Ukraine drone attack destroys 40 aircraft deep inside Russia

A military official, who spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity to disclose operational details, said the far-reaching attack took more than a year and a half to execute.

A Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory, Ukraine’s Security Service said on Sunday, while Moscow pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones just hours before a new round of direct peace talks in Istanbul.

A military official, who spoke with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose operational details, said the far-reaching attack took more than a year and a half to execute and was personally supervised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The military source said it was an “extremely complex” operation, involving the smuggling of first-person view, or FPV, drones to Russia, where they were then placed in mobile wooden houses.

“Later, drones were hidden under the roofs of these houses while already placed on trucks. At the right moment, the roofs of the houses were remotely opened, and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers,” the source said.

Social media footage shared by Russian media appeared to show the drones rising from inside containers while other panels lay discarded on the road. One clip appeared to show men climbing onto a truck in an attempt to halt the drones.

The drones hit 41 planes stationed at military airfields on Sunday afternoon, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft, the official said. Moscow has previously used Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine, while A-50s are used to coordinate targets and detect air defenses and guided missiles.

The Security Service of Ukraine said that the operation, which it codenamed “Web”, had destroyed 34 per cent of Russia’s fleet of air missile carriers with damages estimated at $7 billion. The claim could not be independently verified.

Russia’s Defense Ministry in a statement confirmed the attacks, which damaged aircraft and sparked fires on air bases in the Irkutsk region, more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Ukraine, as well as the Murmansk region in the north, it said. Strikes were also repelled in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East and in the western regions of Ivanovo and Ryazan, the ministry said.