Four days after Ukraine launched its most complex attack against Russia since the full-scale war began, details of how it was carried out and the damage it caused to Russia’s strategic bomber fleet are still emerging. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the operation, dubbed “Spider’s Web”, as “absolutely brilliant”, although the extent of Russian military losses remains unclear. On Wednesday, he said that of 41 planes that were damaged, half cannot be repaired. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has since said that aircraft were damaged but not destroyed in the attack and would be restored, while the United States assessed that up to 20 Russian warplanes were struck and around 10 destroyed. That figure is closer to an estimate by Justin Bronk, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), who used available imagery to conclude that 12 strategic bombers, including eight Tu-95s and four Tu-22s, were destroyed and several others likely damaged. The attack, a headline-grabbing show of strength carried out on the eve of the second round of peace talks between the warring countries in Istanbul, targeted at least four Russian military air bases, the furthest of which from Ukraine is the Belaya base in the Siberian region of Irkutsk, around 4,850 km (3,000 miles) from Kyiv.

Full story : How Ukraine pulled off an audacious attack deep inside Russia.