Zelensky honors the SBU officers behind 'Spiderweb,' the drone raid that struck 41 Russian aircraft
On June 1, President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded state honors to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers behind Operation Spiderweb -- the covert drone raid that a year earlier struck four strategic Russian airfields and hit 41 aircraft, including Tu-95, Tu-22M3 and Tu-160 bombers and an A-50 radar plane. Ukraine says the operation disabled about 34 percent of Russia's strategic aviation, roughly $7 billion in losses, using drones 'incomparably cheaper' than their targets. Zelensky revealed it took more than 18 months to prepare and was coordinated by him and SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk, with the strike carried out by the agency's Alpha special-forces unit.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, June 1, awarded state honors to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers behind Operation Spiderweb, the audacious drone raid that a year earlier struck four strategic Russian airfields -- Belaya, Dyagilevo, Olenya and Ivanovo -- and hit 41 aircraft. The targets included rare, high-value assets: Tupolev Tu-95, Tu-22M3 and Tu-160 strategic bombers and a Beriev A-50 airborne early-warning plane.
Announcing the awards on Telegram and Facebook, Zelensky said the recipients could not be named because the operation "remains absolutely classified and will remain so for a long time." "This is already a historic operation of the Security Service of Ukraine," he wrote, recalling that it "entered its final stage" on this day a year ago, reaching "farther than Ukrainian long-range capabilities had ever reached before" and "as precisely as no one in Russia expected." He added: "Never before had Russia lost such equipment, in such numbers, and as a result of strikes by drones that were incomparably cheaper," and vowed that "Ukraine will always be one step ahead -- in technology, in bravery, and in the ability to capture the world's attention."
By Ukrainian estimates, the operation put about 34 percent of Russia's strategic aviation fleet out of action in a single day, with losses exceeding $7 billion and more than a third of Moscow's strategic cruise-missile carriers destroyed or disabled. Zelensky said the mission took more than a year and a half to prepare and was personally designed and coordinated by SBU head Vasyl Malyuk, with the drone strikes carried out by operators of the SBU's Alpha special-forces unit.
The anniversary fell amid an intensifying Ukrainian campaign against military targets deep inside Russia; Zelensky said Ukraine was now "applying long-range sanctions against Russia ... literally every day." Days earlier, overnight on May 28-29, the SBU's Alpha Center used long-range drones to destroy a Russian FSB electronic-intelligence facility in Krasnodar Krai that Kyiv said was used for signals intelligence and to support missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities.