The satellite images of the before and after the attacks of Ukraine against Russian airplanes

Several satellite images reveal before and after the drone attack that Ukraine perpetrated against Russian aviation airfields in areas as distant as Siberia last weekend, on the eve of the second round of peace negotiations in Istanbul. They show how several strategic bombers were destroyed or severely damaged in the covert operation of kyiv's secret services, called cobwebs.

Ukrainian secret services ensure that their drones reached 41 Russian airplanes. “An important part of them is irremediably destroyed and some damaged planes will take many years to be rebuilt,” they said. According to Andrii Kalenko, of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, at least 13 planes were destroyed and others were damaged. Two US sources have told the Reuters agency that they estimate that drones reached 20 aircraft, half of the number estimated by kyiv.

Some of the affected military aircraft are part of Russia's nuclear deterrence, but may also be armed with missiles that Moscow has used to attack Ukraine since the beginning its large -scale invasion in February 2022.

Satellite images collected by the Maxar company on June 4 show the damage in the important Air Base of Belaya, in the Irkutsk bib, more than 5,000 kilometers from the border with Ukraine. Cloudiness can hide some parts. According to military analysts, in these images the destruction of at least two TU-22 bomber and three Tu-95 bombers are appreciated.

The images provided by Planet Labs also show damage to the Belaya air base with a broader perspective.

In the same way, in the images of Maxar you can appreciate the marks of the impact of the drones on the track of the Olenia Air Base, northwest of Russia – that Múrmansk – already 1,800 kilometers of the Ukrainian border.

The Avivector Open Intelligence Group calculated Tuesday that the Ukrainian drones destroyed four TU-95ms bombers and an AN-12 transport plane on this airfield.

On the other hand, Planet Labs images do not show significant damage to the air bases of Ivánovo and Dyagilevo, west of Russia.

The Ukraine Safety Service (SBU) published on Tuesday recordings of the special operation in which you can see how drones approach the wings, sides, the top and lower part of Russian airplanes in several airfields. The SBU says that they record attacks in the four Russian bases and that among the affected devices there are strategic Tu-95 and TU-160, TU-22 supersonic bombers, AW-12 transport aircraft and aircraft of Aerial Rebuilt IL-78, as well as early alert aircraft and airborne control aircraft (AWACS) A-50.

In some parts of the video, edited and with a duration of almost five minutes, you can see the smoke and flame aircraft, but the transmission is cut before any explosion. Some aircraft are tire covered. According to the BBC, it is a Russian tactic that, apparently, aims to mitigate drones attacks.

In the Telaraña operation, Ukrainian unnimelined planes were thrown from truck trailers. The Ukrainian agents say that it took 18 months to plan it, which was personally supervised by President Volodimir Zelenski and that numerous drones in Russia were introduced with smuggling.

“In total, 117 drones were used in the operation, with a corresponding number of drone operators involved. 34% of strategic cruise missile carriers parked in air bases were reached,” Zelenski said on Sunday. “Our staff operated in multiple Russian regions, in three different schedules. And the people who helped us were evacuated from the Russian territory before the operation, are now safe.”

Ukrainian special services claim to have used artificial intelligence (AI) to direct drones during the web operation. Specifically, they say they used “autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) and manual operator intervention” to carry out the attacks and point out that some drones lost the signal during the flight and went on to use AI along a previously planned route.

Strategic aircraft are one of the three elements of the Russian nuclear triad, next to atomic submarines and intercontinental missiles.

The Russian Defense Ministry admitted that the drones managed to achieve their objective in two cases, the airfields of the Irkutsk and Murmansk regions. Russia's Foreign Vice Minister Serguéi Riabkov has said that Russia will restore the damaged team in attacks against airfields. “The team in question, as representatives of the Ministry of Defense already declared it was not destroyed, but damaged. And it will be restored,” said the diplomat, cited by the Tass agency.

“This statement reflects complete ignorance or is deliberate misinformation, since multiple airplanes suffered irreparable damage,” he says in X Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst at Black Bird Group, which indicates that the visual tests currently support that 23 planes were reached or approached by drones, less than what Ukraine estimates. “It is very unlikely that any destroyed plane would have gone unnoticed,” says the expert, who believes unlikely that losses will be ascended to 41 destroyed or damaged planes.

Kastehelmi points out that, before the operation, it is most likely that Russia “had less than 100 operational strategic bombers under operational conditions, so it is likely that between 11 and 14% of the Russian strategic bombers have been destroyed.” Moscow, he adds, “cannot replace lost bombers simply commissioning new ones, since more than 30 years ago, neither TU-95 nor Tu-22m are manufactured.” “Airplanes are aging, and a significant proportion of operational aircraft were quickly lost – some cannot even be used as spare parts.”

In his opinion, although Russia has used bombers in missile attacks against Ukraine, the threat of attacks for kyiv “does not disappear directly with these losses, but especially in the long term Russian strategic aviation faces challenges.”

The Kremlin said Thursday that it will be the Russian military who decide how and when to respond to the recent Ukrainian attack against Russian strategic aviation. A day before, the US president, Donald Trump, said that Vladimir Putin told him “very firmly” that he plans to respond to the attacks. During the call, Trump assured Putin that Zelenski did not inform them previously.

For the analyst Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the Think Tank R.Politik, kyiv's latest attacks will only strengthen Putin's determination “to dismantle the Ukrainian state in its current form.” “Your answer will be harder and less complacent,” the expert progresses. “Putin's Russia is now even more prepared to fight indefinitely, and increasingly convinced that it is winning and that it has the necessary resources to continue not only until 2025, until well into 2026 and beyond.”