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Ukraine destroys more than 40 military aircraft in drone attack deep in Russia

• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• bratao 1y ago
  If the numbers are true, this would be one of the more successful attacks in history. Drones are changing the whole dynamic of wars.
  • consumer451 1y ago
    My concern is that it doesn't just change war, but security in general. I don't think that we have realized the real implications of this technology, especially the fiber optic drones.
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > I don't think that we have realized the real implications of this technology Define “we.” The defence community has been deeply engaged with what’s going on in Ukraine since ‘22. (And the supremacy of sensor fusion in India’s air battle with Pakistan.)
      • consumer451 1y ago
        We as a society. I don't want to write down my detailed thoughts on this, but anyone with a red team mind can imagine the implications for personal security.
        • jacquesm 1y ago
          Bluntly: nothing is safe from drones + a determined operator. No airfield, no aircraft on the ground, no government institution. Drones have changed warfare forever and Ukraine is writing the manual for future operations. What happened today was unthinkable 10 years ago. As one side effect I predict that at least in some places private drone ownership will become illegal. Think about it: for a few hundred K you get to take out a good chunk of a nuclear power's strike capability.
          • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
            > Drones have changed warfare forever We’re in a strategic imbalance. Cold War air defences were trained on high-value targets, like strategic bombers and spy planes. So currently our air defences are overspecced for something like this. Nothing about drones makes them inherently undetectable. You just need a different model. I suspect those should be commonplace within 20 years, potentially a decade. > at least in some places private drone ownership will become illegal I could see ownership being restricted in wartime. More likely is eager air defences shredding birds on perimeters.
            • nothercastle 1y ago
              Exactly ad well catch up but is limited by inefficiencies of procurement
          • threatofrain 1y ago
            Won't the cat and mouse game ultimately tilt to the side of defense? I imagine automated rifles are basically impossible to dodge. Automated rifles sound much more scary to me. Plant a rifle and wait a year, works on people and drones.
            • lmm 1y ago
              > Won't the cat and mouse game ultimately tilt to the side of defense? Probably not. Most of the history of war is weapons getting stronger and stronger and defence getting harder and harder. E.g. in ancient times a shield or simple palisade could protect you, now even tanks and trenches are not safe. The days of being able to build a wall along a border and hold it against a peer adversary are long gone and not coming back.
              • 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
                I feel like this correlates with nations getting bigger over time and the square-cube law (or line-square law for national borders?) but I am not smart enough at military stuff to figure it out
        • luckylion 1y ago
          How did it change? It's cheaper now, it's easier to pull off remotely, but most airports already were vulnerable to terrorist attacks. It feels like the primary mechanism that protected civilian airports is that the weapons you'd use aren't easy to get, and states didn't want to supply their sponsored terror groups with that kind of weaponry because it'd be dangerously close to an act of war and very hard to deny. Individually, you were never safe by default. Your safety depends on not being an interesting target.
          • euroderf 1y ago
            > Individually, you were never safe by default. Your safety depends on not being an interesting target. Hello, cyberpunk future. Imagine Luigi with Ukraine's strike capabilities. 10 years from now? 5?
            • XorNot 1y ago
              So you know, if instead of being one guy he was a substantial portion of intelligence operatives of a nation-state with significant industrial resources backing him? Ukraine isn't wealthy, but it's still an entire country.
              • euroderf 1y ago
                That's why I say 5 or 10 years. But it will happen - put it within reach of a lone operator. I suspect.
        • nradov 1y ago
          [flagged]
          • AStonesThrow 1y ago
            Aware, yes; writing to Congress, sure; but have they stocked up on butterfly nets? https://m.xkcd.com/1523/ https://m.xkcd.com/1523/
            • DonHopkins 1y ago
              Even for indoor press conferences! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbnDr_IbdIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbnDr_IbdIU
          • roenxi 1y ago
            I doubt they're claiming to have anything novel in their heads. It is like WWII where the militarily engaged people probably had a pretty good idea of what was about to happen as Europe descended into war. The citizens didn't really understand and there wasn't the level of diplomacy and panic in the early stages that the eventual crisis would have justified. If the average citizen had a good understanding of what an industrial war looked like and what was possible, they'd (taking an optimistically charitable view) have spent the 20s and 30s being a lot more vigorous in trying to keep the peace. Like the efforts we say from the 40s to around the 2010s where people who remembered WWII put huge amounts of effort into not letting it happen again.
            • baybal2 1y ago
              [dead]
        • jauntywundrkind 1y ago
          Kim Stanley Robinson wrote down pretty bluntly what society might do against the vicious nasty foes of the world with drones, in Ministry for the Future. A book very well reviewed by for example Bill Gates. https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/science-fiction/reader/the-ministry-for-the-future https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/science-fiction/reader/the-... Alas it feels optimistic to hope that asymmetric confrontation would be downtrodden people of the earth against bad world damaging take-take-take pests. Merely a science fiction. The world having powerful forces working strongly for the world rather than self interest: hardly believable science fiction.
    • larodi 1y ago
      Real implications are that once again you don’t want your personal shit being public, which will still take some while for gen.audience to understand about social media and all sorts of corporate surveillance.
      • tim333 1y ago
        I don't think my or most people's shit being public will result in fiber optic drone attack.
    • tenuousemphasis 1y ago
      Fiber optic drones? AI drones are the really scary one. No control frequency to jam, no fiber to carry.
• aaron695 1y ago
  [dead]
• GeoAtreides 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • k310 1y ago
    But we would just be speculating, since that info would be highly classified. I worked a bit on SDI, "Starwars" and here it is, back on the table. An article about it felt like a memoir. (U) So in this regard, the future is the past. Drones are another matter, of course. So is cyberwar. I worry about the internet going dark, but not enough to get an amateur radio license to stay in touch with family and friends, who would also have to do so, and under war or warlike conditions, the amateur bands could be silenced administratively.
    • GeoAtreides 1y ago
      >we would just be speculating it's called having a discussion about major current events, not drafting plans or writing studies. One would think the implications of bundling drones 4000km into enemy territory to strike at their nuclear deterrent would be worth some discussion
  • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > post will get flagged or manually removed by the mods soon “Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.” https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • GeoAtreides 1y ago
      But I didn't comment on the voting on comments, did I? I made a remark on the proven trend of HN to quickly remove interesting posts.
      • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > I didn't comment on the voting on comments, did I? Fair enough. I think there is similarity in complaining about flagging and downvoting in a way there isn’t for moderation, but that isn’t made clear in the guidelines. Sorry :P
• k310 1y ago
  Some say that the Spanish Civil War was the rehearsal for WWII. No doubt, the war in Ukraine is just such a situation.
  • cosmicgadget 1y ago
    As long as TACO doesn't dissolve NATO or try to invade Canada, the optimist in me believes a global conventional war is highly unlikely.
    • AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      Dissolving NATO is beyond his power. He could maybe withdraw the US from it.
      • snovymgodym 1y ago
        > He could maybe withdraw the US from it. realistically speaking, this destroys NATO
        • AnimalMuppet 1y ago
          Under current circumstances, I doubt it. NATO has extremely fresh evidence of why it needs to continue to exist, and what happens if it doesn't.
          • roenxi 1y ago
            WWII was pretty compelling evidence of why Britain needed a global empire, but nonetheless the empire was dissolved. There is a pretty good argument here for at a minimum reforming NATO. Some major points include that the US appears to be bluffing about having useful support to offer Eastern Europe through the NATO structure, also appears to have different defence priorities than Europe does, NATO itself failed to preserve peace and Europe looks like it has militarily atrophied to a pretty significant extent under NATO. It is not clear how the situation will ultimately be interpreted, but the US's involvement here is pushing Europe towards being the next middle east. That isn't a great outcome.
• jeffbee 1y ago
  It always seemed obvious to me that this vulnerability exists everywhere. For example there isn't anyone who will stop you from pre-positioning weapons adjacent to American strategic assets. That's why I thought the media freakout about the supposedly Chinese balloon was so ridiculous.
  • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > obvious to me that this vulnerability exists everywhere “Everywhere” meaning undefended airspace into which one masses a significant fraction of one type of strategic armament. This was the savvy exploitation by Kyiv, once again, of Russian operational incompetence. > there isn't anyone who will stop you from pre-positioning weapons adjacent to American strategic assets You want to try driving a truck up to a USAF base? (EDIT: Where strategic arms, e.g. B-2s, live.) This is a novel threat vector. It needs to be protected against with vigilance. That to requires active effort to counter doesn’t mean it’s OP. Just that defensive perimeters need to be expanded, units not needlessly amassed, air defences kept in check and those perimeters constantly (and completely) monitored.
    • jeffbee 1y ago
      Are you joking? Have you seen ANY American Air Force bases? Tinker AFB is flanked north and south by interstate freeways and surrounded by civilian truck stops and materiel depots. The easiest way to stage a weapon there would be to literally order it on Amazon. The air mobility command in the Bay Area is similarly totally surrounded by urban civilization.
      • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > Tinker AFB is flanked north and south by interstate freeways and surrounded by civilian truck stops and materiel depots Isn’t Tinker mostly logistics, intelligence and AWACS? Don’t get me wrong, that’s important. But you’re not taking out a significant fraction of any U.S. armament hitting Tinker with drones.
        • 1y ago
• JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  40 bombers is like a third of the Russian bomber fleet [1]. That is huge. [1] https://www.wdmma.org/russian-air-force.php https://www.wdmma.org/russian-air-force.php
  • ponector 1y ago
    Worth noting that it is about strategic bombers only. Even is all of them are destroyed - Russians will continue everyday terror against cities as usual, but from other platforms. Pure evil country.
    • mannerheim 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • justsomehnguy 1y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_December_2023_Belgorod_shelling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_December_2023_Belgorod_shel... > Twenty-five people,[15] including five children,[1] were reported to have been killed in the attacks, while 108 people,[3] including 17 children, were injured.[2]
        • mannerheim 1y ago
          >The attack occurred a day after Russia launched airstrikes at multiple cities in Ukraine, killing 57 and wounding 160. Needed to get 32 more.
        • ponector 1y ago
          Those are unverified claims. If you are going to believe to everything Russians say then they already destroyed Ukrainian army several times. Here is from 2024: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-jets-helicopter-aircraft-losses-1873253 https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-jets-helicopter-airc...
      • lxm 1y ago
• casenmgreen 1y ago
  The men who did this are heroes.
  • ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    As are any women involved
    • pkaodev 1y ago
      [flagged]
• zzzeek 1y ago
  these shipping containers seem to be automated, with roofs that blow off, launching drones, then the container itself self-destructs https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1929166249348476968 https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1929166249348476968 video of the self-destruct: https://bsky.app/profile/militarynewsua.bsky.social/post/3lqkaa5nxqk25 https://bsky.app/profile/militarynewsua.bsky.social/post/3lq...
  • BillyTheMage 1y ago
    Weird, it only shows one drone coming out. Do they come out one at a time? When I think launching a drone swarm deep inside a country, I imagine the top blowing off and thousands of drones swarming out at once like insects.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • Zanfa 1y ago
      There’s at least one other video where you can see the drones flying out one after the other, with like 10 second delay. Launching one at a time needs fewer pilots and has no risk of collisions that might set off a chain reaction. They’re clearly not in a hurry since who’s going to go near a truck full of high explosive drones anyway.
      • euazOn 1y ago
        Not true, not being in a hurry hurt one of the operations. "Russians climbed onto a truck in an attempt to prevent the takeoff of FPV drones and the attack on the airbase". https://nitter.net/bayraktar_1love/status/1929167910544589311#m https://nitter.net/bayraktar_1love/status/192916791054458931...
        • rasz 1y ago
          This is same parking lot from video of drones taking off https://nitter.poast.org/Osinttechnical/status/1929149970566836284#m https://nitter.poast.org/Osinttechnical/status/1929149970566... its after the attack and drones gone. Those idiots were lucky, there is another video from a truck that malfunctioned and caught fire on side of the road. russian forces the door, enters and boom. Appeared booby trapped.
• jqpabc123 1y ago
  I'm curious how they managed to control the drones from such a distance. I'll bet Russia is curious too.
  • zzzeek 1y ago
    obviously StarLink
    • jqpabc123 1y ago
      After a call from Putin, this won't happen again.
      • fredthestair 1y ago
        Right the attack Milo Minderbinder sells in 2 quarters will look just different enough to not exactly be the same thing happening again.
    • romperstomper 1y ago
      obviously StarLink doesn't work in the deeps of russian territories
      • zzzeek 1y ago
        Why, no antennas ? The shipping container has the antennas ? Starlink is a joke here but "satellites" in general are not
        • deleted 1y ago
          [deleted]
      • justsomehnguy 1y ago
        Civilian StarLink doesn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield
• rpozarickij 1y ago
  I haven't heard about fiber optic drones [0] before and it turns the fiber optic used by them is much stronger [1] than I initially suspected. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_optic_drone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_optic_drone [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh7SYWl79no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh7SYWl79no
  • aaron695 1y ago
    They are quite beautiful - https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/1kzy817/field_in_ukraine_covered_with_fiberoptic_cables/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/1kzy817/field... https://www.tiktok.com/@united24.na/video/7484039715323202862 https://www.tiktok.com/@united24.na/video/748403971532320286... https://www.tiktok.com/@united24.media/video/7489128209250798854 https://www.tiktok.com/@united24.media/video/748912820925079... Sparkling in the sky (they track and kill the men in this video after the 10 second mark so you might stop there) - https://x.com/ng_ukraine/status/1891534054811439380 https://x.com/ng_ukraine/status/1891534054811439380 High def footage, 60 fps until they hit. They are definitely useful for civilians, but seem dangerous. If you hit them on a motorbike etc. If you google kites and banned Chinese lines and road accidents its quite gory, but before the illegal kite lines accidents didn't seem to happen. So something should work for optic fibers. Run one to your mates house 10km away for the pay-per-view?
    • tim333 1y ago
      I was thinking you should be able to turn this into cheap fiber to the premises.
  • morkalork 1y ago
    Not sure why the sibling comment is dead, it's an interesting topic. Here is a safe for work video of someone walking through countless strands of fibre over a field: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1l0ld99/fields_covered_with_fiber_optic_cables_on_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1l0ld99/... I read one operator describe the forests as being like Mirkwood from the Hobbit. Eerie.
• nothercastle 1y ago
  This is the future of warfare and terrorism worldwide. Coming to a conflict zone near you.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • linhns 1y ago
    And laser guns for defence.
    • cosmicgadget 1y ago
      But we are quite close to having (prohibitively expensive) flying cars!
    • euroderf 1y ago
      And for defense of ships in port, they are mounted on sharks.
  • stevenwoo 1y ago
    Anywhere, not just conflict zones. There was a decades long terror campaign against planned parenthood and other clinics in the USA and white supremacist nut jobs keep trying to start a race war every five to ten years with bombing and shooting sprees, the weekly school shooting in the USA, and there’s the using a vehicle worldwide for killing civilians by incels/fundamentalists of all stripes. This opens up a new venue for those inclined to act.
  • afroboy 1y ago
    US is doing a lots of shit in Middle east right now and the new kids will grow to revenge, it will be interesting times since the drones doesn't costs much.
    • nothercastle 1y ago
      This is going to get nasty really fast until defensive technology catches up a lot of really expensive targets are very vulnerable. That being said all you really need to do is install defensive netting at bases. You don’t even need hangers so relatively inexpensive retrofit. That will probably cause drones to shift to dropped minions but at least those are less accurate.
• hollerith 1y ago
  The longest-range battery-powered drones have a range of only 14 km or so (and probably cannot carry enough explosive that far to help much with an attack like yesterday's attack) thus the need for the Ukrainians to use trucks to transport the drones used in this attack to within a km or so of the target. It is easy for Ukrainians to pass for Russian (e.g., if stopped at a checkpoint inside Russia) because there were 3 million Ukrainians living inside Russia at the start of the invasion in 2022. The same cannot be said for many future conflicts. To give an example, the German regime got almost no useful information coming from spies in England during WWII because it proved easy for British society to detect and capture German spies. It probably would have proved equally difficult or almost as difficult and risky for the Germans to get a truck loaded with drones, explosives, drone operators and the electronics needed to control the drones to within a km of an English military target (if the citizenry knew about drones the way we in 2025 know about them).
  • justsomehnguy 1y ago
    > It is easy for Ukrainians to pass for Russian There is no need to do so because they did employ a civilian drivers who never knew what 'cargo' they are hauling. Just like in the previous attack on the bridge.
    • hollerith 1y ago
      I was assuming that the drone operators were in the truck to make it more difficult for the Russians to jam the control signals. Do you know whether that is true? Maybe the drones were pre-programmed for a particular destination (given to the Ukrainians by the US and its reconnaissance satellites), i.e., no drone operators needed.
      • lawn 1y ago
        The operators weren't present at the site. They either used the trucks as a relay for the operators far away or the drones themselves were automated.
      • mdhb 1y ago
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• jaoane 1y ago
  If one had to guess how the war is going just by reading western media, it seems incredible that Ukraine didn’t win the entire war in five minutes!
  • tim333 1y ago
    There was quite a lot of Ukraine is doomed stuff at the start too. By the way this isn't really 'western media.' It's Ukrainian. Here's CNN three days into the war for example https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/russia-ukraine-military-comparison-intl https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/russia-ukraine-mil...
  • lawn 1y ago
    If one only had listened to Russian media you wouldn't even know there is a war, just a "special operation"!
    • fredthestair 1y ago
      I think Putin takes joy in getting called out for this kind of hypocrisy. He copies US corruption like letting the President exceed his authority in a "special military operation" and then points at the bias. It's not like he needed this bypass on a check on his power. He has done it to insult the US.
      • fredthestair 1y ago
        Maybe there's a nicer way to hear the joke is on you.. But the US has to get it s together and start checking Presidential power if it doesn't take joy in feeding Putin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undeclared_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undeclared_war
  • cosmicgadget 1y ago
    "Russian meat grinder continues to grind" isn't much of a headline but you can absolutely find regular articles about the state of the war. They just don't bubble up to headline news or RT. Russia does get its share of press by bombing childrens hospitals and infrastructure. Now compare that to a country with no navy sinking a missile cruiser or downing an AWACS jet. Or, in this case, sending trucks thousands of miles into enemy territory to destroy strategic bombers. It's simply more interesting news despite how it makes you feel.
• tim333 1y ago
  Good on Ukraine! I've always thought a good way of dealing with barbaric behaviour would be to use drones to destroy the baddies weapons. Putin obviously doesn't care how many tens of thousands of Russians he sends to their deaths so hitting the weaponry and finances is probably the way. Or killing Putin of course which they also seem to be trying - https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/did-ukraine-try-to-assassinate-vladimir-putin-what-russian-commander-said-8508498 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/did-ukraine-try-to-assassina... There's some interesting stuff happening on the financial side as well with the Lindsey Graham bill - this thing https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/05/28/new-us-senate-bill-could-wreck-russia-but-damage-eu-economy https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/05/28/new-us-senate-...
• JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  It looks like Ukraine just took out a third of the Russian bomber fleet, conventional and nuclear [1]. [1] https://www.wdmma.org/russian-air-force.php https://www.wdmma.org/russian-air-force.php
  • cosmicgadget 1y ago
    Would it be reasonable to assume some of the damaged aircraft are not bombers?
    • distances 1y ago
      Well, claims included also Beriev A-50, which is clearly more expensive than any of the bombers.
      • cosmicgadget 1y ago
        Absolutely, not trying to dump cold water on this remarkable feat of covert action. I just imagine there are a few support aircraft, fighters, non-op planes, helicopters, etc.
        • mopsi 1y ago
          Doesn't look like that. The footage released so far shows almost exclusively bombers. Here's a row of Tu-95 bombers burning, plus a single transporter at the end of the row: https://bsky.app/profile/noelreports.com/post/3lqkf6ghq3s2l https://bsky.app/profile/noelreports.com/post/3lqkf6ghq3s2l At the very end, you can even see how the bombers were hit: a drone strikes the right wing of a Tu-95, causing the internal fuel tanks to catch fire and spill burning fuel. The wing then breaks off and collapses.
          • robocat 1y ago
            The attack worked against those aircraft because they were fueled. Why were they loaded with fuel?
• ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/01/ukraine-launches-major-drone-attack-on-russian-bombers-security-official-says https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/01/ukraine-launch...
• hsnewman 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • TiredOfLife 1y ago
    In what way?
  • credit_guy 1y ago
    Nope. Japan attacked US while there was no war between them. Ukraine is attacking Russia while Russia is actively invading its territory. Absolutely legitimate military operation, no matter how you want to look at it.
    • cjbgkagh 1y ago
      Depends if you consider blockades to be an act of war.
      • credit_guy 1y ago
        Actually it does not depend, because the US was not blockading Japan.
        • cjbgkagh 1y ago
          It was at least an economic blockade. I had to double check, I did think they took a more active role, there was a prevention of transit through Panama Canal, and a few other things. If there ever was a time for an economic blockade to be effective that was it. “ an embargo of all trade with a country or region, intended to damage or dislodge the government.” I’m pretty sure if the US was in a position where their government was under thread from an economic blockade they’d consider it an act of war.
• cosmicgadget 1y ago
  It'd be risky but of they left more trucks staged for a second attack it would make Russia scramble to protect air bases deep in their territory.
  • thisislife2 1y ago
    The attack was certainly planned meticulously and can be termed a successful operation. Even the Russian media acknowledges it so, reporting that 5 airfields were targeted, attack on 3 were repelled successfully while attacks on 2 were a partial success. But they also speculate that Ukraine will not be able to carry out such attacks any more. As per their analysis, the drones were launched from cargo trucks and remotely guided via mobile networks. The Russian military are already revising their base security doctrines to increase surveillance around the bases and will now be apparently jamming mobile signals over airbases. Moreover, such kind of attacks require a network of human operatives - many have already been arrested and counter-intelligence operations to track down the rest is already underway. So any more future attacks of such nature would all depend on how successfully the Ukrainian operatives in Russia are able to evade Russian security services.
    • cosmicgadget 1y ago
      Yeah sounds like Ukraine is saying they withdrew the team that built the equipment already, would be pretty risky to have another truck waiting in the wings. Almost a bonus to have Russia jam its own airbases and increase surveillance if a follow up isn't possible.
      • arresin 1y ago
        What strategic venerabilities does that open up I wonder.
      • mcv 1y ago
        I'm sure Ukraine is already working on their next clever trick.
        • 1y ago
• MilnerRoute 1y ago
  CNN says the drones "were targeting aircraft that bomb Ukrainian cities every night, the Ukrainian Security Service said – estimating the damage caused to the Russian side at more than $2 billion." https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/01/europe/ukraine-drones-russia-airbases-intl https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/01/europe/ukraine-drones-russia-...
• duxup 1y ago
  Are there any effective short range small object radar systems? Or is conventional radar so noisy / limited that close range and object size is a real problem?
  • tim333 1y ago
    I think aircraft radars are deliberately designed not to pick up birds and bushes and the like. The radars on cars seem to pick up small objects.
  • nradov 1y ago
    Sure, there are radars that effective for picking up small targets at short range. The C-RAM point defense system has detected and destroyed incoming mortar rounds. It's very expensive.
  • jandrewrogers 1y ago
    This already exists as relatively mature military technology in vehicle active protection systems. Trophy[0] is a well-known example. The latency from detection to reaction is measured in milliseconds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)
    • greedo 1y ago
      That doesn't work on light-skinned vehicles, or aircraft.
      • jandrewrogers 1y ago
        Irrelevant to the question, which was if military radar existed that could detect and track small objects at relatively short-range. The technology is modular and in fact fast enough to detect and engage supersonic threats. The military could wire up any response they wish to a detected threat (and they have). It doesn’t literally have to be the Trophy system. That serves as an existence proof and is a well-known example of such tech. The engineers that design these things seem to have more imagination than their critics.
• nradov 1y ago
  Much of the old USSR heavy aircraft industry supply chain was in Ukraine. Now Russia has minimal capacity to build new strategic aircraft: those few that they managed to put into service since 1991 largely still relied on stockpiled old parts. Even for tactical aircraft they only manage to deliver a few per year. And with their shattered educational system and declining working-age population this trend won't reverse any time soon.
  • jojobas 1y ago
    Russia has either no capacity to build new strategic bombers at all, or has al they need to do it, depending on the timeframe you're talking about. If they really decided to do it, they could make some kind on narrow-body bomber derivative of Il-96 in a few years.
    • idiotsecant 1y ago
      The basic premise of nuclear safety is mutually assured destruction. If Russia believes that another superpower believes that Russia might be less capable of MAD due to losing a huge chunk of one leg of the nuclear trifecta they might be more likely to act premptively in launching a nuclear exchange. Also, The Russian government relies on projection of an image of strength not just externally, but internally as well. If the Russian government is seen as weak internally they might be more likely to take drastic actions to stay in power. Put all these together, and it seems like the world might just be a bit more dangerous today than it was yesterday. Maybe that is the Ukrainian strategy - make Russia do something monstrous to a western power to force western action.
      • goalieca 1y ago
        There’s no 4D chess here. Ukraine was attacking the planes used to bomb their civilians day in and day out.
      • credit_guy 1y ago
        It doesn't follow. For the US the most survivable part of the nuclear triad was always the submarines. For Russia it was the road-mobile nukes. The rest of the nuclear deterrent for both the US and Russia is quite optional, and serves mostly political reasons.
• smackeyacky 1y ago
  An amazing idea: Drive a truck full of drones deep into enemy territory and let them loose. In the process, manage to poke serious holes into Russia's nuclear deterrent. Hard to know whether to be seriously impressed or seriously concerned - if Europe decided that enough was enough and started helping Ukraine with troops if they decided the Russian nuclear threat was a paper tiger we're in for some very interesting times.
  • Teever 1y ago
    Imagine an assassination that is done with a drone mailed internationally to a PO Box. Send a gig driver to pick up a small box and drop it off at an abandoned lot. The box has a machine inside that cuts the box open and opens up to release a drone that pops out and hits the target. Bonus points if the box itself can fly away and self destruct so there's even less of a physical trail to figure out where the drone came from.
    • smackeyacky 1y ago
      The ultimate sleeper agents. By all accounts the Ukrainian attack took a year to execute. It's the kind of planning that was behind the explosive pagers that Israel cooked up. It's a new kind of automated terrorism - who knows what is planted around Russia now and when the Ukrainians will set it off.
      • Teever 1y ago
        The next step in the automation is a cargo container sized machine that can be fed parts and spit out packaged drones ready to go.[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Variety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Variety
      • alisonatwork 1y ago
        It's not terrorism if a country is at war and their military facilities were targeted.
        • 1y ago
• lwo32k 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • yeknoda 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • 3dsnano 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • _lvbh 1y ago
    I'm pretty sure they got nukes way before their alliance with China and the tech was originally stolen from the dutch and french https://theprint.in/theprint-explorer/how-pakistan-got-the-nuclear-bomb-then-walked-away-from-a-peace-deal/2120498/ https://theprint.in/theprint-explorer/how-pakistan-got-the-n...
• g0rsky 1y ago
  Slava Ukraini!
• balderdash 1y ago
  Its so strange to me that counter drone measures (active defenses - like jamming , lasers, nets, guns + passive measures - hardened aircraft shelters etc.) are not more common around airbases and the like. I would have thought governments would be rusting to harden installations and infrastructure. maybe this is the wake up they need.
  • rhcom2 1y ago
    I would guess they have that stuff but the trucks the drones were transported in entered within the perimeter of the base and bypassed it.
  • ClumsyPilot 1y ago
    START treaty between US and Russia requires that the Bombers are stored out in the open so that they can be monitored from satellite, to check compliance. I guess after today's attack, that treaty is dead.
    • stackedinserter 1y ago
      From the treaty: > The obligation not to use concealment measures shall not apply to cover or concealment practices at ICBM bases or to the use of environmental shelters for strategic offensive arms. Anti-drone nets or simple hangars won't violate it.
    • sxyuan 1y ago
      Russia already suspended their participation in Feb. 2023.
    • ponector 1y ago
      Russians can and will violate any treaty they have signed, also lying about their actions if caught. It is their handbook since forming of the Russian empire.
      • ClumsyPilot 1y ago
        They have been in compliance with nuclear treaties, that’s not a trivial point. Also going back to the time of slave trade and genocide of native Americans seems a bit rich…
• at0mic22 1y ago
  Curios enough, drones definitely produce interference from rotors apart from sensible noise. A modern anti-drone system should not rely on traditional reflection-detecting radars but try detecting electric motors, radio signals from 3g/4g modems etc. And it does not necessarily have to work for many miles. I would see it as a reasonably sized box loaded with interceptor drones, they don't even have to explode. That's something we will see en masse shortly from the Russian side. Actually nobody should take Russians as dumb and clumsy. They adapt fast. And they can benchmark fast too, thanks to ukrainians. The only open questions is whether the rest of the world accepts new situation, or will continue spending billions on less effective F35s
  • XorNot 1y ago
    Short range drones powered by lithium ion batteries with a flight time of 20 minutes and a low ground speed are in absolutely no way a replacement for long range supersonic attack aircraft. And an autonomous supersonic attack aircraft would cost..about as much as the F-35 because the F-35 is not principally expensive because of the pilot.
    • at0mic22 1y ago
      Very much depends on the purpose, supersonic aircrafts coming from 60s are a great way to demonstrate power over a long distance along with aircraft sea carriers But they are vulnerable both in the air and on the ground. Recent Iran attacks over Israel and everyday Russian attacks show that shakhed flying vespa-drones can overload any air defense and deliver ammo for real cheap
    • CamperBob2 1y ago
      Short range drones powered by lithium ion batteries with a flight time of 20 minutes and a low ground speed are in absolutely no way a replacement for long range supersonic attack aircraft. They don't have to replace them. They just have to destroy them.
      • at0mic22 1y ago
• hintymad 1y ago
  No wonder bay-area companies love to set up offices in East Europe. Their engineers are really really good, as this event demonstrated.
  • at0mic22 1y ago
    I would assume this event was a one-time hack, it does not scale. Actually most of the “miracle weapons” from the very beginning of the conflict have faded away. Bairktars? Gone. Sea drones? Haven't heard of them in a while. What else? Russians in comparison are great at scaling. Rockets flying daily, vespa-drones - daily, FAB bombs got wings and flying daily. That's the consistency what wins wars, not the greatest talent.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • walls 1y ago
      > Sea drones? Haven't heard of them in a while. They shot down an Su-30 with a naval drone around a month ago: https://www.newsweek.com/drone-naval-sukhoi-jet-2067633 https://www.newsweek.com/drone-naval-sukhoi-jet-2067633
    • euazOn 1y ago
      You havent heard this absolutely crazy thing about their sea drones that happened not even a month ago? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-it-shot-down-russian-fighter-jet-sea-drone-first-time-2025-05-03/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-it-shot-do...
      • at0mic22 1y ago
        This incident only shows the mistake of SU-30 crew which detected the sea drones from the long distance and for some reason got into the shooting range. Usually those drones are destroyed with something like X-38MT missiles, from the 50-70km range. Otherwise you would have seen a lot more interceptors taken down
    • 1y ago
• storus 1y ago
  While this is an impressive achievement, I am wondering if this prompts Russia to actually use nukes as it looks like they might be in front of a dilemma "use it or lose it" given what one can do with drones. Wiping out one third of one third of their strategic nuclear triad in a few hours might change their calculus considerably.
  • Georgelemental 1y ago
    On the other hand, it’s by far the most useless and obsolete third
    • ponector 1y ago
      All russian strategic bombers are obsolete. However even old soviet bomber with old soviet missile can deliver 500kg of explosives far away targeting random civilian locations.
  • ponector 1y ago
    Nukes are useless in current world. What for? To destroy cities? How it can help to win the war where you are the aggressor? Wipe out Kyiv - Ukrainians will not stop fighting. Target troops with nukes? Like to nuke every mile of the frontline? Either way more countries will oppose russia after use of nukes. Being a nuclear power also does not prevent war, as you can see what happens between India and Pakistan.
  • thisislife2 1y ago
    No, Russia won't use its Nukes against Ukraine yet. Remember that the Russians believe the Ukraine conflict is a NATO proxy war against it. And over the past 3+ years, Russian media has reported that the "escalations" that they have seen in the war are deliberate attempts by the west to provoke an "undesirable" reaction from Russia (against the Ukrainians) to use as an excuse to escalate the war and possibly even directly get involved in the conflict and invade Russia. Russian media analysis believe that Ukraine's polity is now resigned to the fact that they can't really militarily defeat Russia alone. And so they've shifted their strategy to use Ukrainian military to create high impact media headlines, to please their western "financiers" and to psychologically demoralise the Russians. That does make sense as attacks like this while being demoralising doesn't really offer any real military breakthrough to the Ukrainians, nor is it likely to stop the Russian advances. The Russians already occupy around 20% of Ukrainian territory which the Ukrainians have been unable to take back. Since last year, the Russians have reportedly captured nearly 2000+ kms more of territory from the Ukrainian forces (including the Russian regions that were under Ukrainian control). And the Ukrainians forces can't realistically launch another major counter-offensive as they are very wary of running out of manpower (Ukrainians have 1/4th the wartime population of the Russians, and thus can't replenish their military as much as the Russians can). Thus, it is an undeniable fact that right now, the Russian military have the advantage and the Ukrainian military is losing the war. What remains to be seen is how much longer is the Zelensky administration willing to gamble that Russian economy will soon collapse or Putin may be deposed or NATO or EU boots will soon join the Ukranian forces to fight the Russians?
• markus_zhang 1y ago
  What is Russia going to do when she figures that she cannot keep her strategic bombing fleet safe?
  • andrewflnr 1y ago
    Well she's free to stop picking fights whenever she likes. That would help.
  • lawn 1y ago
    Hopefully stop using them to bomb hospitals and civilians.
  • rsynnott 1y ago
    If it’s that big a deal for Russia, it always has the option of pulling out of Ukraine. All of this can end tomorrow. Pull out of Ukraine, get rid of Putin, they’d probably even get most of the sanctions eased.
• seacitizen 1y ago
  [flagged]
• declan_roberts 1y ago
  This is precisely why the United States wants to keep the war in Ukraine going forever. We get to destroy an enemy by proxy and another country will take the punishment and blame for it. It's perfect, as long as our ally doesn't run out of blood.
  • noduerme 1y ago
    If anything, the past several months have shown that the Ukrainians will keep fighting without American support, and want to keep fighting, because the only other choice would be surrender and enslavement. Having said that, America and the EU do get something out of supporting Ukrainian sovereignty. And it's not just damage to Russian military capacity, it's deterrence against Russian imperial expansion all along the frontier.
  • seandoe 1y ago
    Apophenia
  • tokai 1y ago
    If anything this happened because US has less leverage on Ukraine than ever. US has very consistently pressured Ukraine from strategic strikes into Russia. Turns out people other than Americans also have agency.
    • nkurz 1y ago
      > US has very consistently pressured Ukraine from strategic strikes into Russia. This was previously true, but I thought this policy changed as of last week? May 26 2025: US, UK and allies to lift all range restrictions on weapons in Ukraine Ukraine’s western allies, including the UK and the US, have agreed to lift all remaining range restrictions on the use of their weapons after President Trump issued his strongest criticism of President Putin yet. https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/ukraine-weapons-long-range-fire-us-uk-mvx2m0vvh https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/uk...
      • jacquesm 1y ago
• talkingtab 1y ago
  In my humble, and probably wrong opinion, the war in the Ukraine is about two different systems. You could call one system of human interaction the Putin-model. This is the one we in the US have recently adopted. Another model is a collaborative one. The models are not sharply delineated, but the differences are essential. Do we act with collaborative intelligence or do we follow orders? Most US corporations and individuals now rely on the Putin model. In this model, some (possibly incompetent and possibly insane) individual decides what we do, and we do it. I have seen revered corporate leader choose the dumbest choice possible over and over. The other model requires that the individual members can collaboratively understand a problem and respond to it. Unfortunately our "follow the leader" educational system has insured that we have few thinkers who are able to actually assess and solve problems. I apologize because my experience with corporate culture has resulted in a strong and decisive conclusion that corporate leaders such as Musk and Cook, et al., could not fight their way out of a paper bag. Really. What they can do is order other people to fight their way out of paper bags. If I were somehow ever in an overloaded life boat, the first people I would push over the side would be the Musks and Cooks. Musk's "send me an email" just does not work in a life boat in a storm. sigh. I realize that in our cultist society this is blasphemy, but really - if you are able to think any original thought, go for it. And for those of you who do not get it. Well, the best I can say is good luck.
  • ipv6ipv4 1y ago
    The differences you are touching on are about interpersonal trust, and the concept of trust in society. Russia has a traditionally low trust culture. It's rooted in the most private interpersonal relationships, and is reflected in society as a whole. The U.S. has traditionally been a high trust society. But not everyone in the U.S. is a person who can trust others. The recent political machinations in the U.S. represent the low trust segment of American society. The key to undoing it is to re-inculcate trust at a personal level, and at societal level. How that is actually done is a difficult problem with no readily obvious solution.
    • talkingtab 1y ago
      Good thoughts. Made me think. I had not connected the trust issue as you did, but was aware of it. One thing that concerns me is the tracking ads that are the business model for the consumer internet. Even worse than the tracking is the targeting. At some point I saw some supposed code from twitter or another, that was basically ``` if (isDemocrat) showD() else if (isRepublican) showR() ``` The net(!) effect is that people develop completely different world views which tend to be echo chambers. To my mind this is the cause of much dysfunction. The democratic party still does not get the source of the gigantic dissatisfaction that many, many people have for the way things are. In their echo chamber, the concept that many people have real and valid concerns is verboten. Unless the New York Times readers can figure out that the people they call "haters" are in fact suffering things there will be no alternative to those people who are capitalizing on that suffering. IMO. As for trust, I believe one large step is to prevent targeting. Otherwise the alternative is to develop another business model. [Edit for spelling a tiny bit more of clarity]
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• defly 1y ago
  Here is a list of largest volunteer funds at your disposal (military and non-military help): Come Back Alive ex. These guys delivered first deep-strike drones https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate-en/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate-en/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation ex. Bought a famous spy satellite https://prytulafoundation.org/en https://prytulafoundation.org/en KOLO Charity Foundation managed by UA tech community https://www.koloua.com/en/ https://www.koloua.com/en/
  • dralley 1y ago
    Liberty Ukraine is also good. They periodically run fundraisers for engineering equipment for digging defensive positions in addition to supplying drones and whatnot. https://www.libertyukraine.org/ https://www.libertyukraine.org/ https://www.paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=EEYJZXS9SNG7G https://www.paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=EEYJZXS9SNG7G
• cjbgkagh 1y ago
  While I can admire the effectiveness I do have grave concerns when it’s so cheap to damage very valuable things from such a long distance. Nothing is as safe as it once was and never will be again. The once unthinkable becomes routine, perhaps tactical nukes are the next step, I hope it’s a long time before I find out.
  • slt2021 1y ago
    next frontier step is nano-nukes: nuclear device the size of a cell-phone and be carried by a drone from walmart
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
• tclover 1y ago
  [flagged]
• ck45 1y ago
  Can Russia be sure that there are no more sleeper containers? Probably not. This might bind a lot of resources and create paranoia. That’s a good secondary effect of the attack.
  • tim333 1y ago
    I imagine Ukraine will try similar again, though with a variation to make it harder to catch.
  • sigwinch 1y ago
    But a greater effect will be the fertilization of a Russian drone program based on individualized assassination.
• amai 1y ago
  Ukraine updates assessment of mission targeting Russian bombers: „at least 13 Russian warplanes were destroyed and more were damaged.“ https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3999621-ukraine-updates-assessment-of-mission-targeting-russian-bombers.html https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3999621-ukraine-updates...
• Balgair 1y ago
  Longer term, we can expect Ukraine to do this over and over, even is they loose. Like, if Ukraine lost the war today, folded up, surrendered, kaput. You'd still get organized splinter groups with funding from small nation-states or even motivated partisan groups. And they'd still be able to pull off things like this strike. Not much can stop them. Yeah, the planning and patience here is unmatched. I don't think the US or even China could pull off this level of patience today. But the cost here, my god, this was just so cheap! And there is no telling about how many more of these Ukraine already has in RU too And Ukraine and everyone else knows this. Maybe not mad Vlad, maybe not yet. But even is Vlad wins, he's going to have to deal with these kinds of strikes until Ukraine is free again. And that kind of paranoia is not cheap. And every other nation also knows this now too. Small non-nation-state actors now have a playbook of how to cost you big time.
• johnea 1y ago
  So, shouldn't this be flagged? Any article that offends the sensitivities of the wing-nut mode of the highly bi-modal community is immediately flagged. Such as the recent article by the resident of Sri Lanka during it's civil war. https://indi.ca/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there/ https://indi.ca/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44121939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44121939 But somehow, traditional warfare news seems totally fine, despite the fact that this has nothing to do with tech, or vulture capital. There really needs to be an "unflag" link for posts, to allow both sides of the "flag vs don't flag" debate to be represented.
  • skinkestek 1y ago
    > Such as the recent article by the resident of Sri Lanka during it's civil war. So because a post was wrongly flagged (I haven't checked but I take your word for it) we should also flag other posts that the community wants? Or maybe we should stop using flags as downvotes? Flags are for disinformation, off topic and low quality links, that kind of things, not for "things I personally don't find interesting".
    • johnea 1y ago
      I'm commenting on the discrepancy between what dies of flagging, and what doesn't. I don't think it's as much "I don't find it interesting", as it is "I don't politically agree with this". Specifically, I think there should be an "unflag" link, so that opinions to keep comments active can also be registered.
    • johnea 1y ago
      Another example today: https://www.chron.com/news/article/hurricane-season-fema-chief-20357861.php https://www.chron.com/news/article/hurricane-season-fema-chi... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44165573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44165573 The FEMA chief not knowing there's a hurricane season... The woke-nut mode of the highly bimodal distribution seems more inclined to just ignore what they don't like, but the wing-nut mode is constantly flagging articles that point out that we have elected a moron to the office of US presidency... EDIT: Another example, same subject: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fema-staff-confused-after-head-said-he-was-unaware-us-hurricane-season-sources-2025-06-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fema-staff-confused-after-h... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44163750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44163750 Yea, Reuters, that "fake news" site 8-/