An operation by Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) has hit "more than 40" Russian bombers at air bases "in the rear of the Russian Federation," a source in the agency told the Kyiv Independent on June 1.

"Enemy strategic bombers are burning en masse in Russia — this is the result of a special operation by the SBU," the source said.

Video provided by the source shows what appears to be a row of heavy bomber aircraft on fire at an undisclosed location.

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[+] 190 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (19 children)
  • [–] 115 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    According to world directory of modern aircraft, this comprises 33% of Russian bomber fleet of 120: https://www.wdmma.org/russian-air-force.php. Not the entire fleet, but a significant loss for Russia.

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  • [–] 55 points 1 year ago

    Losing 1/3 of your bombers in one attack means you're going to be a lot more careful with the remaining ones though. They lost a significant chunk of their reactionary forces in one go.

    Russia has already been fighting a lot longer than they planned and have taken much heavier losses. The only reason they're still going at all is Putin's ego and inability to admit any mistakes.

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    [–] 67 points 1 year ago

    Best news of the week. I am in my happy place now, thank you.

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  • [–] 67 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Clever and economical, and 100% high value military targets. I wish the guys who pulled this off, all the luck they can have. :)

    It is possible that Russia's selection of AWACS planes (about 10 left) decreased even more.

    The "sheds" were more like wooden boxes. They had a fake roof, the upper layer of which a mechanism could remove. Between the roof beams - "nests" for drones. This cargo was given for transport to ordinary truck companies. There's even a video where cops have detained a trucker while drones are taking off from his truck and heading towards Belaya airfield, ordinarily unreachable to Ukrainian drones since it's 4000 km away. I'm afraid the trucker will be facing some hard times. I hope they understand he was deceived, though, and eventually let him go.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, about that trucker, he's fucked. It's not his fault but he's definitely collateral damage here as Russia typically doesn't take kindly on messengers with bad news, let alone an innocent trucker who accidentally towed in the apocalypse.

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  • [–] 66 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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    [–] 62 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    It's not only what they did, but how they did it.

    First of all the loss of this aircraft is substantial. They don't have many more of these aircraft and likely not all are operational at every time, especially now when it's hard to get parts. And these planes are full of western parts.

    And another thing, is not like Russia can throw everything at Ukraine, it's got other borders to watch.

    The second part is how they did it. They snuck into Russia with weapons and carried an embarrassing blow against a country that is basically fighting this war to keep its status as a super power. And this country that they don't even consider as a country did this to them from the inside. Thats just weak and it's there for everyone to see. This is shouting for everyone to hear: Russia is no super power, it's no power at all.

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    [–] 51 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Im hearing bridges and submarines also. They did this perfectly. By not talking to a known Russian asset in the whitehouse.

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  • [–] 46 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    Judging by Russian TG, they are not exaggerating one bit.

    Also rumors of a sub base getting hit, even though one can say today subs Russia has are all tracked.

    I wonder about missile silos - if any of them were still operational, maybe they've been all sabotaged long ago (or rotted by themselves), and we didn't know simply because it's not as visible as burning strategic bombers in the midst of a day.

    So apparently Russian regime just got more willing to negotiate.

    Which may be kinda good news, because fewer troubles means more attention to each particular one, so the degree of bullshit elsewhere might fall too.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

    First, I am not a Russia fan or apologist.

    …But the Soviets made some good shit, often with the philosophy of “big and simple,” but often well engineered, too. Soyuz has been so reliable it’s unreal, hence it sent astronauts from around the world to space for decades because nothing else was dependable enough.

    They did tons of real, oldschool nuclear testing, not simulations like newer powers. They knew what they were doing.

    Hence, asserting most of Russia’s warheads are duds is quite an assumption. It’s quite possible. But there’s enough of a track record for the threat to be very real.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Whether or not Russia's nukes are functional is immaterial. They know that they don't know which ones work. They also know they no longer have MAD on their end. All they can do is saber rattle with them, because if they ever try to use them, they know that there is a very good chance that the nukes will fail to detonate, for a variety of reasons, and the immediate retaliation from every other nuclear power, except China, would be the end of Russia.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Missile silos are sadly, ridiculously hardened. You may have to hit a single door with 10+ drones to get through.

    Aircraft are perfect targets, since an aircraft must be light and cannot be hidden underground too easily.

    Also, missile silos aren't being used to attack Ukraine. Knocking one out would have no effect on the safety of people in Ukraine. Aircraft however, are used daily / weekly. Tangible benefit is immediate - less air raids, less missiles fired, less glide bombs dropped.

    It would also be sweet if a shortage of radar planes occurred - Russia not knowing what's happening in its airspace would allow Ukrainian long-range drones to reach where they must.

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  • [–] 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

    Camera drone just casually videoing after the bombings? Whoever was sleeping during drone jamming duty is not getting dessert rations.

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  • [+] 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)
  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    russia is so fucking big, it's really weird that someone would think: "i want more!!! and i'm willing to destroy everything and everyone for it" 🤷🏼‍♂️

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Not just big, it has plenty of towns and villages abandoned, which weren't abandoned for centuries before. There are growing populations of brown bears and various fish and what not in Tver oblast, or so I've heard.

    What Russia definitely doesn't need is more territory, but, obviously, territory is not all Ukraine has, it also has people, and I think Russia's leadership was after more slaves.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I read elsewhere that these were autonomous drones. It likely wouldn’t be terribly difficult to program a drone to fly to a specific location, look for something shaped like an aircraft, then fly into it.

    You could also program one or two drones to fly to a specific location, record video for 5-10 minutes, then fly to a different landing zone where one person is waiting to recover the video.

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    [–] 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (22 children)

    Bro I love Ukrainians so much and the respect for you HEROES is astonishing, SKY HIGH LOVE YOU GUYS KEEP IT UP !!!

    The SBU claims that 34 per cent (‼️‼️) of Russia's fleet of bombers, with a combined value of more than €6 billion, has been eliminated with this operation 'Spiderweb'. The figures cannot be independently confirmed because Russia and Ukraine are both silent on military losses for strategic reasons.

    May the spiders crawl all over putin and eat him alive.

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    [–] 32 points 1 year ago

    Some of the best news I’ve heard in quite some time!

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (1 child)
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    [–] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    This is going to have the secondary effect of exploding rats but times a thousand.

    During WWII the brits planted dead rats filled with explosives around german facilities, as it was common practice to simply throw dead rats into the boiler fireboxes, where these rats in questions would explode and hopefully deal damage to important equipment. Almost no real damage was done but simply finding the rats was enough to make the Germans so paranoid that the extra caution and paranoia did more damage than the rats ever would have if they had gone undiscovered (and thrown into boilers as planned)

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    [–] 16 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    If this is true, if Ukraine really has dealt as much damage to the Russian bomber fleet as they claim they have, then this is tremendous.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    Fuck the blyats.

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