烏克蘭大膽的無人機襲擊向俄羅斯乃至西方發出了關鍵信號

Recently BBC news on-line reported the following:

Ukraine's audacious drone attack sends critical message to Russia - and the West

BBC -Paul Adams - Diplomatic correspondent

Sun, June 1, 2025 at 2:21 p.m. PDT·3 min read

 It's hard to exaggerate the sheer audacity - or ingenuity - that went into Ukraine's countrywide assault on Russia's air force.

We cannot possibly verify Ukrainian claims that the attacks resulted in $7bn (£5.2bn) of damage, but it's clear that "Operation Spider's Web" was, at the very least, a spectacular propaganda coup.

Ukrainians are already comparing it with other notable military successes since Russia's full-scale invasion, including the sinking of the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, and the bombing of the Kerch Bridge, both in 2022, as well as a missile attack on Sevastopol harbour the following year.

Judging by details leaked to the media by Ukraine's military intelligence, the SBU, the latest operation is the most elaborate achievement so far.

In an operation said to have taken 18 months to prepare, scores of small drones were smuggled into Russia, stored in special compartments aboard freight trucks, driven to at least four separate locations, thousands of miles apart, and launched remotely towards nearby airbases.

"No intelligence operation in the world has done anything like this before," defence analyst Serhii Kuzan told Ukrainian TV.

"These strategic bombers are capable of launching long-range strikes against us," he said. "There are only 120 of them and we struck 40. That's an incredible figure."

It is hard to assess the damage, but Ukrainian military blogger Oleksandr Kovalenko says that even if the bombers, and command and control aircraft were not destroyed, the impact is enormous.

"The extent of the damage is such that the Russian military-industrial complex, in its current state, is unlikely to be able to restore them in the near future," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

The strategic missile-carrying bombers in question, the Tu-95, Tu-22, and Tu-160 are, he said, no longer in production. Repairing them will be difficult, replacing them impossible.

The loss of the supersonic Tu-160, he said, would be especially keenly felt.

"Today, the Russian Aerospace Forces lost not just two of their rarest aircraft, but truly two unicorns in the herd," he wrote.

Beyond the physical damage, which may or may not be as great as analysts here are assessing, Operation Spider's Web sends another critical message, not just to Russia but also to Ukraine's western allies.

My colleague Svyatoslav Khomenko, writing for the BBC Ukrainian Service website, recalls a recent encounter with a government official in Kyiv.

The official was frustrated.

"The biggest problem," the official told Svyatoslav, "is that the Americans have convinced themselves we've already lost the war. And from that assumption everything else follows."

Ukrainian defence journalist Illia Ponomarenko, posting on X, puts it another way, with a pointed reference to President Volodymyr Zelensky's infamous Oval office encounter with Donald Trump.

"This is what happens when a proud nation under attack doesn't listen to all those: 'Ukraine has only six months left'. 'You have no cards'. 'Just surrender for peace, Russia cannot lose'."

Even more pithy was a tweet from the quarterly Business Ukraine journal, which proudly proclaimed "It turns out Ukraine does have some cards after all. Today Zelensky played the King of Drones."

This, then, is the message Ukrainian delegates carry as they arrive in Istanbul for a fresh round of ceasefire negotiations with representatives from the Kremlin: Ukraine is still in the fight.

The Americans "begin acting as if their role is to negotiate for us the softest possible terms of surrender," the government official told Svyatoslav Khomenko.

"And then they're offended when we don't thank them. But of course we don't – because we don't believe we've been defeated."

Despite Russia's slow, inexorable advance through the battlefields of the Donbas, Ukraine is telling Russia, and the Trump administration, not to dismiss Kyiv's prospects so easily.

