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from https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-stages-major-attack-russian-aircraft-with-drones-security-official-says-2025-06-01/

To attack Russian air bases, Ukrainian spies hid drones in wooden sheds
By Tom Balmforth and Max Hunder
June 1, 202512:55 PM PDTUpdated 2 hours ago

Aftermath of drones attack on Russia's Irkutsk region
Smoke rises above the area following what local authorities called a
drone attack on a military unit in the Sredny settlement, in the course
of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Usolsky district of the Irkutsk
region, Russia, in this still image from a video published June 1, 2025. Governor of Irkutsk Region Igor Kobzev via... Purchase Licensing Rights,
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Summary
Ukraine's SBU domestic intelligence says it carried out 'operation
Spider's Web'
Drones in sheds were placed on trucks and driven near Russian bases
President praises operation, says Russia suffered "tangible" losses
SBU says 34% of cruise missile carriers put out of action
Video shows Russian strategic bombers on fire

KYIV, June 1 (Reuters) - Ukrainian secret services were able to attack strategic bomber aircraft at Russian air bases on Sunday by hiding explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds, according to a Ukrainian security official and images posted online.
Ukraine's domestic security agency, the SBU, acknowledged that it
carried out the operation, codenamed "Spider's Web" and said it had
caused considerable damage.
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The sheds were loaded onto trucks that were driven to the perimeter of
the air bases. The roof panels of the sheds were lifted off by a remotely-activated mechanism, allowing the drones to fly out and begin
their attack, the official said.
A
The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said strikes
were conducted on Sunday on four air bases, and that 41 Russian
warplanes were hit.

An SBU statement posted on the Telegram messaging app estimated the
damage caused by the assaults at $7 billion.
"Thirty-four percent of strategic cruise missile carriers at the main
airfields of the Russian Federation were hit," the SBU said on the
Telegram messaging app.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, writing on Telegram, expressed delight at
the "absolutely brilliant outcome".
"And an outcome produced by Ukraine independently," he wrote, noting
that the operation had taken more than a year and a half to prepare.
"This is our longest-range operation."

Speaking shortly afterwards in his nightly video address, the president
noted that 117 drones had been used to attack the Russian bases and that Russian forces suffered "very tangible losses, and justifiably so".
Zelenskiy said the SBU had set up a nerve centre for the operation right
next to a regional office of Russia's FSB intelligence service. All
operatives taking part had been brought out of Russia "on the eve of the operation", he said.
VIDEO SHOWS BOMBERS ABLAZE

Unverified video and pictures posted on Russian social media showed
Russian strategic bombers on fire at the Belaya air base in the Irkutsk
region of Siberia.
Igor Kobzev, the regional governor, said there had been a drone attack
on a military unit near the village of Sredny, which is near the Belaya
base, though he did not specify what the target was. He said the drones
had been launched from a truck.

The Irkutsk region attack was the first time a drone assault had been
mounted by Ukraine so far from the front lines, which are more than
4,300 km (2,670 miles) away.
That is beyond the range of the long-range strike drones or ballistic
missiles Ukraine has in its arsenal, so required a special scheme to get
the drones close enough to their targets.
Photographs shared with Reuters by the Ukrainian security official
showed dozens of short-range quadrocopter drones piled up in an
industrial facility. The official said these were the same devices used
in the attack.
Other images shared by the official showed the wooden sheds with their
metal roofing panels removed, and the drones sitting in the cavities
between roof beams.
Separate video posted on Russian Telegram channels, which has not been
verified by Reuters, appeared to show matching sheds on the back of a truck.

The roof panels can be seen lying on the ground next to the truck, and
the video footage shows at least two drones rising out of the top of the
sheds and flying off.
The Russian online media outlet that posted the video, Baza, said in a
caption that it was filmed in the district near the Belaya air base.
The Irkutsk region air base hosts Tupolev Tu-22M supersonic long-range strategic bombers, a type of aircraft that has been used to launch
missiles against targets in Ukraine.
The operation, according to the Ukrainian security official, was
personally overseen by Zelenskiy and Vasyl Maliuk, head of the SBU
domestic intelligence agency.

If confirmed, the strikes would be the most damaging Ukrainian drone
attack of the war, and would be a significant setback for Moscow.
The source shared video footage shot from a drone, saying it showed one
of the strikes. The images showed several large aircraft, some of which appeared to be Tu-95 strategic bombers, on fire.
Writing by Max Hunder and Christian Lowe; Editing by Bill Berkrot and
Ron Popeski

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