Daniel Rakov
Russia views the rapid escalation of the Iran-Israel conflict with alarm. The Kremlin recognizes that the war’s outcome may reshape its global stature, fundamentally alter the dynamics of the “Iran question”—in which Moscow has long claimed a central role—and impact global strategic stability and non-proliferation efforts.
Tactical parallels of two operations. Russia is closely following the military innovations introduced by this new war. Russian publicists and military bloggers have focused on the Mossad’s operations inside Iran, especially how Israel launched herds of attacking drones from within Iranian territory in the early hours of the June 13 surprise attack.
Given their apparent resemblance, Russian military commentators see Israel’s drone strikes against Iran’s air defense systems launched from Iranian territory as echoing Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russia’s strategic nuclear bomber bases only two weeks earlier. In that case, however, they tried to downplay Ukraine’s military ingenuity,
claiming that Israel’s national intelligence agency, Mossad, may have assisted the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) or rehearsed its own Iran operation via the Ukrainians.
There are indeed shared technical and tactical features between SBU’s “Spider Web” and the Mossad’s drone operations. According to leaks from both agencies, the operations were long-planned, involved smuggling explosive drones into enemy territory, operating a covert workshop in the enemy’s domain for assembling and deploying them, and conducting a surprise, synchronized strike on key security targets.
Both the Mossad and the SBU publicized their activities shortly after the attacks, including photographic evidence, thereby dominating the media agenda and sowing doubt in the enemy’s mind as to whether the exposed activity was only the tip of an iceberg of yet-to-come further operations. Above all, both operations presented Ukraine and Israel as innovative and daring—modern-day Davids confronting the giant, cumbersome, and outdated Goliaths of Russia and Iran.
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