Putin Recognizes Donbass Republics, Sends Russian Military to 'Denazify' Ukraine

[Niall]

It's a bit worse than an interesting curiosity. Ukraine has launched a major, multi-site drone attack that appears to have knocked out a big portion, and possibly the largest portion, of Russia's strategic bomber fleet.

Here's a thread with video footage, presumably sourced from Russian Telegram channels, and which was partly filmed and published by the operatives themselves, and partly by eyewitnesses:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1929135654165733450

Gotta say, the way they did it was ingenious. 21st century guerilla warfare!

Of course, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. This will show, for example, Iran-aligned militia in the M.E. how to cheaply and effectively knock out all US bombers parked there.

 

[Niall]

This article says the Ukies claim to have "targeted and damaged or destroyed 41 Russian strategic aircraft, including Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 bombers."

That's something like half of all Russia's bombers.

I guess "strategic" bombers are no longer strategic. Big Data and networked 'swarm' capability are the new "strategic bombers."

 

[RedFox]

It's a bit worse than an interesting curiosity. Ukraine has launched a major, multi-site drone attack that appears to have knocked out a big portion, and possibly the largest portion, of Russia's strategic bomber fleet.

That's something like half of all Russia's bombers.

Jesus. Well I did wonder how they'd escalate things - this looks like a massive escalation. I guess the attack on Putin's helicopter on May 20th didn't work so well.

I'd expect many parties to take advantage of this now, for example Israel possibly attacking Iran, possible even a flare up around Japan.
This coming a few days before 'peace talks' in Istanbul.

So where were the air defences? That is sure to cause consternation in Russia, and call from the more hard line Russian block.

And all done without much western media coverage (so far), so any military response by Russia can be framed as 'Russian aggression'.

If the western media does pick it up it can be spun as Russian/Putin's weakness, and I'm sure that message is being given to the US and EU leaders now.

Well, there are these military exercises going on near enough (from 5 days ago according to the WSJ), which could have fired at the Murmansk region (resulting in the destruction of those planes in the video):

https://kosovapress.com/en/The-US-is-arming-the-European-island-that-Vladimir-Putin-wants

[..]While some European officials express concern that the US commitment to the transatlantic alliance is weakening due to Trump's criticism and announcements of reducing military engagement abroad, American military commanders say their operational doctrine has not changed.

"From a U.S. military perspective, my orders have not changed," said Brigadier General Andrew Saslav, deputy chief of staff for U.S. Army operations in Europe and Africa.

"Of course I am thinking about the issue of future US involvement, but I have done so long enough not to get carried away by political messages that are not official orders."

During the three-week military exercise, American and British forces joined Nordic and Baltic troops to practice potential war scenarios, including gunfire, blood delivery by drone and parachute jumps over the Arctic Circle in Norway.

The aim of the exercise was to deter Russia from aggression and to strengthen the alliance in this strategically important corner of Europe, including new NATO members Finland and Sweden.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Nordic countries have significantly increased their defense spending. Finland shares a thousand-and-a-half-mile border with Russia. Norway borders Russia's Kola Peninsula, home to Russia's main submarine fleet, the Northern Fleet.[..]

Maybe this puts Trumps comments about Putin a few days ago in a new context, which Trump was likely fed.

May 27th:

Putin ‘playing with fire’ – Trump

The US leader has recently made some harsh remarks toward Moscow, which the Kremlin has attributed to “emotional overload”

swentr.site

[..]In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, Trump claimed that “if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD.”

The US president added that Putin is “playing with fire!”

Later in the day, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce emphasized that Trump’s remark was not a sign of the US president’s “frustration,” but that he is just being “transparent about his opinion.”

“I think this is what Russia should take seriously; Americans certainly do,” she added.[..]

It's harder to locate what may have been the source of the attacks on Sredny.

*edit* ok looks like the MSM is covering the destruction of the planes now.

 

[Olivierlejardinier]

It's a bit worse than an interesting curiosity. Ukraine has launched a major, multi-site drone attack that appears to have knocked out a big portion, and possibly the largest portion, of Russia's strategic bomber fleet.

Here's a thread with video footage, presumably sourced from Russian Telegram channels, and which was partly filmed and published by the operatives themselves, and partly by eyewitnesses:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1929135654165733450

Gotta say, the way they did it was ingenious. 21st century guerilla warfare!

