Jun 01, 2025 10:36:30 pm
Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, claimed to have destroyed ‘34% of strategic cruise missile carriers at the main airfields of the Russian Federation’, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has described the attack as one for the ‘history books.’
He added that nearly 120 drones were used, and that the headquarters of the operation were ‘right next to the FSB’, Russia’s security service. Ukraine launched one of its most audacious attacks of the war using a ‘swarm’ of kamikaze drones unleashed from the backs of trucks to devastate two of Russia’s most major airfields.
Dubbed ‘Operation Spiderweb’, the co-ordinated strikes have left Vladimir Putin humiliated and his prized warplanes in smouldering ruins, though Moscow has claimed to have ‘repelled’ all the attacks.
Zelensky said on social media that the operation had ‘an absolutely brilliant result’, adding that it was one ‘achieved solely by Ukraine.’
He said in a post: ‘One year, six months, and nine days from the start of planning to effective execution.
‘Our most long-range operation. Our people involved in preparing the operation were withdrawn from Russian territory in time.’
‘Of course, not everything can be revealed at this moment, but these are Ukrainian actions that will undoubtedly be in history books,’ he adds.
‘Ukraine is defending itself, and rightly so – we are doing everything to make Russia feel the need to end this war. Russia started this war, Russia must end it. Glory to Ukraine!’
He added that 117 drones were used, each with their own individual pilot.
He added: ‘The most interesting thing – and we can already say this publicly – is that the “office” of our operation on Russian territory was located right next to the FSB of Russia in one of their regions.’
Two remote military airfields, Olenya in the Arctic Murmansk region and Belaya in eastern Siberia, were rocked by massive explosions overnight, with dramatic footage showing fires raging for hours.
The bases, located thousands of miles from Ukraine, are key to Russia’s nuclear strike capability and were considered untouchable. Yet Ukraine appears to have struck them with deadly precision, using first-person-view (FPV) drones launched from unmarked vans parked near the airfields.
Both are thousands of miles from Ukraine but were ‘under drone attack’, with dozens of Moscow’s nuclear capable warplanes evidently destroyed.
Olenya airbase is home to Russia’s ageing fleet of Tu-95 ‘Bear’ bombers – used both for conventional missile strikes and capable of launching nuclear weapons against the West. Several of the aircraft were reportedly left exposed in the open, despite repeated Ukrainian attacks on similar facilities.
Ablaze, too, was Belaya nuclear airbase in eastern Siberia’s Irkutsk region – some 2,900 miles from Ukraine. Ukraine’s SBU secret service was reportedly conducting a large-scale special operation to destroy Russian bombers.
The Ukrainian media claimed more than 40 Putin aircraft had been hit, including Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and A-50 strategic bombers. The audacious strike was described as ‘Russia’s Pearl Harbour’ and the ‘blackest day in aviation’ for the country by pro-Putin Telegram channels. By Perkin Amalaraj for DM.
UPDATE: 6/6 Kyiv, Ukraine – Russia launched a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles across broad swaths of Ukraine early Friday, killing at least four people and injuring dozens of others, days after Kyiv launched a daring raid on Moscow’s fleet of strategic bombers.
For residents of Kyiv, the night’s soundtrack was familiar: the shrieking whir of drones, air raid sirens and large explosions overhead – whether from air defenses successfully downing missiles, or projectiles puncturing the capital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had used more than 400 drones and 40 missiles in the overnight attack, making it among the war’s largest. He said Moscow targeted “almost all” of Ukraine, listing nine regions, from Lviv in the west to Sumy in the northeast.
Although Russia has pummeled Ukraine almost daily over three years of full-scale war, Ukrainians had been bracing for retaliation since Sunday, when Kyiv launched an audacious operation that struck more than a third of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers.
In a call with his US counterpart Donald Trump on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would have to respond to Kyiv’s assault.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its strikes were in response to what it called Kyiv’s “terrorist acts.” It was not immediately clear if the attack was the extent of Russia’s pledged retaliation, or if Putin intends to escalate further. After the embarrassment of Kyiv’s operation, there was a chorus of bellicose calls from pro-Kremlin pundits for a severe – potentially nuclear – response.
After daylight broke on Friday, residents are able to see the extent of damage on apartment buildings from Russia’s strikes overnight.
All week, Ukrainians have been bracing for Russia’s retaliation to last weekend’s drone attack, which struck 34% of Moscow’s nuclear-capable bombers stationed at airfields as far away as Siberia.
On Tuesday, Ukraine also launched an attack on the Kerch Bridge, the only direct connection point between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula, with 1,100 kilograms of explosives that had been planted underwater.
After Trump’s call with Putin on Wednesday, the US president said that his Russian counterpart had told him that Moscow would have to respond to Ukraine’s assaults. Trump’s account of the call gave no indication that he had urged Putin to temper his response, to the dismay of many in Ukraine.
“When Putin mentioned he is going to avenge or deliver a new strike against Ukraine, we know what it means. It’s about civilians,” Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko told CNN earlier this week. “And President Trump didn’t say, ‘Vladimir, stop.’”
Despite Trump’s support for recent peace talks in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia, on Thursday he signaled that he may be adopting a more hands-off approach, likening the war to a brawl between children.
“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” Trump said in the Oval Office, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz looking on silently. “They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”
By Victoria Butenko, Kosta Gak, Christian Edwards, Michael Rios and Jessie Yeung, CNN
UPDATE – PLEASE OPEN YOUR EYES 9/6: World heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk pleaded with US President Donald Trump in an interview with CNN Sports, asking the president to help Ukraine as it continues its fight against a full-scale Russian invasion.
“(President) Donald Trump, please open (your) eyes, help my people,” Usyk – arguably the biggest Ukrainian sports star – told CNN.
The WBC, WBA and WBO heavyweight champion went on to say he believes Trump needs to live up to his campaign promise of ending the war, after he promised to put an end to the conflict within 24 hours during the US presidential campaign.
“He should be responsible for the words he said,” Usyk said. “He said that in a month or a day, he would stop this war. He is not responsible for his words. Why does he speak?”
Usyk also invited the American president to visit Kyiv, offering to host him in his house so he could better understand what regular Ukrainians are going through every day and night, with barrage after barrage of drone and missile strikes.
“I offer him my home. Let him come to Ukraine. I will give him my home and my security guards. I will ensure his complete safety,” Usyk told CNN Sports. “Let him live in my house for a week and see how rockets fly over it and how people live in Ukraine.
“Let him come and live for a week, not just one day, but let him come secretly so that no one knows he has arrived,” the heavyweight champion added, explaining that if Moscow knows he’s in the country, it will stop its attacks.
“And when he comes secretly, let him live somewhere in (the Kyiv districts of) Obolon or Troyeshchyna, where houses, residential buildings are being bombed. … Then he will understand what is happening.”
Born in Simferopol, Crimea, Usyk had been living in the outskirts of Kyiv but was outside the country in London shooting sequences for a video game when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As Russian tanks closed in on Kyiv, he returned to his home nation, joining the Territorial Defense Forces defending the capital.
Usyk hits a punch bag in a devastated energy plant in central Ukraine to hear stories of survival and resilience from frontline workers who are keeping the lights on for Ukraine on March 17.
Usyk hits a punch bag in a devastated energy plant in central Ukraine to hear stories of survival and resilience from frontline workers who are keeping the lights on for Ukraine on March 17.
His family home in Vorzel was famously occupied and ransacked by Russian soldiers as they rampaged through the nearby suburbs of Hostomel, Irpin and Bucha, leaving mass graves and a trail of destruction in their wake.
Spurred on by the pleas of injured Ukrainian soldiers who urged him to “fight for the country,” Usyk has since resumed his professional boxing career, but has visited the frontlines on several occasions, maintaining close contact with his fellow soldiers.
But even as he prepares for a fight against Britain’s Daniel Dubois on July 19, which could see him become the undisputed heavyweight champion for a second time, Ukraine is very much at the forefront of his mind.
“It’s a little difficult to balance things when your family is in Kyiv,” he said, explaining that his wife and two daughters remain inside the country. “But I just know that my Ukrainian people and my Ukrainian soldiers will protect them.
“It’s difficult, but I can switch off to do my job, so that I can help my country more later on,” he said. “I am completely focused on the fight, on my preparation.” By Vasco Cotovio, Amanda Davies, Matthew Brealey and Kostya Gak, CNN