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This is a riff on several articles published in June 2025.
On 1 June 2025, Ukrainian drones heavily damaged Russia’s strategic strike capacity at several bases hosting nuclear-capable strategic bombers all across Russia in an operation unprecedented in its scope and sophistication, which Ukraine called SPIDERWEB. The bold attack showed Ukraine’s capability to hit high-value targets anywhere in Russia, dealing a humiliating blow to the Kremlin and inflicting significant losses to Moscow's war machine. As Russia has done to Ukraine so many times before, Ukraine pulled off an offensive that hurt the Russians tangibly.
The $500 Machines Overhauling Strategic Warfare
Aircraft maintenance crews at five airfields from the Arctic to the Pacific watched as the drones swarmed their billion-dollar bomber fleet. Over the past 18 months, at least seven trucks smuggled wooden boxes disguised as sheds containing these drones across the border—right under the noses of the FSB.
Independent verification of the conflicting claims was impossible, and the social media video of the assault showed only a few bombers damaged or destroyed. Ukraine claimed Russia lost about a third of its strategic bomber fleet, and Ukraine says all the drone operators escaped Russian territory without being caught. Moscow stated that only a few planes sustained damage. Regardless of how much or how little, the bold attack showed Ukraine’s capability to hit high-value targets anywhere in Russia, dealing a humiliating blow to the Kremlin.
Russia has used the Tupolev Tu-95, code named BEAR by NATO, and the Tupolev Tu-22M, code named BACKFIRE, to launch waves of cruise missile strikes. Ukrainian officials also said that they hit at least one Beriev A-50, code named MAINSTAY, an early warning and control aircraft similar to US AWACS planes used to coordinate aerial attacks.
While some Russian military bloggers compared SPIDERWEB to Pearl Harbor, others rejected the analogy, arguing the actual damage was far less significant than Ukraine claimed. The bloggers also criticized the Defense Ministry for failing to learn from previous strikes and protect the bombers. Building shelters or hangars for such large planes is a daunting task, and the military has tried some impromptu solutions. Satellite images have shown Tu-95s covered with layers of old tires.
Lesson One, Pentagon: Expensive does not mean good or invulnerable.
Previous Ukrainian attacks destroyed some Tu-22s; before this attack, Russia's active fleet numbered between 50 and 60 Tu-22s. The Ukrainian drones, modified consumer models, cost about $500 each, whereas the Russian bombers are worth between $40 and $50 million. That’s about a 1:100,000 cost-to-damage ratio, and those drones take about an afternoon to make. The 1991 collapse of the USSR ended production of the Tu-95 and Tu-22, making the losses irreplaceable. It’s not clear if the Russians can even repair the damaged aircraft. Only a few A-50s have been in service, and any losses there badly dents Russia’s military capability, and not just against Ukraine.
Why commission $50 million bombers when an enemy can take them out with weapons that cost less than a 50-inch TV? Ukraine proved it is possible to cripple a major power’s air force for the price of a sensible family sedan. Wartime conditions and constantly attacked supply chains did not stop domestic Ukrainian manufacturers from producing the drones. Remember that Oval Office meeting between Presidents Zelensky and Trump? Well, this operation flips that script a bit, showing that Ukraine still has “cards to play,” and can innovate and adapt despite facing a richer and more powerful enemy.
Pop Quiz, Pentagon: How many Trojan boxes are there across America?
Strategic weapons don’t have to fly over your borders. This is a wake-up call, telling anyone paying attention that nowhere is safe, regardless of how far a target is from your enemy. Wooden boxes—or shipping containers—can hide nasty surprises. Operation SPIDERWEB shows just how little control Russia—or any country—has over its borders. Not everyone got that message, though.
President Tramp’s planned Golden Dome missile-defense shield isn’t the boondoggle it’s portrayed to be in the press.
The Wall Street Journal
Guess again.
Enemies may already possess, or could deploy, or already have deployed, cheap weapons capable of crippling US military and industrial capability right under the noses of any officials you might name. Worse, they could devastate our infrastructure with even fewer dime store weapons and never even trigger the pie-in-the-sky, latter-day SDI/Golden Dome designed to catch those big, expensive missiles and bombers…you know, just like the Pentagon’s overpriced toys. If we see a single part of that Maginot Line of the 21st Century before 2028, it’ll be a miracle, and it would be useless, anyway.
Lesson Two, America: Trump cannot control of your borders entirely.
Inspectors open less than 10% of the millions of containers—big iron boxes designed to fit on ships, trucks and rail cars—that transit the world between shipper and destination. Bar codes and serial numbers mark them, so a good shipper knows exactly where his containers are at all times…until someone corrupts the system, which we know has already happened scores of times, smuggling drugs, people, whatever. Spread a little money here and there, and those “hair dryers” the manifest says are in that box on its way to Hometown USA becomes…use your imagination, or your worst nightmare. There are simply not enough inspectors, not enough investigators, not enough time to be as thorough as we should be about this threat that gets worse every day.
Imagine: a container filled with Al-guided consumer-level drones shipped across borders with little or no oversight, waiting months for the moment to strike via cell phone signal and find those big heat plumes from nearby power plants. Imagine a nuclear weapon, or chemical weapon, in a container yard in downtown Yourtown. All that’s needed is someone to make that call.
Don’t think our enemies haven’t learned the lesson of SPIDERWEB just because we refuse to.
Steele’s Battalion: The Great War Diaries
World War One was bad enough, with the mud and the senseless slaughter for so little ground gained. Then this guy named Steele had an idea: think of it as a SPIDERWEB from 1918.
Don’t take my word for it; read what Roads To The Great War said about it.
And Finally...
On 13 September:
1860: John J. Pershing is born in Laclede, Missouri. Pershing’s earliest memory was when his father stood on him and his brother on the floor of their house as he fought off a Confederate raid in 1863. The Commanding General of the AEF in WWI and General of the Armies after it (the only officer to hold that title) repeated that story often.
1956: IBM introduces the RAMAC 305 in Armonk, New York. The first commercial computer that used a moving-head hard magnetic disk drive for secondary storage cost $3,200 a month for its whopping 3.75 megabytes of storage.
And today is INTERNATIONAL CHOCOLATE DAY, incidentally commemorating the birth of Milton S. Hershey in Derry Township, Pennsylvania, on this day in 1857. Not to be confused with WORLD CHOCOLATE DAY on 7 July, which is the truly global day. INTERNATIONAL CHOCOLATE DAY is primarily an American celebration, so it is said. Go figure…