John E. Herbst
KYIV—It was a surprising and devastating attack that some hysterical Russian war bloggers are calling the country’s Pearl Harbor. But the assault on Pearl Harbor occurred when there was no war between Japan and the United States.
Having spent the last four nights in a bomb shelter in Odesa and Kyiv as the Kremlin continues its massive missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s cities, in a war of aggression that Moscow launched, I can assure you that Ukraine had every right to do what it did on June 1: Strike strategic bombers at five bases across the breadth of Russia.
In contrast to Moscow’s targeting of Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, Ukraine committed no war crime or breach of international law in destroying those Russian planes, which are regularly used against civilians.
Rather than recalling the Pearl Harbor attack, the complexity and boldness of Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb”—which involved smuggling drones into Russian regions from Murmansk to Irkutsk, and launching them against advanced Russian Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers and A-50 intelligence planes—rivals the now legendary Israeli intelligence operation against Hezbollah fighters’ pagers last year. It has underscored once again that ingenuity along with determination are Ukraine’s strategic advantages in stopping Moscow’s war of aggression.
According to media reports, as many as forty planes have been hit. The Security Service of Ukraine—which planned and executed the operation—claims that the attack destroyed 34 percent of Russia’s strategic bombers capable of carrying cruise missiles. Russian defense sources say that while some planes were on fire as a result of the attack, no real damage was done. Some Russian war bloggers, however, are writing as if the damage was major, and video evidence on social media show the destruction of at least some planes.
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