Russian President Vladimir Putin did not mention Ukraine’s recent drone strikes that destroyed dozens of Russian strategic bombers during a lengthy televised cabinet meeting on June 4 — despite the attack marking one of the most significant blows to Russia’s military infrastructure since the start of the full-scale war.
The strikes, part of Ukraine’s covert Operation Spiderweb, were carried out on June 1 using first-person-view (FPV) drones that had been smuggled into Russia and hidden in trucks. The drones successfully targeted four major airfields — Olenya, Ivanovo, Dyagilevo, and Belaya — used by Russia’s long-range aviation fleet, responsible for regular missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed that 41 aircraft were hit, including heavy bombers and rare A-50 spy planes, causing an estimated $7 billion in damage. Many of the bombers were destroyed beyond repair, while others may take years to restore. President Volodymyr Zelensky and SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk personally oversaw the operation.
On June 4, the SBU released high-resolution footage of the strikes, highlighting the precision and scale of the operation.
On June 4, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the incident, saying Putin had been informed and that Russia’s Investigative Committee had launched a probe. “The president received information about the incident online,” Peskov told reporters. “There was also a corresponding statement from the Defense Ministry.”
Despite the scale of the attack, Putin avoided addressing the matter during his first public appearance following the strikes. Instead, he focused on other incidents, including a railway bridge bombing that killed at least seven and injured over 100 people in the Bryansk region, which he blamed on Ukraine.
The Kremlin’s silence stands in stark contrast to celebrations in Kyiv, where Zelensky called the operation “brilliant” and said it dealt “significant losses — entirely justified and deserved.”
In the meantime, Russian forces are attempting to downplay the scale of losses to their strategic aviation following Operation Spiderweb by replacing damaged aircraft with intact ones, a source in SBU told the Kyiv Independent.
After the operation, Moscow has been trying to obscure the true extent of its losses. According to the SBU source, the Russian military is bringing undamaged planes to the airfields to replace the destroyed ones so that satellite imagery does not show the burned-out aircraft.
OSINT analysts have also observed this tactic. For example, on June 2, satellite images showed a burned Tu-95 bomber at one of the targeted airfields, but by June 4, a fully intact Tu-95 appeared in the same spot.
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