On June 1, videos of bomb-laden quadcopters launching from trucks as fires blazed nearby spread through social media after Ukraine’s Security Services launched daylight strikes on air bases throughout Russia that destroyed many of the Kremlin’s long-range aircraft.
Those videos are undoubtedly now being studied in military planning rooms.
“This attack should be a wakeup call to militaries around the world,” Stacie Pettyjohn, the Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, told RFE/RL.
“In many ways, the [June 1 attack] was more effective than the ones conducted by Ukrainian long-range drones because the small drones can disperse, navigate to different targets, and precisely hit multiple targets across a large airbase,” the drone expert said.
“The lynchpin of this attack was covert infiltration and operations very close to the airbases, which likely were rather lightly defended because there were few concerns about Ukraine being able to strike this deep [inside Russia],” she added.
It remains unclear where the drones were piloted from, or whether they relied on AI targeting to home in on the Russian aircraft. Ukraine has claimed the roofs of the trucks carrying the hidden drone fleet were opened "remotely" to enable the quadcopters to launch.
Radio-controlled quadcopters often suffer from patchy communication as they near their target. In contrast, video captured from on board one of the attacking drones shows uninterrupted footage typical of cable-controlled quadcopters. Such drones are limited in range by the length of their cables, which resemble fishing lines. But with Ukraine’s mobile launcher trucks apparently parking within a few kilometers of Russian bases, that limitation was overcome, with devastating results.
Kyiv has claimed some 41 aircraft were wiped out. A popular Pro-Kremlin blogger estimated ten aircraft were destroyed.
Michael Boyle, an associate Professor at Rutgers University and author of a book on drone warfare says “There's a lot of counter-drone technology that gets rendered pretty useless against drones operating on a closed loop with fiber optic cables, and [militaries] are going to need to rethink the counter-UAS strategies to deal with fiber-optic drones, even if attacks like we saw in Russia remain rare and hard to replicate.”
Military air bases are protected with layered systems that often include radar to detect approaching threats, as well as missile systems and jamming devices designed to disorient radio-controlled drones. The June 1 attacks rendered nearly all such defences void. In flying from short range, the drones arrived without the warning that long-range radar can provide, and in swarms likely to overcome even missile defense systems able to shoot down such small devices. In some videos made on June 1, small arms fire can be heard as Russian servicemen apparently attempt to shoot down the quadcopters.
Colonel Markus Reisner, the head of Research and Development for the Austrian Military Academy told RFE/RL the attack offers “a taste of the future of warfare.”
Reisner says since the start of the war Moscow has struck Ukraine using “long-range Tu-22, Tu-160, and Tu-95 bombers. During these regular attacks, the heavy bombers launch their long-range cruise missiles from a safe distance and outside the range of Ukrainian air defenses. Ukraine has therefore repeatedly attempted to take out these heavy bombers and the important A-50 flying communication centers in recent years.”
Depending on which of the varying estimates of destroyed aviation destruction turns out to be accurate, Reisner believes the Ukrainian operation will “contribute to significantly reducing the intensity of Russian air strikes on Ukraine.”
With U.S.-brokered peace talks between Russia and Ukraine set to resume in Istanbul on June 2, Russian analyst Natalia Shavshukova told RFE/RL's Current Time the June 1 drone attacks "strengthen Ukraine's negotiating position."
The independent analyst added that, "last time, the Kremlin demonstrated its power by showing that it had no intention of stopping the bombing of Ukrainian cities, even in the face of calls for a cease-fire from all sides. Now, Ukraine has demonstrated its own strength and ability to carry out highly sophisticated operations deep behind enemy lines despite all the challenges."