Of course, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. This will show, for example, Iran-aligned militia in the M.E. how to cheaply and effectively knock out all US bombers parked there.

Prior to that there was two explosions on road/rail bridges, from telegram's channel IntelSlava :

The Russian Investigative Committee states that both bridges that collapsed in the Bryansk and Kursk regions were blown up.

"On May 31, 2025, at 10:50 p.m. on the Vygonichi-Pilshino railway section in the Bryansk region, as a result of an explosion, the structure of the road bridge collapsed, the debris of which fell on a passenger train passing underneath. As a result of the incident, people were injured and killed.

On June 1, 2025, at about 3 a.m., a railway bridge was also blown up in the Zheleznogorsk district of the Kursk region, causing a passing train to fall onto a road. As a result of the incident, the driver and his two assistants were injured,".

 

[dredger]

About what happened today, the main big lie from the MSM is to say that it was planned by the ukrainians .
This is probably/certainly a NATO engineered operation and Russia knows it. I wonder how is it going to unfold, next hours & days may be decisives.

 

[Adobe]

Scuttlebutt gone wild at the moment, and apparently a struggle for optics on both sides. Some are saying that zerohedge has falling for the bait by: Announcing this as Russia's Pearl Harbor, which could be seen as a call for Russia to unleash itself on the west. The other side of the debate is saying "no big deal" just a few old bombers that's nothing." So Russia should continue with it's patients. A lively debate over on Moon of Alabama, and below I'm posting the zerohedge report which has commentary and videos.

"The scale, precision, and depth of the drone swarm attack on multiple Russian airfields have led some military observers to describe the operation as a "Russian Pearl Harbor."

"Ukrainian official: We notified the Trump administration in advance of the attack on Russian airports: RTRS"

"Meanwhile, Trump admin sources told CBS that the White House wasn't aware that today's large-scale drone attack by Ukraine on the Russian military aircraft was coming." "Someone is lying"

Zelensky Boasts Of 'Absolutely Brilliant' Longest Range Strikes While Kremlin Confirms 'Terrorist Attacks' | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

 

[Niall]

Official Russia, as usual, prefers not to 'whine' and is downplaying the impact of what Kiev reports it called 'Operation Spiderweb':

Military airfields across Russia have been attacked in a series of kamikaze drone strikes, the country's Defense Ministry reported on Sunday, blaming the incidents on Kiev. Most of the strikes were successfully repelled, with some resulting in material damage, it added.

From the publicly available video footage, at least 10 separate aircraft were hit by drones.

 

[loreta]

Official Russia, as usual, prefers not to 'whine' and is downplaying the impact of what Kiev reports it called 'Operation Spiderweb':



From the publicly available video footage, at least 10 separate aircraft were hit by drones.

I hear that this operation took one year preparation. Maybe the Mossad is in?

 

[loreta]

In fact Russia have a spider patience.

 

[Possibility of Being]

This time, the official Russia may be correct, or quite close. It's been mostly confirmed by military-related TG channels. From the beginning of the attacks today they were warning about many fake videos dumped for public consumption, in other words, IPSO stuffing the info space with their crap. One of the fake news concerned Severomorsk (Murmansk oblast', Northern Fleet base, hosting a.o. nuclear carriers) - no explosions or fires happened there. As far as it's publicly known, that is.

Military correspondent Bezsonov posted about the consequences of today's Ukrainian attacks for Russian strategic aviation:

"According to my information, as a result of today’s attack by Ukrainian drones on our strategic aviation, three bombers and one IL-76 transport aircraft were damaged. As a matter of fact, this is in the video. The data published by the Ukrainian side is nonsense!"

BTW, the drones' AI was trained in recognizing targets with the use of the planes located in the Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation which has such models as Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3 on display.

 

[Beau]

This article says the Ukies claim to have "targeted and damaged or destroyed 41 Russian strategic aircraft, including Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 bombers."

That's something like half of all Russia's bombers.

Simplicius is also downplaying the damage:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1929240460645605748

Newsflash: Sorry to disappoint sensationalizers, but there is high chance not a single Tu-95 was 'destroyed'. Burning aviation fuel releases a lot of smoke, leading to grainy, distant videos making the hits appear more catastrophic than they are. Russian bases have emergency fire suppression teams precisely for this task, and planes have caught fire before and been put back in service. A tiny FPV hitting the wing and setting a fire does not lead to the loss of the entire craft. Sure, they will be under repair for a long time but unless precise confirmation is reached, we can assume 4-5 Tu-95s were "damaged" and taken temporarily/indefinitely out of service, pending repairs. Ukraine has actually struck Tu-95s before with shrapnel and the planes were repaired, as most likely will be the case here.

