On this picture taken from video launched June 1, 2025, by a supply within the Ukrainian Safety Service reveals a Ukrainian drone hanging Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory.
AP/Ukrainian Safety Service
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AP/Ukrainian Safety Service
MOSCOW and KYIV — Ukraine attacked Russia with a sequence of drone strikes on navy air bases deep within the Russian heartland on Sunday — an operation that appeared timed to affect a new spherical of Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire talks set to happen in Istanbul Monday.
After greater than three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this rigorously deliberate assault, supposed to hit bombers that launch missiles on Ukrainian cities, was celebrated by Ukrainians, who referred to as it “Operation Trojan Vans” on social media.
Ukraine’s Safety Service smuggled first-person view drones laden with small explosives onto vehicles pushed deep into Russia. The operation was acknowledged by Ukrainian officers as a much-needed win.
“The enemy has been bombing our nation virtually each evening from these plane, and in the present day they really felt that retaliation is inevitable,” Vasyl Malyuk, the top of Ukraine’s safety companies, mentioned in an announcement.
The drones — deployed from vehicles parked alongside highways in proximity to Russian navy installations — have been used to strike 41 heavy bomber jets in bases as far-off as Murmansk in Russia’s Arctic north and Irkutsk in Siberia, greater than 2,700 miles away from the Ukrainian border.
Malyuk mentioned the drones have been hidden below the roofs of wood cabins positioned on vehicles. These roofs have been opened remotely, and the drones flew out to hit the Russian bombers, he mentioned.
“Our strikes will proceed so long as Russia terrorizes Ukrainians with missiles and Shaheds,” he mentioned, referring to the Iranian-designed drones which have performed a central function in Russia’s aerial assault on Ukraine
On this undated photograph supplied by the Ukrainian Safety Service, head of the Safety Service Vasyl Malyuk research a photograph of a map of Russia’s strategic aviation location in his workplace in Ukraine.
AP/Ukrainian Safety Service
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AP/Ukrainian Safety Service
In an earlier assertion in regards to the operation, formally dubbed “Spiderweb,” Ukraine’s safety service claimed it destroyed $7 billion price of Russia’s strategic aviation with the strikes — a few third of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers
Russian officers downplay affect
Information of the operation was the speak of each Russia and Ukraine.
One video posted on-line confirmed the drones take off from a truck mattress parked alongside a freeway because the Russian narrator let obscenities fly. One other reveals a Russian serviceman swearing into the digital camera as planes burn behind him. One pro-Kremlin navy blogger referred to the assault as a “Russian Pearl Harbor.”
In his night video handle on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned the “completely ready” operation utilizing 117 drones had been deliberate for greater than a yr and a half below the nostril of Russia’s safety service.
“Our folks operated in several Russian areas in three time zones,” he mentioned. “And our folks have been taken out of Russian territory on the eve of the operation. Those that helped us are secure.”
Russia’s Protection Ministry later confirmed the assaults on the navy bases however performed down their affect — claiming “solely a number of items of aviation expertise caught fireplace.”
The ministry additionally mentioned its forces had thwarted further assaults on three different bases and made a number of arrests — with out offering particulars. It added nobody had been injured within the assaults.
Neither the Ukrainian or Russian claims on the injury occurred might be independently verified.
Russian trains derail
The drones have been removed from the one violence over the weekend.
Not less than seven folks have been killed and greater than 104 injured after a bridge collapsed on a passenger prepare touring via western Russia’s Bryansk area Saturday evening — sending particles and several other vehicles onto the prepare compartments beneath.
Photographs shared on social media confirmed shocked passengers making an attempt to climb out of smashed carriages at the hours of darkness.
In the meantime, Russian railway authorities say a separate rail bridge collapsed within the neighboring Kursk area hours later — derailing a freight prepare and injuring a number of crew members.
Russia’s Examine Committee mentioned it had launched a prison probe into each incidents on terrorism grounds — however pulled again on preliminary claims the bridges had each collapsed as a consequence of planted explosives.
On this photograph launched by Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service telegram channel on Sunday, June 1, 2025, emergency staff work at a broken bridge in Russia’s Bryansk area, which borders Ukraine.
AP/Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service
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AP/Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service
Nonetheless, a number of outstanding Russian politicians have been fast in charge Ukraine and counsel it was purpose sufficient to proceed the battle at any price.
“Our reply shall be a buffer zone so massive that it prevents the penetration of terrorists onto our territory sooner or later,” wrote Andrei Klishas, a senior member of Russia’s higher home Federation Council.
Whereas Ukrainian authorities didn’t touch upon both prepare derailment, Ukraine’s navy intelligence did verify a success on a Russian navy prepare transferring provides in an occupied a part of the Ukrainian area of Zaporizhzhia.
Russian drone strikes
Russia additionally carried out assaults — launching greater than 470 drones and several other missiles at targets throughout Ukraine, in what Ukrainian authorities mentioned was the most important single-day air assault for the reason that battle started.
Probably the most lethal: what Ukraine’s military mentioned was a “missile strike on the placement of one of many coaching models” — killing a dozen troopers and injuring greater than 60. Ukraine’s navy hardly ever confirms losses and didn’t disclose the exact location of the coaching camp, although Zelenskyy mentioned in his night handle that it was in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk area.
The commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Main Basic Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the assault “out of a private sense of duty” for the casualties. “A military the place nobody is held accountable for losses dies from inside,” he wrote on his Fb web page.
Ukraine has additionally accused the Kremlin of massing some 50,000 troops at its border close to Sumy in northeastern Ukraine prematurely of a doable summer time offensive — at the same time as Kyiv and Moscow have engaged in a few of their first direct peace talks in over three years amid strain from the Trump administration.
Peace talks
The weekend motion got here as either side equipped for a second spherical of negotiations in Istanbul on Monday.
The 2 sides are anticipated to debate so-called “memoranda” — basically counter proposals outlining phrases for any future peace accord.
Writing on social media, Zelenskyy mentioned his priorities for the talks embrace a full and unconditional ceasefire, the discharge of prisoners and the return of kidnapped youngsters.
President Trump has been a robust advocate for the direct talks — saying their progress, or lack thereof, will do a lot to find out the way forward for U.S. engagement within the Ukraine battle.
At the same time as Trump has threatened sanctions towards Moscow over its perceived slow-walking of the negotiations, he and his administration have additionally made clear they imagine Ukraine ought to settle for it can’t beat its bigger neighbor militarily and make concessions.
But if Moscow was seen as driving the phrases of negotiations, political observers in Moscow advised Ukraine’s shock drone operation had a minimum of undermined that dynamic for now.
“The Ukrainian delegation is headed to Istanbul clearly not feeling itself the ‘shedding facet of the battle,’ wrote Moscow-based analyst Georgi Bovt in a put up to social media.
Bovt reminded that Trump as soon as informed the Ukrainians they “do not have the playing cards proper now” to barter a positive finish to the battle.
“Apparently, they discovered them,” added Bovt.
NPR producer Hanna Palamarenko contributed to this report from Kyiv.
