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ARTICLE ‘An epic failure’: Russia reels from surprise Ukrainian attack on bomber fleet Audacious drone raid threatens Moscow’s military operations and exposes vulnerability deep within its territory FINANCIAL TIMES Anastasia Stognei in Berlin, Fabrice Deprez in Kyiv and Christopher Miller in New York June 3 2025 https://www.ft.com/content/132e4327-11da-4412-b36b-7363604879e6 "Bombers that Russia may never rebuild. A fleet so mauled it may force Moscow to rethink how it raids Ukraine. Deep strikes on Russian soil that expose the price of a long war — even against a weaker foe. As the toll of Ukraine’s weekend drone raid becomes clear from satellite imagery and expert assessments, so does the scale of the operation. Ukraine’s audacity — plotting for 18 months to hide drones in trucks to hit military airfields thousands of kilometres from Kyiv — has largely been matched by the material damage done to Russia’s bomber force. While the effect on Russia’s nuclear capacity is likely to be embarrassing but limited, the attack is expected to affect day-to-day operations in Ukraine, say analysts. Perhaps most importantly for Kyiv, Ukraine was able to also show — on the eve of ceasefire negotiations with Russia in Istanbul — that it is capable of shifting the dynamics on the battlefield, forcing the Kremlin to accept a new reality in which targets deep within its territory become vulnerable, even without the use of western weapons. Graphics explaining how Ukrainian drones were hidden in trucks and deployed next to Russian air bases Michael Kofman, a military analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Ukraine’s strikes had “undoubtedly degraded Russia’s stand-off strike potential”, destroying aircraft that Russia would struggle to replace. “While it may not be enough to halt strikes on Ukraine, given the size of Russia’s bomber fleet, it showed that continuing the war carries a real cost to Russia’s status as a military power,” added Kofman. The daringly original operation, which involved smuggling drones into Russia and delivering them in disguised crates in trucks to attack sites, hit aircraft capable of deploying both conventional and nuclear weapons. Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, said that while many bombers were undergoing maintenance, “these aircraft were among the most operational, making these losses particularly damaging”. Russia used the targeted bombers to strike civilian targets in Ukraine, including during the most recent mass attacks, said William Alberque, a former Nato arms control official now at the Stimson Center. “They caused so much suffering and misery,” he said. “This was a direct way of striking back and trying to prevent future attacks.” Now, Russia will not only have fewer bombers to attack Ukraine but will have to consider changing its tactics. That includes whether it can risk grouping the aircraft together, an approach it has recently used to launch mass strikes on Ukraine." (Excerpt) VIDEO LINK: https://next-media-api.ft.com/clips/optimised-media-files/17487850685840/1920x1920.mp4