Ukraine’s Drone Swarms Are Destroying Russian Nuclear Bombers. What Happens Now?

On June 1, Ukraine launched drone attacks against strategic airbases across Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that the strikes—dubbed Operation “Spider’s Web”—damaged or destroyed 34 percent of Russia’s strategic cruise missile–carrying bomber fleet. Ukrainian government sources subsequently reported that the attacks hit 41 and destroyed “at least 13” aircraft at four bases, including two facilities over 1,000 miles from Ukraine. Open-source satellite imagery and videos suggest that the attacks destroyed and damaged multiple strategic aircraft, but the attacks’ full impact will likely become clearer as additional imagery becomes available over the coming days.

The fact that cheap drones destroyed a significant fraction of Russia’s nuclear-capable bomber force is almost impossible to ignore. Past events suggest that Russia may respond with nuclear threats if it perceives Western involvement, but the scale of the attack may elicit a forceful response regardless. Further, the strikes underscore how other large militaries, like that of the United States, may be vulnerable to drone attack. Despite the attention paid to procuring new counter-drone systems, changes to organization, training, and legal authorities are equally important to filling the defensive gap. Guerilla warfare is now possible by air.

Q1: How did Ukraine strike Russia’s nuclear bombers?

A1: The operation involved 117 small, first-person view (FPV) drones, which Ukraine smuggled into Russia and launched from commercial cargo trucks near Russian airbases. The SBU—Ukraine’s internal security and intelligence agency—claimed responsibility for the attacks, which struck four locations: Dyagilevo Air Base in Ryazan Oblast, Ivanovo Air Base in Ivanovo Oblast, Olenya Air Base in Murmansk Oblast, and Belaya Air Base in Irkutsk Oblast.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed that attacks were repelled in Amur, Murmansk, and Ivanovo oblasts, but acknowledged that drones caused several aircraft to catch fire in Murmansk and Irkutsk. Commercial satellite imagery and videos of the attacks suggest that Ukraine destroyed or damaged at least four Tu-95 Bear and three Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers at Belaya Air Base, four Bears and an An-12 Cub cargo plane at Olenya Air Base, two A-50U Mainstay airborne warning platforms at Ivanovo Air Base, and an uncertain number of Backfire bombers at Dyagilevo Air Base.

Ukraine’s attack follows a series of record-breaking Russian drone and missile strikes against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. The night before the attack, Russia conducted the largest wave of strikes to date, using 472 drones. The weekend prior, Russia launched a multi-day strike with over 1,000 drones and missiles that killed 15 and injured dozens more. Russian strategic bombers—including the Bear and Backfire—have played key roles in past strikes, and Operation Spider’s Web partly serves as retaliation for those attacks. The planning for the operation, however, took over 18 months, and the decision to launch the attacks on June 1 may have been more a matter of tactical opportunity than retaliation for any specific Russian attack.

Q2: Will Russia make nuclear threats?

A2: So far, Russia’s public response to the attacks has been muted. Russian media reporting on the incident has been limited, and Kremlin officials have been slow to comment. On June 4, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov urged the United States and United Kingdom to “react in such a way as to stop further escalation,” and the spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry alleged that the West provided support for Ukraine’s attacks. On a call with President Trump, however, Putin pledged to respond to the attacks.

Ukraine’s latest strikes serve as a case study on how Russia reacts to attacks on its nuclear forces. Kremlin responses to past Ukrainian strikes on nuclear-capable systems have been muted, provided they were conducted with Ukraine’s own drones. When Ukraine destroyed nuclear-capable Backfire bombers in July and August 2023, for example, the Kremlin responded with unremarkable MoD statements. The Kremlin’s reactions to Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil and gas infrastructure have been similarly restrained. Notably, while Ukraine’s latest strikes meet Russian doctrinal conditions for a nuclear response (Russia’s nuclear doctrine lists “actions by an adversary affecting elements of critically important state or military infrastructure of the Russian Federation, the disablement of which would disrupt response actions by nuclear forces” as a condition justifying the use of nuclear weapons), there are no public indications that Russia has changed its nuclear posture.

On the other hand, Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with Western support (real or perceived) have elicited more forceful reactions. Following Ukrainian strikes on Russian early warning radars (used for detecting nuclear launches) in May 2024, for example, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov warned that Russia’s response could be “asymmetrical” and that the United States was “underestimating the seriousness of the response they may receive” for supporting such attacks. And after Ukraine struck conventional targets in Russia with Western missiles in November 2024, the Kremlin sent a clear nuclear signal to Ukraine and its Western supporters by launching a dual-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) into Ukraine.

If the Kremlin concludes that Operation Spider’s Web benefited from U.S. support (as it seems to have done), Russia may attempt to coerce the West into restraining future Ukrainian strikes with intensified nuclear signaling, such as by using dual-capable munitions like the Oreshnik IRBM. And given the scale of Ukraine’s strikes, Russia may feel compelled to send a nuclear signal regardless of Western involvement.

Q3: How will this affect Russia’s military?

A3: The loss of even 11 aircraft would be a major blow to Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, which has played a central role in missile strikes against Ukraine. As of 2025, the Russian Air Force is thought to operate 126 strategic bombers, including 55 Tu-22M3 Backfires, 58 Tu-95MS Bears, and 13 Tu-160 Blackjacks. In addition, Russia operates only seven A-50U Mainstay airborne radar aircraft, used for detecting Ukrainian aircraft, missiles, and drones and commanding friendly aircraft.

Only a portion of the bombers that Russia has available are equipped for and employed in the strategic nuclear mission. Russia’s strategic nuclear bomber force consists of roughly 52 Bears and 13 Blackjacks, making the loss of 11 or more bombers a substantial challenge for Russia’s strategic airborne nuclear forces. Russia’s bomber leg, however, was already the smallest component of its nuclear triad: air-launched weapons account for only 586 of Russia’s estimated 2,832 strategic warheads, the bulk of which are deployed on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and ballistic missile submarines.

These aircraft losses are more significant when considering that not all of Russia’s bomber inventory can be easily regenerated. Both the Backfire and Bear bombers, the mainstays of Moscow’s bomber force, are long out of production, and constructing new Blackjacks to replace them has proven exceptionally costly.

It is also crucial to recognize that not all of Russia’s bombers are available for combat. In the United States, for instance, roughly half of the bomber fleet is under maintenance or otherwise unavailable at any given time. After strikes in 2023, Ukraine’s intelligence chief estimated that Russia possessed only 27 Backfires “that can actually fly.” If the aircraft Ukraine hit were combat-ready, the strike would disproportionately impact Russia’s air operations.

Q4: Is the United States prepared for similar kinds of attacks?

A4: The United States, like Russia, has long leaned on its geographic depth to secure itself against threats. Attacks such as these are a reminder that this protection only extends so far.

Though drone incursions have continued for years, low-flying, low-cost, and unanticipated air threats remain a challenge for air defenders. In January 2024, drone incursions inflicted the first deadly air attack on American soldiers since the Korean War, killing three in Iraq. Between August 2023 and April 2024, just one Army Brigade Combat Team faced 170 drone attacks. While U.S. forces abroad now possess first-generation systems for countering small drones, dense, comprehensive coverage of homeland infrastructure remains further off.

These concerns have persisted long before drone attacks became frequent. Two decades ago, U.S. forces in Kuwait struggled to intercept Saddam Hussein’s inaccurate, low-flying cruise missiles, lacking the sensors to detect them at range. In 2015, a disgruntled postal worker flew a low-flying gyrocopter onto the Capitol lawn, penetrating protected airspace undetected. The event, which took place after years of stalled investment in cruise missile defense, prompted soul-searching over the United States’ readiness to detect low-flying drone and cruise missile threats.

Since then, the Department of Defense has rushed to deploy countermeasures for small drone threats, particularly for forces stationed abroad. After the earliest counter-drone exercises in 2013, the Army and Marine Corps have outfitted their air defense units with new weapons, like M-LIDS, a radar-and-cannon-equipped truck, or the Coyote interceptor, purchasing 690 rounds at $130,000 apiece in fiscal year 2025. These and other systems have now seen frequent use in the Middle East.

However, gaps remain in defending bases and critical infrastructure within the United States. While the Pentagon has started new efforts to scale homeland defense, new widgets alone are insufficient. Deploying systems domestically will demand careful coordination between the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, and state and local governments, requiring new legal authorities.

Further, while the Department of Defense designated the Army, and its Joint Counter-Small UAS Office (JCO), to synchronize activities and test potential solutions, each military service acquires systems and develops doctrine individually. Increased coordination, however, may be needed when considering more ambitious approaches for homeland drone defense.

Finally, efforts to build more training infrastructure, courses, and personnel must be accelerated. As Army Major General Scott Naumann has emphasized, counter-drone training must not be limited to specific personnel, but taught to all—“as routine as drawing our rifles.”

Q5: What could this mean going forward?

A5: In some respects, the strike is a watershed moment for air warfare. Such a coordinated air attack, covertly launched from deep in enemy territory, has not been performed at such a scale before. Moreover, key elements of the attack were automated. Drones independently located and struck targets, with artificial intelligence trained to visually recognize Russian aircraft. As military strategist T.X. Hammes predicted over a decade ago, off-the-shelf drones achieved strategic effects against larger, traditional air forces.

In other dimensions, however, the attack is better understood as a culmination of existing trends. The level of autonomy employed, for instance, has established precedents. The United States has long experimented with automated one-way attack drones, prototyping munitions like the Low Cost Autonomous Attack System (LOCAAS) and related concepts over 20 years ago. Indeed, large militaries already field automated one-way attack drones in the form of anti-ship missiles, which can automatically detect and discriminate targets without external direction.

What has changed is perspective and scale. Where wealthier militaries have often viewed drones as complements to ships, aircraft, and other manned platforms, Ukraine has been forced to develop concepts for using them independently. As other CSIS experts have observed, low-cost unmanned systems have allowed Ukraine to employ novel doctrines for special operations. Moreover, the scale of the attack underscores how traditional notions of air superiority break down. Suppressing enemy air forces no longer assures that skies will be safe; there is now an “air littoral”—a domain of lower-altitude, lower-end drone threats—that must be secured. The June 1 attack highlights an ongoing revolution in asymmetric warfare by air.

Masao Dahlgren is a fellow with the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Lachlan MacKenzie is a research associate with the Project on Nuclear Issues at CSIS.