The Current - How Ukraine launched a drone attack deep inside Russia

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Ukrainian drones smuggled deep into Russian territory carried out a stunning attack over the weekend — and just this morning, another underwater bombing by Ukraine took out Russia’s bridge to Crimea. A journalist in Kyiv breaks down the military feat, and explains how much its boosted morale among Ukrainians.

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On Sunday, Ukraine pulled off a sneak attack deep inside Russia, hitting a key part of the Russian Air Force, known as Operation Spider's Web. Ukrainian officials say this was the longest range assault of the war and that they believe the attack destroyed billions of dollars worth of Russian aircraft. Tim Mack is a journalist and the founder of The Counteroffensive. It's a news outlet covering the war in Ukraine. He's in Kyiv. Tim, hello.

Hey there. I want to talk to you about this drone attack on the Russian bombers at the weekend, but just as we were getting you on the line, we learned of reports of another sneak attack by Ukraine. What do you know about this? All right. So just in the last hour, the Ukrainian secret services have announced that they were behind an

explosion on what is known as the Kirch Bridge or the Crimean Bridge. Now, this is a really important symbol of Russian occupation. This is a bridge that was built between Russian territory and Russian occupied Crimea. And so what it looks like here was done this morning in the very early morning hours was that they carried out an underwater attack. The SBU, the Ukrainian secret services says that the explosion was equivalent to 1,100 kilograms of TNT, a real symbolic blow against the Russian occupation there

and another covert operation, similar to what we're gonna discuss with regards to the bombers, another covert operation behind enemy lines. This comes, as I said, just days after the attack on these bombers deep inside Russia. As you understand it, I mean, walk us through what Ukraine did here

and the targets that they hit. Well, what you have to understand is, to start with, Russia has pretty sophisticated air defense. And so the problem set that Ukraine's secret services were looking at here was that Russia has radars, it has air defense, it has all sorts of ways to detect the launch of Ukrainian drones headed in their direction. But so the interesting and central part of this is that Ukraine was able to develop a method through subterfuge to hit them from a direction they were not expecting.

So this operation, which led to the destruction or the disabling of at least 41 Russian aircraft. This operation involved the smuggling of Ukrainian drones by land across the border, along with – and they were placed in these sort of mobile sheds, these wooden homes or sheds. Various sources have disagreed as to whether they were sheds or mobile homes, but basically wooden structures. And these were placed on trucks and driven to various places deep inside Russia. At the point of the attack, which was Sunday, the SBU remotely opened the roofs of these structures and the drones were launched from deep within Russian territory from directions

the Russians weren't expecting and that's led to it you know an enormous impact on Russia's strategic bomber capacity. There are a lot of how questions here. How did the Ukrainian forces manage to smuggle these drones so deeply into Russian territory. I mean, the reporting suggests that some of these trucks with the crates on the back were parked almost adjacent to military bases. How did they pull this off? One thing that's been pretty common on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides is to use unwitting

accomplices, people who maybe don't know what they're transporting. I'm getting into the realm of speculation here, unwitting accomplices, people who maybe don't know what they're transporting. I'm getting into the realm of speculation, but on both sides of the border, you've seen people delivering things that didn't know precisely what it was that they were delivering. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if the people who were driving these sheds or crates or however you want to put it, weren't aware of the true nature of their cargo, that these drones were hidden inside and it was only when they were launched that the true nature was revealed.

This was an operation, the SPU said, took 18 months to develop and plan and execute. And so it involved quite a lot of deception in this sort of spy novel worthy operation. I mean, spy novel worthy or spy film worthy is right. If you take a look at some of these videos that have been released and verified by agencies like the New York Times and others, it shows the drones flying over these airfields, above these Russian bombers, and then the bombers exploding into flames and what have you, the crates that these drones were in, self-destructed after the drones were launched.

