(Moscow) – A devastating and daring Ukrainian drone assault has rocked Russia’s strategic military infrastructure, with dozens of long-range nuclear-capable bombers either destroyed or damaged in what analysts are calling Ukraine’s most successful military operation since the war began.
According to Open Source Intelligence analysts, at least 13 Russian strategic bombers were completely destroyed at bases across the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ryazan and Ivanovo regions. Ukrainian intelligence sources say up to 40 aircraft in total were hit. If accurate, this could mean the loss of up to one third of Russia’s nuclear-capable aviation fleet, a critical component of its military deterrent.
Some of the aircraft destroyed, including the ageing but heavily relied-upon Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers, are irreplaceable due to discontinued production. Experts say this could severely impair Russia’s long-range strike capabilities for years.
In monetary terms, estimates suggest this operation may have inflicted damage worth more than £4.7 billion (USD 6 billion), considering the strategic importance and replacement costs of such aircraft.
The world waited for a statement, a directive, or even a televised address. But instead, the Russian dictator, 72-year-old Vladimir Putin, vanished from the public eye. There was no address to the nation, no military orders, not even an acknowledgment of the strikes. Instead, he appeared two days later to mark the anniversary of the Baikonur Cosmodrome—without mentioning the airbase attacks or the collapsing bridges in the Bryansk and Kursk regions that left seven dead and hundreds injured.
The silence was deafening.
While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted promptly and decisively to the events of the weekend, the Kremlin offered nothing but silence. Even Dmitry Medvedev, usually quick to issue nuclear threats on Telegram, remained uncharacteristically mute. Russia’s Defence Ministry merely referred to “aircraft fires” in a single sentence, and state media moved swiftly to other topics, such as national holidays and the weather.
Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies, called the strikes “the most remarkable and successful operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the entire war.” He described it as a stunning blow to Russia’s nuclear triad—a reference to its land, sea and air-based delivery systems for nuclear warheads.
According to SIPRI, strategic aviation accounts for 580 of Russia’s 2,673 nuclear warheads, meaning nearly a quarter of Russia’s nuclear strike force could be compromised.
Observers say any functioning democracy would have seen its leader take immediate public responsibility, reassure citizens, and outline next steps. Instead, Putin, long obsessed with projecting power, shrank from view like a man defeated. Some speculate this silence is an effort to avoid admitting to Russians just how bad the war truly is.
Federal TV channels like Channel One and Russia 1 devoted less than 40 seconds to the largest drone attack on Russian military assets in the history of the war. The state response was denial.
Ukraine’s SBU security service, under the command of Vasyl Maliuk, has been behind many of these precision strikes, including sabotage operations on bridges, the Crimean Kerch Bridge, Russian oil refineries and even intelligence-led assassinations of Kremlin-linked figures.
With over 90 Russian spy networks dismantled between 2023 and 2024, and a record of unmanned drone operations crippling Moscow’s Black Sea and air dominance, Maliuk’s SBU has proven a thorn in the Kremlin’s side.
