Ukrainian intelligence preparing new cross-border strikes like Cobweb — sources

According to WP, Ukraine’s SBU Security Service and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry (HUR) have acted on their longstanding motto, “I’m coming for you,” since the full-scale invasion began. Their operations aim to shift the fight onto Russian territory and beyond, the paper noted.

Sources in Ukrainian intelligence also told WP that SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the Cobweb operation in advance but withheld the details from other senior officials in the President’s Office — including one of Zelenskyy’s key deputies.

Reporters described the operation as a bold attempt by Kyiv to “reset the negotiating table.”

Earlier on June 6, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg said the Cobweb operation could alter the course of the war and potentially spur peace efforts.

Cobweb special operation — the details

On June 1, the SBU carried out a large-scale and unprecedented operation called Cobweb to destroy Russia’s strategic bombers. The next day, Ukraine’s SBU confirmed that 41 aircraft were damaged in simultaneous strikes on four military airfields deep inside Russia. Among the aircraft hit were A-50 airborne radar planes and Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and Tu-160 bombers.

Ukrainian drones targeted four airbases across Russia: Olenya in Murmansk Oblast, Belaya in Irkutsk Oblast, Dyagilevo in Ryazan Oblast, and Ivanovo in Ivanovo Oblast. The strike on the Belaya airbase marked the first Ukrainian attack on military targets in Siberia since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Sources in Ukraine’s intelligence community told NV that the operation was extremely complex logistically. First, the SBU smuggled FPV drones into Russia, followed by mobile wooden cabins. The drones were hidden beneath the cabins’ roofs, which had been mounted on trucks. At the right moment, the roofs were remotely opened and the drones launched, flying out to strike Russian bombers.

The operation took a year and a half to prepare and was launched following a series of brutal Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities that killed civilians — and amid ongoing U.S. efforts to mediate so-called “peace negotiations” between Ukraine and Russia.