As you understand it, how was the Ukrainian army able to pull something like that off remotely, not being there, but from a distance? Well, there are a number of ways that this could be done. And we've been writing about this and reporting on Ukrainian military technology for quite a bit of time. I don't have the exact answer, but I can give you a couple educated guesses. One is through satellite internet. But what is probably more likely is that they kind of piggybacked off

Russian telecom. They put SIM cards, Russian SIM cards in these drones, and they used mobile internet in order to operate these drones. That seems to me the most likely means by which they were able to do this. And then using that internet connection, we're able to pilot these drones from quite far away. As I mentioned, the suggestion was that this was Russia's Pearl Harbor, that billions of dollars worth of Russian aircraft were destroyed. How big of a hit is this to the Russian military? Well, it certainly is a substantial hit. We have to look at the specific Russian military assets that were

either destroyed or disabled. And they involve really very complicated early warning planes, as well as what are called strategic bombers. These are gigantic assets, Cold War era planes that were originally envisioned to launch nuclear weapons. So one is called, is nicknamed the bear to give you a sense of the scale and the awe that surrounds this particular type of aircraft. Now Russia has what's called a nuclear triad. That is, they have three methods by which they can launch nuclear weapons, by air through some of these strategic bombers, by ground-based missile silos and from nuclear submarines at sea.

What we've seen here is a serious hobbling of that nuclear triad. The Ukrainian government says that about a third of Russia's strategic bombing capacity was affected by this massive operation all across Russia at four different air bases. Among those who were surprised by this operation were officials in the United States who said they didn't have any advance notice of this attack. What does that tell you?

Well, it shows that as time has gone on, the Ukrainian secret services have developed more of an ability to operate independently. Ten years ago, the SBU was not a specially sophisticated intelligence operation or security operation. Now after several years of all-out war and 10 years since the initial start of this invasion, the SPU has developed some pretty impressive skills.

We've spoken to the number of Ukrainians over the last several weeks who've talked about the mood in Ukraine, that many people there are tired, that many people are exhausted by a war that seems to be grinding on with no real end in sight. How are Ukrainians reacting to the success of this operation? I mean, there's a military achievement here, but there's something more than that, right? Yeah, I think even more important than the military achievement here is the morale boost that this operation has given to ordinary Ukrainians.

It's all anyone can talk about over the last couple days. And you can tell that it's a message from the Ukrainian military and government to its own people to say, hey, we still got a lot of fight in us. photoshopped her with AI generated images holding four aces, a reference to that famous Trump accusation to Zelensky that he didn't have the cards. The Ukrainian government's position on the strike is, well, we got a couple more cards to play. A Russian official today is vowing retribution. How do you expect Russia to retaliate? If this is about military assets, but also about the public mood and the air war, if we can put it that way, how do you expect Russia to retaliate? If this is about military assets but also about the public mood and the

air war, if we can put it that way, how do you expect Russia to respond? Well, Russia is likely to respond with strikes in kind. The thing is that, you know, even today there have been multiple air alerts in in Kiev where I am right now and there has been a sort of bracing for a very substantial missile or drone or combination of both attack that will take place. Uh, in response, um, uh, that's the nature of this war is, uh, one strike leads to another, which leads to another.

This happens at the same time as peace talks are underway in Istanbul and there is talk of another exchange, another substantial exchange of, of captured troops from both sides. What's happening at these talks and how do you think an attack like this and the one that, that, that was unfolding just as, as we got you on the line, how do, how do those attacks complicate

people trying to figure out a way to end this war? I think there's a general understanding. If you talk to, you know, you're, you know, an average Ukrainian, they don't think that the war is about to end, that some sort of peace deal is imminent. And while there was progress made, as you mentioned, on a prisoner of war exchange, the two sides are still extremely far apart. The Ukrainians will say, hey, we've agreed to a ceasefire, and the Russians have not. And so it's totally fair game for us to continue engaging legitimate military targets and infrastructure as long as there is no ceasefire in place.

And so they'll say, look, until we have some sort of agreement to stop fighting, we're going to continue fighting. It suggests, I mean, again, to those Ukrainians who are exhausted that, I mean, they should take some solace in what has happened, but that there's no real end in sight for this war. Yeah, I'm not seeing the conditions diplomatically for there to be some sort of swift agreement. The Russian position right now is that in order for there to be a ceasefire or a peace agreement, Ukrainians need to abandon large portions of territory they currently control

and for which their soldiers have died defending. I think that's a non-starter from the Ukrainian perspective. And so, I mean, with the two sides so far apart, I just don't see them reaching a diplomatic solution in the next few weeks or even months. I mean, it just does not seem like these two sides are, you know, working on the same kinds of levels. Tim, it's good to talk to you as always. Thank you very much for this. Thanks so much.

This has been The Current Podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca slash The Current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening.