In an essay yesterday, I mentioned the Ukrainian drone attacks over the weekend on airbases across the Russian Federation from Murmansk in the North, to the Moscow region and Central Russia, across all of Siberia to the Baikal region (Irkutsk). My brief remarks were based on Western accounts, principally, The Financial Times, which in turn was re-transmitting what Kiev had to say about its daring and seemingly highly successful feats destroying Russian strategic bombers.
Note that the Ukrainians had stressed that the aircraft destroyed were being used to launch missiles that were fired on Ukraine. However, for our purposes in looking at the broader threat to Russian security that their destruction poses, should it have occurred as the Ukrainians say, these aircraft are key components in the Russian nuclear triad for strategic defense against the United States. The Ukrainians claim to have destroyed 40 such bombers, meaning one-third of the Russian fleet in this category of aircraft.
Last night, the Sunday edition of Vladimir Solovyov’s widely watched talk show featured a military expert panelist who told us a good deal more about what happened and in which directions Russian investigation of this calamity and thoughts of retaliation are headed.
Firstly, the Russians deny that the destruction was as extensive as the Ukrainians claim. They insist that their local air defenses neutralized most of the incoming drones. They speak of some damaged aircraft without specifying how many. On the other hand, they are considering a nuclear response in line with their nuclear doctrine of retaliation for attacks which endanger Russian national security. This in its own way is an acknowledgement that something awful did occur. The same panelist makes it clear that the ongoing investigation has already led to arrests of Russians who facilitated the attack by acts of commission and omission.
The attack this weekend took 18 months to prepare. The positive conclusion we may draw is that a follow-on attack is improbable if not impossible to carry out. Nonetheless, the events of the weekend highlight serious security problems that it will not be easy for Russian authorities to correct.
Specifically, it is now known that the Ukrainian drones were brought into the Russian Federation in truck-trailers. This means that the border inspections by Russian customs were strangely lax at more than one border crossing and on more than one date. Secondly it raises the questions about the complicity of the truck drivers, some of whom have now been arrested and who, under questioning say they had no idea what the containers held.
Then there are questions one must pose regarding the long time that these trailers were kept in place in the general vicinity of Russia’s most important air bases. How could their presence not have raised questions for local officials?
Finally, the investigation has revealed that Russian military recruits on the airbases under attack photographed what was happening and the destruction of planes, and then put these images up on social media. That they had kept their personal phones with them was itself a violation of military regulations. That they posted images identifying the strategic bombers which were damaged is itself punishable under Russian wartime law.
The next set of questions, for which as yet we have no answers, is how the Kremlin will respond to this attack that would appear to meet the criterion for nuclear escalation under the latest Russian doctrine.
Will President Putin now declare war on Ukraine, as his legalistic mind would suggest, to clear the way for destruction of the ‘decision making centers’ in Kiev, with or without all staff on board? Will he break off all peace negotiations, as logic would have it?
We will not have long to wait to get answers. I expect to see them in the coming week.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025
Reprinted from gilbertdoctorow.com. Since 2010 Gilbert Doctorow has published six collections of essays on Russia’s relations with the West and two volumes of “Memoirs of a Russianist.” His latest work is “War Diaries, volume I. The Russia-Ukraine War” now available as e-book or paperback from Amazon.