Translation

烏克蘭大膽的無人機襲擊向俄羅斯乃至西方發出了關鍵信號

烏克蘭在俄羅斯全國範圍內襲擊其空軍，其大膽程度 - 或者說是精妙程度 - 無論怎麼誇大都不為過。

我們無法證實烏克蘭聲稱襲擊造成了70億美元（52億英鎊）的損失，但「蜘蛛網行動」至少是一次引人注目的宣傳勝利，這一點毋庸置疑。

烏克蘭人已經將其與俄羅斯全面入侵以來其他顯著的軍事勝利相提並論，包括2022年擊沉俄羅斯黑海艦隊旗艦「莫斯科號」和炸毀 Kerch 橋，以及次年對 Sevastopol 港的飛彈襲擊。

從烏克蘭軍事情報機構烏克蘭安全局（SBU）向媒體洩漏的細節來看，這項行動是迄今為止最精心策劃的行動。

據稱，這項行動籌備了18個月，數十架小型無人機被走私到俄羅斯，存放在貨運卡車的特殊隔間中，運往至少四個相距數千英里的不同地點，然後遠程發射至附近的空軍基地。

國防分析師 Serhii Kuzan 告訴烏克蘭電視台： “世界上從未有過任何情報行動做過這樣的事情。”

他說： “這些戰略轟炸機能夠對我們發動遠程打擊”; “它們只有120架，而我們擊中了40架。這是一個令人難以置信的數字。”

損失難以評估，但烏克蘭軍事部落客 Oleksandr Kovalenko 表示，即使轟炸機和指揮控制飛機沒有被摧毀，其影響也是巨大的。

他在自己的 Telegram 頻道上寫道： “損失如此嚴重，以俄羅斯軍工綜合體目前的狀況，短期內不太可能修復它們。”

他表示，這批圖-95、圖-22和圖-160戰略飛彈轟炸機已停產。修復它們將非常困難，替代它們是不可能的。

他表示，圖-160超音速轟炸機的損失將帶來特別深切的感受。

他寫道： “今天，俄羅斯空天軍損失的不僅僅是兩架最稀有的飛機，而確實是羣機中的 ‘獨角獸’。”

除了實體損失（其嚴重程度有可能或不可能與分析人士的評估相符），「蜘蛛網行動」也向俄羅斯和烏克蘭的西方盟友發出了另一個重要訊號。

我的同事 Svyatoslav Khomenko 在BBC烏克蘭語頻道網站撰稿時，回憶了最近在基輔與一位政府官員的會面。

這位官員非常沮喪。

這位官員告訴 Svyatoslav： “最大的問題是，美國人已經確信我們已經輸掉了這場戰爭。其他一切都源於這種假設。”

烏克蘭國防記者 Illia Ponomarenko 在X網站上發帖，用另一種方​​式表達了這一觀點，並尖銳地提到了總統澤連斯基與特朗普在橢圓形辦公室那場受到廣泛譴和責負面的會面。

「當一個驕傲的國家遭受攻擊，卻不聽從所有這些人的建議時，就會發生這種情況：『烏克蘭只剩六個月了』。『你沒有牌了』。『為了和平，投降吧，俄羅斯不能輸』。”

季刊《商業烏克蘭》的一條推文更是一針見血，自豪地宣稱： “事實證明，烏克蘭還是有牌的。今天，澤連斯基扮演了 ‘無人機之王’的角色。”

烏克蘭代表抵達伊斯坦布爾，與克里姆林宮代表進行新一輪停火談判，他們傳遞的訊息是：烏克蘭仍在戰鬥。

這位政府官員告訴 Svyatoslav Khomenko，美國人「開始表現得好像他們的角色就是為我們談判盡可能溫和的投降條件」。

“然後，當我們沒有感謝他們時，他們就生氣了。但我們當然不會 - 因為我們不相信我們被打敗了。”

儘管俄羅斯在 Donbas 戰場上緩慢而勢不可擋地推進，但烏克蘭正在告訴俄羅斯和特朗普政府，不要輕易放棄基輔的前景。

       So, Ukraine has mounted a countrywide assault on Russia's air force. While we cannot verify Ukrainian claims that the attacks resulted in $7bn of damage, but it's clear that "Operation Spider's Web" is a spectacular propaganda. It shows that all those comments saying that ‘Ukraine has only six months left'. 'You have no cards'. 'Just surrender for peace, Russia cannot lose’ are too pessimistic. Apparently, Ukraine intends to defend their land with the help from European countries.