under open skies, because of the START treaty. NO HIDING ALLOWED! Trust but verify.
In other words, Tu-95 (confirmed hits) are mostly obsolete.
…is more how the Americans traditionally see things than how things work.
In USSR missiles were always prioritized, from the time Strategic Rocket Forces were put together under Nedelin and ever after.
Now, who knows — but there’s visible superiority in hypersonic missiles and of course Poseidon thing, so…
For the “brass”, A-50 may be a more inconvenient loss.
In other words, it’s a deliberate attempt at escalation. A desperate move, not unlike the lunge at a nuclear power station was, but somewhat smarter.
McChuck says:
5× overreporting rate is well within their usual range.
Bob Sykes says:
More like Winter War 2.0 or Manchurian campaign. As it was almost from the start. Working out kinks in the system one after another and testing new hardware. It’s only a bit beyond the expected (see a mention of tire camo in TWZ article). I mean, if every BS failure and every big penetration of defenses (Storm Shadow popping a HQ, Moskva sinking, USV attacks http://www.hisutton.com/Timeline-2022-Ukraine-Invasion-At-Sea.html etc) that happened so far was in the same month, yeah, this could achieve something. As it is, they were just bad enough to encourage fixing things and/or crackdowns on sloppiness and incompetence.
Maybe, but plausible deniability would cover it. Though it goes both ways, of course.
Depends how far you stretch “possible”.
Most likely, some asymmetric unpleasantness. Or simply go much further in helping Iran, and leak it after the fact. If the Houthis subsequently get even bolder, “not our fault, lol”.
If a reminder on where the real deterrence lies is in order, it’s probably easier to bait some pirate with a ship bigger than a speedboat to attack a Russian vessel and overkill him on livestream from submarine nobody tracked, or something like that.
Are there reasons to assume he had it to begin with?
Well, duh. It’s either proglodites or neocons. Quoth Moldbug —