Nick Paton Walsh,
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Plumes of smoke are seen rising over the Belaya air base in the Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia, in a photo posted by Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev to Telegram on Sunday. Igor Kobzev/Telegram/AP
CNN —
After too many nights of pulling children from the rubble of Russian drone strikes, the weekend’s devastating attacks on Moscow’s military pride mark a moment of brief respite for Ukrainian morale, and yet another twist of the unexpected in the Kremlin’s war of choice.
It may be hard to fathom the precise impact of Ukraine’s wily drone assault on Russian air bases thousands of miles beyond the Ukrainian border. Kyiv said 41 long-range bomber jets were set aflame and that the attacks hit 34% of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers at its main bases.
We don’t know how many bombers Russia had that were fully functional – after years of taxing nightly missions over Ukraine – and how many others had been cannibalized for spare parts, but some reports suggest Russia only had about 20 of the propeller-driven Tu-95s and about 60 supersonic Tu-22M3s in service.
It will become clear in the months ahead to what extent this really dents the terror the air raid sirens bring across Ukraine. But if what Kyiv says is true – 117 relatively cheap drones taking out dozens of planes and causing what one security source estimated to be $7 billion in damage – then the economics of the war have shifted.
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