Category World News

In a major operation the day before the neighbours held peace talks in Istanbul, Ukrainian drones targeted several military hangars deep inside Russia on Sunday.

Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukraine had launched drone strikes that targeted five regions of Russian military installations, which set off several aircraft on fire.

The regions of Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur were the site of the attacks. According to the ministry, air defenses resisted the assaults in Murmansk and Irkutsk, but only two, respectively.

The Defense Ministry reported that several aircraft caught fire when FPV drones were launched from areas close to airfields in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with cameras on the front that transmit live video to the operators, who then direct the drones using those images.

No injuries were reported despite the fires being extinguished. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, some of the attackers had been detained.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, praised the “absolutely brilliant” drone attack on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday night.

The Sunday attacks were only the most recent audacious assaults on Russian military installations, territory, and symbols of power over the past three years of conflict, which were frequently acknowledged by Kyiv and occasionally widely believed to have been carried out by Ukrainian special forces.

What transpired on June 1?

On Sunday, Zelenskyy claimed 117 drones had been used to attack Russian bases. He claimed that “Russia has suffered very tangible losses, and this is legitimate.”

In a series of drone strikes on Russian air bases thousands of kilometers away from the front line, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported hitting Russian military aircraft worth a total of $7 billion.

The targets included Olenya airbase in south Murmansk, which is located about 1,800 kilometers (1, 120 miles) from Ukraine, and Belaya airbase in Irkutsk, which is located about 4,300 kilometers (2, 670 miles) away from the Ukrainian border.

Multiple local media reports in Ukraine earlier on Sunday claimed that the SBU had used drones that had been smuggled deep into Russia and hidden inside trucks.

According to reports, four airbases were hit by at least 41 Russian-made heavy bombs. Russian strategic bombers, which it claims fire long-range missiles at Ukrainian cities, were reportedly hit by the strikes on Tu-95 and Tu-22.

Although Russia has yet to confirm the extent of the damage, the attack could represent Ukraine’s most destructive drone strike to date.

According to John Hendren, a reporter for Al Jazeera from Kyiv, the attack is “an audacious strike, one that Ukraine has been patiently and eagerly awaiting,” and it comes after Russian airstrikes into Ukraine have dramatically increased over the past few weeks.

What’s the background like?

In recent days, drone attacks on the other side have been intensified by both Russia and Ukraine.

Last week, at least 16 civilians were killed when Russia launched more than 900 kamikaze drones and 92 missiles. In the Tula, Alabuga, and Tatarstan regions, where Kyiv used at least 800 drones, days of Ukrainian strikes on Russian military infrastructure followed.

Meanwhile, Ukraine hosted a delegation headed by Rustem Umerov, its defense minister, for Monday’s meeting with Russian officials in Istanbul. A previous May 16 round of negotiations resulted in a deal that included 1, 000 war prisoners for each country. Following Monday’s discussions, a new prisoner swap was agreed upon.

Zelenskyy, who has previously expressed doubts about Russia’s commitment to peace talks, stated that the Ukrainian delegation would have specific priorities before heading to Istanbul, including “a complete and unconditional ceasefire” and the return of prisoners and kidnapped children.

Russia has stated that it has come up with its own peace plan and that a Turkish suggestion for a leaders’ meeting has been rejected.

US President Donald Trump’s demand for a quick resolution to the three-year conflict fueled Monday’s meeting in Turkiye. However, there were no significant breakthroughs at the meeting.

Trump recently expressed his frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been expressing his frustration with the lack of progress toward a ceasefire.

On May 25, Trump referenced Putin in a statement that read, “Something has happened to him. He has become “absolutely crazy”!

Trump reportedly said to reporters, “He’s firing rockets into Kyiv and other cities while we’re talking.”

The US president has not yet responded to the Ukrainian airbase attacks from Sunday.

The latest stunning, attention-grabbing attacks have come to mind for Russia since it first launched the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Crimea Bridge attacks, 2022 and 2023

Ukrainians raged in pain four years after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula by crossing a brand-new bridge connecting the Russian mainland with the peninsula.

Ukraine would exact revenge in 2022 and 2023, firstly.

A portion of the bridge was destroyed by a truck explosion in October 2022 that Russia blamed on Ukraine. Putin attempted to resurrect the symbolism of 2018, this time driving across it in a Mercedes, after the damage was repaired by Russia.

However, Ukraine would retaliate. The bridge that provides Russia’s forces with a crucial supply route in Ukraine was destroyed in July 2023. According to the National Anti-Terror Committee of Russia, two Ukrainian-made sea drones carried out the strike. According to officials, a child was hurt and two people were killed.

2023 attacks by the Black Sea Fleet

Ukraine launched a number of attacks on occupied Crimea in September 2023, targeting key Russian Black Sea Fleet installations close to Sevastopol with drones and missiles.

Verkhnosadove, the communications command center for the Black Sea Fleet, was revealed in satellite images after the initial attack.

According to the Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne, Ukraine retaliated with a strike on the Saky airfield in Crimea, which was home to 12 Russian combat aircraft, including Su-24 and Su-30 fighter-bombers.

The most devastating of the attacks, &nbsp, occurred on September 22.

34 officers, including fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov, were reported dead after Ukraine struck the Black Sea Fleet’s command center, according to the report. 105 additional soldiers reportedly suffered injuries.

Kremlin attack, 2023

The Kremlin, the most powerful Russian power for centuries, was attacked in the dead of night in early May 2023 as images and grainy video of the red building’s citadel appeared in various locations around the world captured flashes of light from small explosions.

Two Ukrainian drones, according to Moscow, were used in the attack on Putin’s residence but were disabled by electronic defenses.

The Kremlin stated in a statement that the actions were part of a planned terrorist attack and an attempted murder of the president, which were carried out on the eve of the May 9 Parade, which included the gathering of foreigners.

Zelenskyy denied that his country had attacked the country’s president or capital.

At a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, Zelenskyy said, “We fight on our territory, not against Putin, or against Moscow.” However, independent analysts, including those from Western allies who are Ukrainian allies, think that Ukrainian special forces were responsible for the Kremlin’s drone attacks.

In the escalating conflict between the neighbors, Ukraine would blur the line between its territory and that of Russia a year later.

Kursk invasion, 2024 and 2025

On August 6, 2024, Ukrainian forces unexpectedly attacked the Kursk region, causing surprise destruction to Moscow. As a result of Ukraine’s offensive in Western Russia, Russia began to evacuate the neighboring Belgorod region.

At the height of the incursion, Ukrainian forces occupied Kursk, which was roughly twice the size of Singapore, for nearly 1,400 square kilometers (540 square miles).

Prior to Ukraine’s January-launching second wave of attacks, Russia already had most of the land it had lost in Kursk by the start of 2025.

With twelve volunteers, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, critics are calling for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s new mission to fail, including US officials. The flotilla is attempting to break Israel’s Gaza blockade.

After a competitive election, nationalist populist Karol Nawrocki will become Poland’s next leader. His victory gives the populist movement a significant boost in both Europe and the world.

The opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, which had backed Nawrocki, won 50.89 percent of the vote, according to the Electoral Commission’s results on Monday. In Sunday’s run-off, Rafal Trzaskowski, a liberal mayor of Warsaw, won 49.1% of the vote.

The close encounter is seen as a stark illustration of the deep division between liberals and conservative forces, who are primarily concentrated in major cities, and who are frequently associated with the powerful Catholic Church.

Nawrocki is expected to use his veto power to stymie the agenda of Prime Minister Donald Tusk by following in the footsteps of his predecessor Andrzej Duda from PiS, despite the country’s majority in terms of power.

The judicial system, which PiS revamped during its eight years in power, ended in 2023, has been pledged by Tusk’s centrist coalition government to reform. The European Union, which claimed the changes criticized the judiciary as politicizing and anti-democratic, is at odds with PIS’s proposals.

Due to Duda’s opposition, the government has also struggled to ease restrictions on abortion and establish LGBTQ rights.

Nawrocki has vowed to guard Poland’s sovereignty from what he perceives as excessive Brussels interference, as well as criticizing Ukraine’s plans to acquiesce in NATO and EU membership.

Nawrocki has also promised to prioritize the needs of Poles over the numerous refugees the nation has taken in, despite continuing to support Kyiv in its conflict with Russia.

Therefore, his victory might have an impact on Warsaw’s relations with the EU and its support for Ukrainian refugees.

Right-wing organizations in Europe, who were disappointed by George Simion’s defeat in last month’s presidential election, have been quick to applaud.

How did the world react to his victory, in this case:

Poland

Trzaskowski congratulated Nawrocki on his victory, warned him to represent every Pole, and conceded defeat. “This victory is a requirement, especially in these challenging circumstances.” particularly when the outcome is similar. Trzaskowski said on X, “don’t forget that.”

In the first round of the May 18 election, the far-right Confederation party’s leader Slawomir Mentzen said, “I’m really counting on you not forget those millions of voters who did not vote for you in the first round but did yesterday.” They desired change.

On X, PiS lawmaker Jacek Sasin wrote, “The referendum has been won.

European Union

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, expressed her congratulations and confidence in the continuation of “very good cooperation” with Warsaw.

In our shared values of peace, democracy, and strength, we are all stronger as a family. So let’s work together to ensure our common home’s security and prosperity,” she said on X.

Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, expressed his interest in “fruitful cooperation” with Poland.

“We strengthen one another on our continent, giving Europe more strength in the face of global competition,” Zelenskyy said.

Germany

According to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Nawrocki and Poland should “cooperate closely based on democracy and the rule of law” and rely on one another’s cooperation to “ensure a future of security, freedom, and prosperity for Europe.”

NATO

Secretary-General Mark Rutte stated that he was looking forward to working with Nawrocki to “making sure that NATO becomes even stronger than it is today.”

France

The election resulted in a “rebuff to the Brussels oligarchy, which intends to impose a standardization of legislation on member states, contrary to any democratic will,” according to far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who also praised the European Commission’s “authoritarian policies and federalist ambitions” as “a brutally repressive national sovereignty.”

Hungary

Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, thanked Nawrocki for his “fantastic victory,” calling himself a model for the nation’s populist movements in Europe. In reference to the four-nation Visegrad Group, which includes the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Orban added that he is “looking forward to working with Nawrocki] on strengthening Visegrad cooperation.

Nawrocki’s success was referred to as a “fresh victory for]European] patriots,” according to Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

Romania

When the volcano erupted, thousands of tourists were merely meters away from the crater of Mount Etna, Italy. Tour groups were seen escaping down the mountain as Europe’s most active volcano ejected a sizable column of rock and ash into the air.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Any description of Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers could leave one scrambling for superlatives.

Forty-one planes – including supersonic Tu-22M long-range bombers, Tu-95 flying fortresses and A-50 early warning warplanes – were hit and damaged on Sunday on four airfields, including ones in the Arctic and Siberia, Ukrainian authorities and intelligence said.

Moscow did not comment on the damage to the planes but confirmed that the airfields were hit by “Ukrainian terrorist attacks”.

Videos posted by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), which planned and carried out the operation, which was called The Spiderweb, showed only a handful of planes being hit.

The strategic bombers have been used to launch ballistic and cruise missiles from Russian airspace to hit targets across Ukraine, causing wide scale damage and casualties.

The bomber fleet is one-third of Moscow’s “nuclear triad”, which also consists of nuclear missiles and missile-carrying warships.

According to some observers, the attack shattered Russia’s image of a nuclear superpower with a global reach.

The attack inadvertently “helped the West because it targeted [Russia’s] nuclear potential”, Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the Ukrainian military’s general staff, told Al Jazeera.

While the assault decreases Russia’s potential to launch missiles on Ukraine, it will not affect the grinding ground hostilities along the crescent-shaped, 1,200km (745-mile) front line, he said.

Romanenko compared The Spiderweb’s scope and inventiveness to a string of 2023 Ukrainian attacks against Russia’s Black Sea fleet that was mostly concentrated in annexed Crimea.

Although Ukraine’s navy consisted of a handful of small, decades-old warships that fit into a football field-sized harbour, Kyiv reinvented naval warfare by hitting and drowning Russian warships and submarines with missiles and air and sea drones.

Moscow hastily relocated the decimated Black Sea fleet eastwards to the port of Novorossiysk and no longer uses it to intercept Ukrainian civilian vessels loaded with grain and steel.

The Spiderweb caught Russia’s military strategists off-guard because they had designed air defences to thwart attacks by missiles or heavier, long-range strike drones.

Instead, the SBU used 117 toy-like first-person-view (FPV) drones, each costing just hundreds of dollars, that were hidden in wooden crates loaded onto trucks, it said.

Their unsuspecting drivers took them right next to the airfields – and were shocked to see them fly out and cause the damage that amounted to $7bn, the SBU said.

“The driver is running around in panic,” said a Russian man who filmed thick black smoke rising from the Olenegorsk airbase in Russia’s Arctic region of Murmansk, which borders Norway.

Other videos released by the SBU were filmed by drones as they were hitting the planes, causing thundering explosions and sky-high plumes of black smoke.

Russia’s air defence systems guarding the airfields were not designed to detect and hit the tiny FPV drones while radio jamming equipment that could have caused them to stray off course wasn’t on or malfunctioned.

The SBU added a humiliating detail – The Spiderweb’s command centre was located in an undisclosed location in Russia near an office of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Moscow’s main intelligence agency, which Russian President Vladimir Putin once headed.

“This is a slap on the face for Russia, for FSB, for Putin,” Romanenko said.

However, Kyiv didn’t specifically target the pillar of Russia’s nuclear triad.

“They are destroying Russian strategic aviation not because it’s capable of carrying missiles with nuclear warheads but because of its use to launch … nonnuclear [missiles],” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University, told Al Jazeera.

The operation, which took 18 months to plan and execute, damaged a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

“This is our most far-reaching operation. Ukraine’s actions will definitely be in history textbooks,” he wrote on Telegram late on Sunday. “We’re doing everything to make Russia feel the necessity to end this war.”

The SBU used artificial intelligence algorithms to train the drones to recognise Soviet-era aircraft by using the planes displayed at an aviation museum in central Ukraine, the Clash Report military blogger said on Monday.

‘The very logic of the negotiations process won’t change’

The attack took place a day before Ukrainian and Russian diplomats convened in Istanbul to resume long-stalled peace talks.

But it will not affect the “logic” of the negotiations, a Kyiv-based political analyst said.

“Emotionally, psychologically and politically, the operation strengthens the positions of Ukrainian negotiators,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think tank, told Al Jazeera. “But the very logic of the negotiations process won’t change.”

“Both sides will consider [US President] Donald Trump an arbiter, and whoever is first to leave the talks loses, ruins its negotiation positions with the United States,” Fesenko said.

Once again, the talks will likely show that the sides are not ready to settle as Russia is hoping to carve out more Ukrainian territory for itself and Ukraine is not going to throw in the towel.

“Russia wants to finish off Ukraine, and we’re showing that we will resist, we won’t give up, won’t capitulate,” Fesenko said.

By Monday, analysts using satellite imagery confirmed that 13 planes – eight Tu-95s, four Tu-22Ms and one An-12 – have been destroyed or damaged.

“What a remarkable success in a well-executed operation,” Chris Biggers, a military analyst based in Washington, DC, wrote on X next to a map showing the destruction of eight planes at the Belaya airbase in the Irkutsk region in southeastern Siberia.

Five more planes have been destroyed at the Murmansk base, according to Oko Hora, a group of Ukrainian analysts.

The Spiderweb targeted three more airfields, two in western regions and one near Russia’s Pacific coast, according to a photo that the SBU posted showing its leader, Vasyl Malyuk, looking at a map of the strikes.

But so far, no damage to the airfields or the planes on them has been reported.

Russia is likely to respond to The Spiderweb with more massive drone and missile attacks on civilian sites.

“I’m afraid they’ll use Oreshnik again,” Fesenko said, referring to Russia’s most advanced ballistic missile, which can speed up to 12,300 kilometres per hour (7,610 miles per hour), or 10 times the speed of sound, and was used in November to strike a plant in eastern Ukraine.