Zelensky hails Ukraine’s ‘brilliant operation’ to destroy over 40 Russian military aircraft

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday hailed the success of an unprecedented Ukrainian drone strike that destroyed over 40 Russian military aircraft deep inside Russian territory over the weekend, including in the country’s Far East.

In his nightly address to Ukrainians, Zelensky said that the Security Service of Ukraine had used a total of 117 drones to strike aircraft at military airfields across Russia in the attack, codenamed Operation Spider’s Web.

The Security Service of Ukraine said that the operation, which struck missile carriers in five Russian regions across five time zones, had taken out 34% of Russia’s military aircraft and caused an estimated $7 billion of damage.

Kyiv had planned the operation for over eighteen months, Zelensky said, adding that one of Ukraine’s bases for preparing the attacks was “located directly next to the FSB headquarters in one of [Russia’s] regions”.

After meeting on Sunday with Security Service head Vasyl Malyuk, who coordinated the strikes, Zelensky praised the “brilliant result” achieved “solely by Ukraine” in what he said was Kyiv’s longest-range operation of the war so far.

“These are Ukrainian actions that will undoubtedly be in history books. 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”, Zelensky said.

Citing sources within the Security Service of Ukraine, Ukrainian news outlets reported that the drones used in the operation were first covertly transported into Russia, followed by mobile wooden crates that were later mounted onto trucks. When the drones were launched, the crate roofs were remotely opened, allowing them to take off, the sources said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Sunday evening that several people had been detained after aircraft were damaged in what it called Kyiv’s “terrorist attacks” on airfields in the Ivanovo and Ryazan regions of central Russia, the Murmansk region in the Arctic, the Irkutsk region in Siberia, and the Amur region in the Far East.

The audacious strikes came ahead of a fresh round of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv in Istanbul on Monday, with Russia expected to present a “memorandum” of its terms for an end to the war. Ukraine, meanwhile, continues to call for a full, unconditional ceasefire as a prerequisite to any peace deal.