🧵 🇺🇦 🇷🇺 One year ago today: Operation Spiderweb. On June 1, 2025, Ukraine's Security Service launched the most audacious covert operation of the war - 18 months in planning, kept secret even from Ukraine's own allies. 117 FPV drones. Five Russian air bases. Five time zones. From Murmansk... above the Arctic Circle to Irkutsk in Siberia - 4,300km from Ukraine. $7 billion in damage. 41 aircraft hit. Russia's "Pearl Harbor." The architects of Spiderweb are still operating. Threaded the operation below:🧵⬇️show more

The morning after, Zelensky spoke: "Europe, together with America, has better weapons than Russia. We also have stronger tactical solutions - our Operation Spiderweb yesterday proved that. Russia must feel what its losses mean. That is what will push it toward diplomacy." The bombers that were burning that morning had launched over 2,000 cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities over three years. One year later: Ukraine struck 23 Russian targets in a single night this week. Eight regions. 1,200km range. The Saratov oil refinery burning. "Russia must feel what its losses mean." It still does. 🧵⬇️

The SBU releasing footage of the vehicles used in Operation Spiderweb - ordinary-looking cargo trucks carrying wooden containers designed to look like prefabricated houses. Inside: 117 FPV drones packed. Remotely-operated roofs. AI-assisted targeting data trained on museum aircraft - identifying the precise structural weak points of Tu-95s, Tu-22M3s, and A-50s. The drivers had no idea what they were transporting. One told Russian state media: "They were in the back of the truck and we threw stones to keep them from flying up." The trucks self-destructed after the drones launched - denying Russia any forensic access to the technology. All SBU operatives had left Russian territory before the first drone flew. The planning: 1 year, 6 months, and 9 days. One command post reportedly set up next to an FSB office. 🧵⬇️

Five Russian air bases. Five time zones. Olenya, Murmansk - 1,900km from Ukraine. Tu-22M3 and Tu-95 strategic bombers. Dyagilevo, Ryazan - 470km. Russia's central hub for strategic bomber crew training and aircraft repair. Ivanovo - 700km. Primary base for Russia's A-50 AWACS - fewer than 10 in existence, each worth $350 million. Belaya, Irkutsk - 4,300km, deep in Siberia. Previously thought completely unreachable. Ukrainka, Amur - partially struck. 41 aircraft hit. 10-13 completely destroyed - Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3, Tu-160, A-50. None in production. None replaceable. The Soviet supply chain that built them no longer exists. Belaya - 4,300km from Kyiv -was struck by a $1,000 drone. 🧵⬇️

🇺🇦 @ChathamHouse published its analysis one week later: "Operation Spiderweb will undoubtedly enter the history books. All the technologies used - or versions of them - are available to many other states, as well as non-state actors." @CSIS : "It is impossible to protect everything, everywhere, all the time." The blueprint has already been adopted: Hezbollah deployed fiber-optic FPV drones with thermal cameras against IDF armor in Lebanon - immune to jamming. Iranian Shaheds evolved from the same asymmetric doctrine Ukraine pioneered. The Pentagon responded with a $54 billion Drone Dominance budget request for fiscal 2027 - a 24,000% increase from this year. NATO set up a dedicated drone learning center in Poland. "Warfare has changed. NATO must pay attention." - Chatham House. Ukraine changed it. 🧵⬇️

🇺🇦 🇷🇺One year after Spiderweb, Ukraine operates what the SBU called "long-range sanctions" on a nightly basis. Saratov oil refinery - 700km. Taganrog - two Tu-142s destroyed, shadow fleet tanker burning. Yaroslavl. Voronezh. Volgograd. Eight Russian regions in one week. The same doctrine. The same ingenuity. Scaled. Russia is preparing another massive strike on Ukraine tonight. The country that launched Spiderweb from wooden boxes on Russian highways is simultaneously running a logistics lockdown across occupied Crimea, advancing on four fronts, and offering the United States a technology exchange deal that Washington hasn't accepted yet. "Russia must feel what its losses mean. That is what will push it toward diplomacy." -Zelensky, June 5, 2025. One year later. It still does.