 

[Possibility of Being]

The whole point of the railway and air bases recent attacks was Z's hope to provoke Russia into abandoning tomorrow's Istanbul 'negotiation' so that she can be blamed for breaking the process. What a fool he is. The Russian delegation landed in Istanbul earlier today.

Simplicius is also downplaying the damage:

It's good to remember that all of the alarming "40 planes destroyed" 'reports' were coming from the Ukrainians. As came the lie sold to Axios by an "unnamed Ukrainian official" that Trump had known about the attack in advance. They have an obvious "existential" agenda which is continuation of the war. Otherwise, they are done. The whole top and a part of the rest.

 

[mxwlll0]

I recalled seeing this the other day and not posted on this thread, but considering these recent attacks seems very peculiar:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1928115789321601293

BREAKING: Massive Russian Nuclear Secrets Leak

Over 2 million classified documents detailing Russia’s entire nuclear program including missile base blueprints, locations, vulnerabilities, and Avangard hypersonic systems have been leaked online.

Investigated by Danwatch & Der Spiegel, this is being called the largest military intelligence breach in Russian history.

Includes location of Yasny base, housing Avangard missiles.

Russian MoD remains silent.

Major global security implications.

If true, were these leaks used in the planning? Who leaked the documents? The intent is clear - keep the war going and sabotage any negotiations.

 

[ApotheosisMMC.]

I guess "strategic" bombers are no longer strategic. Big Data and networked 'swarm' capability are the new "strategic bombers."

Although drones are the future for now, missiles with greater destructive and penetrative capacity are still needed to destroy certain targets. To be effective, these often require close proximity from bombers or fighters. These will continue to have their place until certain "heavy" attack drones with similar characteristics can replace them. Sixth-generation fighters are partly that, and of course, the problem of ground vulnerability and the need for bombers that can carry a large amount of material at once are not resolved unless strategies are changed. All of the above raises doubts about how Clause 12, Point C of the START nuclear non-proliferation treaty will be addressed from now on. Although Putin suspended it, it seems that both parties are still complying with it for security reasons, and they are keeping nuclear-capable bombers outdoors at the bases where they are located.



Anti-drone defenses could be partly improved (such as the new Russian Yolka portable drones designed to intercept other drones), although the risk remains high and these continue to evolve; we'll see.

Regarding the attack, it was a major operation in terms of planning by Ukraine. Combined with the train attacks and more drone swarm attacks on the eve of tomorrow's talks, we have no doubt that Ukraine hasn't changed in the slightest in its plan to escalate the war, as it has no other plausible alternative to win. But while impressive, it's by no means a decisive blow, and it has failed at several of the air bases it targeted.

@MyLordBebo
War blogger Podolyaka writes:

Strikes on Russian airfields: it looks like negligence was the cause of most of the losses...

I'm looking at footage of drones being shot down by Pantsirs in the Murmansk region (only ONE Tu-95 has been confirmed at the Olenyi airfield, and it's not a fact that it was destroyed), and I'm also reading the news that the two closest to the front repelled enemy attacks (and in the Amur region, it looks like the enemy had a malfunction) and I understand that the losses at the Belaya airfield in the Irkutsk region (that's where the footage of burning planes in a row came from) were primarily caused by someone's negligence.

Either they thought they wouldn't reach them, or for some other reason. And that's what brought the enemy the greatest success, and us the greatest losses.

And if it (negligence) hadn't happened, the enemy wouldn't have much to brag about today.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1929276215262908788

In short, we will have to wait for more information, but in the meantime, Putin has met with the Security Council and the negotiating delegation is going to Istanbul without problems, all amidst general silence, although they are undoubtedly preparing something, as has been seen in the past, I am inclined to believe that Russia will not escalate this, the damage is not incapacitating and the long-term plan of wearing down Ukraine until its army collapses due to lack of recruits seems to me to be the best in terms of benefits for Russia... even more so with the new phase of the SMO announced.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

"Diverge considerably": Ukraine will present memorandum for prolonging the conflict during the second round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul.