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Ukraine’s drone strike deep inside Russian territory left Kremlin officials angry and alarmed over the sudden vulnerability of a nuclear-capable air fleet far from the battlefield, according to people close to senior officials in Moscow.
Sunday’s dramatic attack on Russian long-range bombers in air fields in Siberia helped to disrupt an arsenal that Moscow deploys to hit Ukraine with some of its most powerful missiles. It also demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to hit key assets thousands of miles from the front lines, which the Russian military had thought were safe.
While nobody is predicting that Sunday’s dramatic attack will change the course of Vladimir Putin’s war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy celebrated the “brilliant” covert operation.
Planned over a year and a half and involving unmanned aerial vehicles popping out of trucks that had been driven across Russia’s vast expanse, it was the longest-range mission undertaken in the three-year war, he said.
The damage inflicted on the warplanes is likely to rattle decision makers around Putin rather than shake up Moscow’s military aims. Only a few such bombers are needed for attacks on Ukraine, meaning that the pace of missile and bombing strikes won’t slow, according to people close to the Kremlin who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But the deep-penetration raid was a direct hit on air assets, including targets on Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22 M3 bombers that have long been considered less vulnerable to attack than land and naval forces, which have suffered bigger losses. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed attacks at five military airbases across the country on Sunday. Russia acknowledged that several aircraft were damaged, compared with Kyiv’s claim that more than 40 planes were hit. A person close to the Kremlin put the tally at closer to 10. Pro-Moscow military blogger Rybar, which has about 1.3 million Telegram subscribers, estimated that 13 aircraft were affected, most of them long-range bombers.
Western officials continued to assess the aftermath of the raid. The destruction was “substantial,” with at least seven Tu-95s and four Tu-22s damaged or destroyed, according to one senior official. The strike, broadcast widely on Russian social media, was successful in lifting moral in Ukraine, a European diplomat said.
President Donald Trump’s administration was not notified ahead of the attack, a US official said.
Today's show features:
- Angela Stent, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, on Ukraine’s drone strikes inside Russia and Monday’s talks between the warring nations
- Bloomberg Economic Chief Geoeconomics Analyst Jennifer Welch on new developments in the US-China trade war
- Alan Zafran, Co-Founder and Managing Partner IEQ Capital on markets and investing strategies
- Jeffrey Hirsch, President and Chief Executive Officer of Starz on his company’s recent earnings and separation from Lionsgate
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