Military analysts say the Operation Spider Web strike is a wake-up call for the entire world.

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Russian forces have invaded Ukraine from land, air and sea with strikes causing widespread damage. Global leaders have condemned the move and imposed sanctions.

Ukraine Invasion

Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb involved a coordinated drone assault targeting Russian airbases across multiple time zones, resulting in significant damage to Russian military aircraft. The operation utilized over 100 drones, with Ukrainian forces employing innovative tactics such as mobile relay stations in trucks to maintain control of drones from within Ukrainian territory, bypassing traditional countermeasures like cellular jamming and GPS blocking.

Military analysts and counter-drone specialists highlight that the attack relied largely on commercially available technology and strategic planning rather than classified systems. The event is seen as a significant development in drone warfare, demonstrating that advanced attacks can be executed with accessible technology. Experts warn that the methods used could be replicated beyond the battlefield, posing new security challenges globally.

How Ukraine rewrote the rules of drone warfare

Ukraine calls it Operation Spiderweb, a sweeping drone assault in June deep inside Russia. More than 100 drones struck airbases across five time zones, damaging or destroying dozens of Russian warplanes, including long-range bombers. Experts say it's a wake-up call, showing how far drone warfare can now reach, well beyond the front lines. We knew in the days after Operation Spiderweb much of the how. Trailers filled with drones snuck into position near Russian airbases, hauled by truckers who may not have known what they were carrying. A hatch opens. Drones burst out, homing in on strategic bombers, then going in for the kill. What remained a mystery, how Ukrainian pilots, never leaving their own territory, controlled drones that struck targets hundreds of miles deep inside Russia. Yaniv Benbenitsi, an Israeli counter-drone specialist, has been digging through the open-source evidence and thinks he's cracked it. The truck was able to provide very stable communication back to Ukraine, based on solar communication. This is so interesting to me, because I'd originally assumed that they put SIM cards on the drones themselves, but as you explain in your analysis, that probably wouldn't work because there's unreliable cell phone signal subject to countermeasures. So when you analyze the airbase, you see a very good cellular reception on the highway away from the airbase itself. Ukraine, by turning trucks into mobile relay stations, maintained radio control of the drones from inside its own territory, avoiding cellular jamming around the bases and keeping the operation on course. The truck is located in a good spot on the highway. Ukraine released video of the trailer after the drones launched. It's self-destructed. They blew it up. Do you think they did that after the mission was complete? You know, the mission is over, obviously it's very successful. Now it makes sense to blow everything, to make it much harder for the Russians to try and trace back the sources of the different technology that was installed. One of the key technologies on board the drones, a system that lets them switch to autopilot after launch, following pre-programmed paths to their targets. So even if Russia jammed GPS, it wouldn't matter. Ukrainian drone pilots took back control once the drones reached the bombers, as indicated by a no-fail mode on screen, guiding them manually to strike the fuel tanks. The Ukrainians aren't making any secret that they were using ArduPilot, this open-source system for piloting drones. I imagine that they customized it. Actually, not much. In terms of technology, it's really straightforward usage of commercial technology. So apparently the attack didn't rely on highly classified systems, just sharp strategy and off-the-shelf tech. That's why this is so interesting. They've shown that it's not enough to block the cell signal. It's not enough to block GPS in an area that you're trying to protect against a drone attack. It's not going to cut it anymore. Exactly. And all these techniques of identifying large objects and mitigating the GPS environment is useless when you are dealing with a small flying object, not in the line of DPS. Let's say you have a high-value protectee. What can you do to prevent this type of attack? Because it doesn't seem like the barrier for doing this type of attack is all that high. Yeah, we're looking at the communication link running between the drone and its ground station. And that's where security firms like DeFend step in, with hardware designed to cut the video link drone pilots need to make the kill. No feed, no strike. Unless the drone no longer needs one. Let's imagine you have a scenario where there's facial recognition that's on the drone itself and it goes into autonomous mode. It needs to get close enough and then it can pinpoint the person. So unless the drone is stopped before it gets that close, it's game over. At this point, probably it's too late. In conclusion, should Operation Spiderweb be seen as a wake-up call? It's a wake-up call, yes. People need to very carefully analyze this and to understand that it's not going to stay just in Ukraine and Russia. This technology today is accessible for you, me, and everyone. Everyone can create a very severe attack tomorrow with just a few thousand rubles. That's it. A wake-up call, not just for the battlefield, but for any place someone might decide to turn a drone into a weapon. Jason Bellini, Scripps News Group, Washington.

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How Ukraine rewrote the rules of drone warfare

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Ukraine Invasion