Around 10 of Russia’s nuclear-capable strategic bombers were destroyed.
One of the officials cautioned that the attacks could prompt Moscow to take a far more severe negotiating position in the ceasefire talks.
On June 4, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin told U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone conversation that Moscow would have to respond to the attack.
It "was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
On June 2, Ukraine’s Security Service’s (SBU) head Vasyl Malyuk reported that 41 nuclear-capable strategic Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and Tu-160 bombers, as well as A-50 "Mainstay" airborne early warning and control (AWACS) aircraft stationed at four separate military bases across Russia had been destroyed or damaged in the special operation “Cobweb."
The operation was meticulously planned over the course of a year and a half and was personally overseen by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The aircraft, worth an estimated $7 billion, were targeted with 117 first-person-view (FPV) kamikaze drones hidden inside trucks in coordinated attacks on the Belaya air base in Irkutsk Oblast of Siberia, the Dyagilevo air base in Ryazan Oblast in western Russia, the Olenya air base in the northern Murmansk Oblast, and the Ivanovo air base in the central Ivanovo Oblast.
"In total, 34% of Russia's strategic cruise missile carriers at its main airfields were destroyed. This was not just a devastating blow to enemy aircraft, but also a slap in the face to the power and terrorist nature of the Russian Federation,”
The operation took place simultaneously in three time zones and was extremely complex logistically.
Russia has long ceased production of these aircraft and cannot replace the destroyed ore damaged ones. Only around 100-120 Tu-95s and Tu-22Ms remained before the attack, and only about a third of them are believed to be airworthy. These aircraft are vital for Russia's regular bombing raids on Ukraine.
The operation was carried out exactly 29 years to the day after Ukraine handed over dozens of its strategic bombers to Russia, along with up to 2,000 strategic nuclear warheads and 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in exchange for a promise by Russia and the West not to be attacked, under the Budapest Memorandum.