Ukraine says drone operation destroyed more than 40 Russian warplanes ahead of Istanbul talks

Ukraine says drone operation destroyed more than 40 Russian warplanes ahead of Istanbul talks

Event date: June 1, 2025. Ukraine says a drone operation carried out deep inside Russian territory destroyed more than 40 military aircraft, while Russia launched its largest drone attack of the war against Ukraine on the same day.

The AP report says Ukraine’s Security Service, known as the SBU, said the operation codenamed “Web” targeted 41 bombers at several airfields, including the Belaya base in Russia’s Irkutsk region, more than 4,000 kilometers from Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said the strike had been planned for more than a year and a half.

A military official told AP the operation was personally supervised by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy later said 117 drones had been used. The SBU claimed the strike destroyed 34% of Russia’s fleet of air missile carriers and caused $7 billion in damage, though AP noted that figure could not be independently verified.

Russia acknowledged that attacks hit aircraft and caused fires at air bases in the Irkutsk region and the Murmansk region, and said strikes were also repelled in Amur, Ivanovo and Ryazan. The AP report said Russia’s defense ministry did not provide a full assessment of the damage in the publicly quoted statement.

The aircraft reportedly hit included A-50s, Tu-95s and Tu-22M bombers. Those planes matter because Tu-95 and Tu-22 aircraft have been used in missile strikes on Ukraine, while A-50s are used for coordination and detection.

The AP story also said the attack was carried out in an unusual way: FPV drones were smuggled into Russia, hidden under the roofs of wooden structures and then launched from trucks at the right moment. Social media footage appeared to show drones rising from containers, while one clip showed men climbing onto a truck in an attempt to stop them.

The military significance was heightened by the timing. Ukraine said it would send a delegation to Istanbul for direct talks with Russia the next day, while Moscow on Sunday launched 472 drones and seven missiles against Ukraine, the biggest drone barrage since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

The AP report said Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat described the Russian barrage as the largest drone attack since the war began. It also said at least one civilian in Ukraine had been killed the same day in a separate Russian attack in Kherson region.

The operation and the counter-strikes together show how the war is shifting between long-range technological attacks and continuing battlefield pressure. For Ukraine, the airstrike on Russian bombers represented a symbolic and practical hit on platforms used to bombard Ukrainian cities. For Russia, the massive retaliatory drone salvo reinforced that the conflict remains far from any ceasefire breakthrough.

The timing matters as much as the target list. Ukraine was moving into a new round of talks while also claiming one of its deepest strikes of the war, and Russia was answering with the largest drone barrage yet recorded by Kyiv’s air force.