Drone Attack on Russian Bases: An Attempt to Push Trump to Defend Europe?
Attacking Nuclear Bomber Bases does not really benefit Ukraine
The drone attack on 5 Highly Sensitive Russian Bases was aimed at the US as much as Russia
In a brilliant operation that, according to the Ukrainians, took 18 months to pull off, Ukraine attacked five Russian strategic bases, destroying and damaging Russian nuclear bombers.
This is not the first time that Ukraine has attacked Russian nuclear bomber site and other nuclear installations including strategic missile early warning radars and closer-in Russian bomber bases. But this time the attacks were very deep inside Russia.
The Russians do not use shelters for their bomber fleet, something a number of Russian defense experts have demanded, without any success persuading the authorities in Moscow. While shelters probably are inadequate against heavy missiles, they would more than suffice against small drones.
The US has a similar problem.
There are some aspects of the attack that warrant attention.
The first is the strike deep inside Russia was in parallel to other large scale Ukrainian drone attacks closer to their shared border with Russia. In addition there were attacks against rail bridges and rail lines in Bryansk and Kursk. While Russian President Putin was being briefed on the rail line attacks in the middle of the night, his air bases were exploding elsewhere.
It is also noteworthy that the bases under drone attack appear to not have air defenses, or at least air defenses capable of engaging small FPV drones. The Ukrainians probably learned this from NATO overhead intelligence sources. There are no reports of any of the drones aimed at the 5 bases being shot down.
Early reports suggested that the drones used in the attack were connected by satellite to Ukraine's GUR (military intelligence) command centers. More recent information, and more reliable, is the Ukrainian drones were operated through the cell phone LTE network in Russia. LTE (which stands for Long Term Evolution) is a 4G cellular network and is the backbone of Russia's cellphone system. The Ukrainians had no difficulty acquiring SIM cards for the drones and for the containers that contained them, carried in commercial trucks.
Reports say that the containers opened when in range of the targets. There is at least one report where a container top opened prematurely and the truck driver tried to push it closed, leading to an explosion. In another case, a truck was stopped and captured.
The Ukrainians also had no difficulty sending these large containers to Russia, and putting them aboard trucks in a warehouse in Chelyabinsk. Chelyabinsk is a city in west-central Russia, close to the Ural Mountains. From there the drone trucks were sent to pre-designated locations. To do this and run such an operation a good sized team would have been needed. Ukraine claims they were all exfiltrated from Russian territory before the launch of the operation. Allegedly the truck drivers were hired and did not know the cargo contents.
The brazenness of the operation, which risked exposure along with way but was never uncovered, suggests a massive failure of Russian intelligence and a completely incompetent internal security system. Russia's backside has been heavily exposed to infiltration and intelligence operations managed by Ukraine. While it has caught a number of relatively small fish, important government buildings, apartment blocks, theaters, and military bases along with frequent assassinations of Ukraine's military and political enemies, has gone on and hardly has been challenged. Conversely, Russia has been unable to threaten Ukraine in a parallel manner, relying on missile and drone strikes to "retaliate." Even intelligence on Putin's secret visit to Kursk was leaked to Ukraine, resulting in an attack on Putin's helicopter that came close to shooting it down.
There are rumors that Putin is shaking up the FSB, Russia's successor to the KGB. It is impossible to tell if this will help improve Russia's internal security. There appears to be at least good circumstantial evidence that critical Russian civil and military institutions are infiltrated either by paid spies or by anti-Putin and anti-war factions.
Russia's current troubles are, at least in part, not only a result of good Ukrainian intelligence operations, but also of years of effort by western spy agencies, especially MI-6 from the UK, to try and destabilize Russia and bring down the Putin regime. But there is even more.
Trying to knock out strategic nuclear facilities, flirting even with a nuclear attack, is not very much in Ukraine's interest, as Ukraine would be the first victim of a fierce Russian reaction. Such an attack is, however, consistent with what appears to be the NATO program to destabilize the Russian government and kill Putin. In addition, and even more profoundly, the British and their Euro-partners, the EU and France and Germany, are deeply concerned that the US is removing itself from the Ukraine war and possibly even pulling US troops out of NATO, at least some to start. The Europeans know that this exposes them to an angry and dangerous Russia, so it is in their interest to try and push the US back into its traditional role of protector of Europe. Of course this conflicts with rising US concern about China and its growing military capability that threatens US interests much more directly than anything that can be conjured up on behalf of NATO expansion in Ukraine. If this assessment is right, Trump is being worked over, and the air base and other attacks deep inside Russia are intended to grow the threat to Europe and Ukraine and do so urgently.
The above image is also consistent with other collateral information. The negotiations now underway again in Istanbul appears to have generated a split between Zelensky and his defense minister, Rustem Umarov. Reports say that Umarov wants to find a way to make the Istanbul negotiations work while Zelensky is making every effort to scuttle them. Despite the latest attacks inside Russia, the Russians also appear to still want to try and see if progress can be made.
In the previous round of negotiations, when the Russians launched heavy missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, President Trump complained bitterly about Putin, suggesting he had gone crazy. This time Trump is completely silent about the latest Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. Was Trump caught by surprise? Did he have prior notice (and if he did, why did he agree?)? Axios first reported that Trump was briefed ahead of time, then hastily changed the story to reflect push back from the US administration saying they did not know. Where did Axios get the original information, although it takes little guesswork that it came from some friendly foreign intelligence sources.
The bottom line is that the Trump administration was caught by surprise, and in fact does not know what to do right now. Perhaps that is because these reckless attacks were aimed more at Washington than Moscow.
The bombers were in the open because the Russians were adhering to the New Start Treaty (signed in 2010 between Obama and the President Menadev) which states that strategic bombers are to be parked in the open for satellite confirmation by the other side. The same applies to the US side as well. Interesting that Ukraine claim using this same satellite information was used in their planning.
The Ukrainians claim that they informed the Americans, even as the Trump Administration claim they were not informed. Who to believe given the ability of both these actors to be very libveral with the truth?
The Treaty also states that these airbases are not to be attacked by the either side, AND THEIR ALLIES. Given that the US/NATO has been supporting Ukraine in this war - and are therefore beligerents, the Russians might conclude that the West is in breech of the treaty (given Ukrainian use of satellite information and perhaps other assistance). The upshot of this is that the Russians might tear up the treaty which governs mush more such as numbers and forms of nuclear warheads - something the Trump Administration will not want.
Furthermore, this attack, although spectacular, will have no effect on the battlefield where the Russians continue to be successful - and that is what counts the most. This also will likely harden Russian resolve, and may result in further Russian demands on Putin to continue the war by the Russian population, and thought through retailation. This is a tactical victory, not a strategic success for the Ukrainians, and they may live to regret it. This attack does nothing to win the war.
While the Trump admin may have been surprised, the American national security bureaucracy almost certainly was not.