Marc Santora
Appearances
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So first of all, you know, we talked about how this was a year and a half in the planning. So while President Zelensky was in the Oval Office being berated, he knew that this plot was, you know, being cooked up. So in any case, he knew he had some cards in his back pocket. Right. I think, you know, we talked a lot about what was Ukraine's goal with this operation.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And obviously a central goal was security. to slow down these bombardments. But there was a secondary goal, which was to raise the cost of this war for the Kremlin. The Ukrainian theory of how do you stop this war is you have to force the Russians to stop. Diplomacy has so far failed.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So the only way Ukraine sees this war ending is if there is enough pressure and cost on the Kremlin to end their war. So this attack was a part of that. And then we saw today, you know, another remarkable covert operation, which was the third attack on the bridge that crosses from Crimea into Russia. Now, again, this one just happened literally, you know, this afternoon. We don't know the damage.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
We don't know how successful it was. But it shows you what Ukraine's strategy here is, which is they're never going to have more people than Russia. Russia is willing to lose tens of thousands of soldiers every month Ukraine has been most successful when they've, you know, used their ability to sort of act quickly.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And whether it's surprise, deception, adaptation, that's where they've had the greatest success in this war. And so this operation, going after these Russian bombers, going after the Crimean Bridge again, these play to Ukraine's strengths.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
I have no idea. All I know for sure is that nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians. They want this war to be over. But none of us really know what will force Putin to stop this invasion and really either engage in good faith negotiations or agree to the immediate ceasefire that everyone, quite frankly, Ukraine, the U.S., the Europeans all want.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And what we have instead, since this diplomatic push has sort of kicked into high gear after Trump took office,
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously everyone is always looking for that thing that will be the moment that turns the war or that leads to the end of the war. But the honest truth is, you know, this is total war. And in total war, it's everything together that matters. So this operation will help people if it even, you know, lessens the bombardments to some degree.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
That's thousands of people in a city or town who might not have to face a missile bombardment that otherwise would have come their way. But yeah, at the end of the day, I think the Ukrainians are under no illusions.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And as they started to come in, we started to get videos of how these attacks were being conducted. And it was really weird looking, right? Because, you know, we're used to long-range Ukrainian drone strikes going after, you know, Russian targets inside of Russia.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
This is their only strategy, which is to fight back, to increase the cost on the Kremlin, and just hope at some point between their own actions, their own fight, and then Western support, that that pressure becomes enough where Russia decides, OK, enough.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
But here, we saw these trucks parked on the side of the road and then these small little quadcopters rising up from the trailer and taking off. And then, you know, cut images to burning planes and airfields.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And so it quickly became apparent that in terms of how this strike was executed, in terms of its ambition, in terms of what it might mean for the war going forward, that this was something different. This was a signal event in this war.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Well, this is Ukraine's answer to a problem that has bedeviled them throughout this war, which is how do you stop massive long-range Russian missile bombardments? And these are launched from planes flying deep in Russian territory. They're missiles fired from ships and submarines out at sea, from land-based systems far inside of Russia. So basically out of the reach of the Ukrainians.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And these bombardments... have become so routine in Ukraine that people can actually time when they want to go to the shelter by what's happening. For instance, a Russian bomber will take off from an air base deep in Russia, and you'll get a warning saying that the bombers are at the starting line. A warning like on your phone? Yeah, a warning on your phone.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
It'll say Russian bombers TU-95 at the starting line. So that means you have about two hours until they get to the launch point. You'll get an alarm. Missiles have been launched. Then you know if you're in Kyiv, say, and depending on where the launch is from, you know you have two, three hours for a cruise missile.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Yeah. So these bombers, everyone in Ukraine is intimately familiar with now, the TU-95. And it's kind of gone in waves in the war. The more U.S. support they got with Patriot missiles and other things, the more secure people in some cities felt. As American support has faded, some of that feeling of security has faded with it because there's only a few really advanced weapon systems available.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
that can go after Russia's most advanced missiles. And Ukraine never had enough of them, but as America pulls back, they have even less.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
100%. So the Ukrainians do what they've done throughout this war. They have to adapt. They have to innovate. They have to find a low-cost solution. And so what they do is they turn to drones. Drones are the things that Ukraine has turned to time and again in this war to survive against an enemy that outnumbers them, that has a vastly bigger arsenal.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
I mean, honestly, it's kind of hard to imagine how Ukraine would have survived without drones. And, you know, going to the front line over the last three years, you've just seen how they've transformed the battlefield.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
I mean, every time now if we go out to a front line position with the Ukrainians, you have someone riding on the front seat with a shotgun because really that's one of the only defenses against some of these kinds of smaller drones. So they're able to use these drones to hold defensive positions with fewer people than they might otherwise need.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So, first of all, you know, all these guys on the front line, they're watching every day as Russian missiles and bombs are hitting the towns and cities where their families live. So they, just like everyone else, are, you know, desperate to find a way to do something about this.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And so Ukraine begins another kind of drone program, which is to make long range drones, not these small sort of little quadcopters, but drones that can fly hundreds of miles and carry powerful payloads of explosives. So Ukraine for the first time strikes a Russian airfield all the way back in December 2022. But Russia obviously starts to adapt to this new capability Ukraine has.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
They've got robust air defenses, but also they start taking other measures. They build fortifications around fuel depots at airports. They build decoys the size of fighter jets to confuse Ukraine. the Ukrainians as to what's where. They put tires on the wings of planes in the hopes that if there is an explosion at the airport, the shrapnel doesn't do damage.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
They do a number of steps that, you know, taken together, make it exceedingly hard for the Ukrainians to strike a blow that will do more than glancing damage.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Right. So about a year and a half ago, the Ukrainians decide they need to try something different. And they come up with this very secret plan, so secret the Ukrainians say they didn't even tell the Americans.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
They try and find a way to bring these small drones, the ones that have been so effective on the front, into Russia, close to these air bases where these bombers are based, in the hopes that they can use them to catch the Russians by surprise. and maybe at least slow the Russian bombardments down and give them more of a fighting chance. And they call this Operation Spider's Web.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So there's a lot we don't know, and we're still working to piece it together. But what we do know is that this operation was so high profile that President Zelensky himself oversaw it. We know it was so secretive they didn't even tell the Americans. And we know the goal was to secret these drones into Russia and close to these air bases so they can hit these bombers.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So Ukraine has to do two things for this operation to be pulled off successfully. They have to hide the drones, and they have to train the drones. And let's start with the hiding. They start with thinking to themselves, what is the most common, ubiquitous thing you see on the roads?
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And it's shipping containers, these nondescript, hulking metal boxes that you see going up and down highways every day and you don't give a second thought. They make a decision that they're going to turn those containers into a much more sophisticated weapons delivery system. And what does that look like? Well, think of a Russian nesting doll, right?
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Where you have the big doll, inside the big doll is a smaller doll and a smaller doll. So you have this container with a roof that can be popped off by remote control. But then inside of that container, we have another container. And that container holds the drones, and beneath the drones, chargers for those drones.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And the roof of that smaller container can also pop off, at which point the drones can take off into the sky and launch their attack the minute they get the signal to go.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And what makes it even crazier, and we're not 100% sure where each piece of this puzzle was assembled, but President Zelensky said they set up their main sort of headquarters to pull off this operation right across the street from the FSB, which is, you know, the Russian Internal Security Services.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So they're orchestrating this whole thing from inside of Russia at a secret base that's, you know, with a stone's throw from the Russian secret police, according to the Ukrainians. So you have people involved in every step of the way. You have the agents who snuck into Russia to help pull this off.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
You had the pilots who were going to fly these drones from a very far remote location back in Ukraine. Each step along the way, you have spies and soldiers and drone pilots involved in executing this.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So their primary target is going to be these bombers. And so they want to teach the software how to hit these bombers to do the most damage that they can. And they happen to have some of these Soviet-era bombers in a museum in central Ukraine, you know, back from the day when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union. Long ago mothballed, but turned out to be quite useful in this mission.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So what they do is they take some of the most sophisticated new machine learning, artificial intelligence algorithms that they've been testing and expanding throughout the war, and they train these drones to basically go after the most vulnerable spot on these bombers, which is where the fuel is kept, basically.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Yeah, I mean, I think obviously one of the big questions the Kremlin is wrestling with is how in the world could Ukraine have penetrated so deeply for so long to pull this off? And I think that's a, you know, we don't know the answer to that.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
It's time to attack. On Sunday, around 1.06 p.m., they get the order. The roof of these containers pops up, the roof containing the drones pops off, and the drones start to take to the air. And then we start to see explosions, clouds of smoke rising up from airfields. And at the same time, drones rising from containers are going and attacking airfields across Russia.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And then we start to get from our intelligence sources direct video views from these drones on their attack mission. There's one really compelling one where you see from the drone's vantage point, the same thing the drone pilot would see, it flying over an airfield as two, three bombers are on fire and it dives in to hit another one.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And so you start to see these just wildly dramatic images coming out and the attack is underway.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Yeah, you know, it's really one of the kind of incredible things about this war that I don't even think we've fully understood, which is just how much of it has unfolded before the cameras. But, you know, videos, they can lie or not tell the whole story.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
So our colleagues on visual investigations basically set to work right away to try and piece together both the videos coming from Ukrainian intelligence, but also Russian civilians, as well as satellite images, which are still coming out to try and understand, OK, what They were able to orchestrate this attack, but what effect did it have?
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And where we are now, I think, 48 hours after the attack unfolded is we can say with confidence that more than a dozen Russian bombers and planes suffered damage, quite extensive in many cases. The Ukrainians say that the number could be as high as 41, and that amounts to, if the Ukrainian account is correct, $7 billion in damage done by drones that cost a few thousand dollars apiece.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Even if it's half as much as Ukraine said, and it's closer to the Western estimates, that's still $3.5 billion in damage. And you have to recall that this is Russia's strategic nuclear bombing fleet. So we've been talking about how Russia's been using these to launch conventional weapons at Ukraine, cruise missiles, this is also a key element of its strategic nuclear deterrence.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And Russia is not thought to have more than 100 of these totally, and they're not making any more right now. So the loss of 10 or 20 would itself be really significant. If it's as high as the Ukrainian number, that's a third of that fleet. So we'll see what that tally comes to. But undoubtedly, the attack put a big dent in the fleet.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Yeah. So, I mean, aside from just the boldness of this attack, it is sort of an evolution in a revolution. And the revolution of drones, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention, I think this attack should drive that home. How it can both affect what militaries think about in terms of their force protection, what they choose to invest in.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
Sure. So, you know, you get used to a lot of reports of explosions every day here, whether it's here in Ukraine or something going on in Russia. But on Sunday, around 1 o'clock, we started to get these really strange reports of... explosions at airfields 3,000 miles from Ukraine. First, we saw reports of explosions at an airfield all the way in Siberia.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
It's kind of like if you were to think about other moments in wars where a new weapon comes to life, the weapon might have existed a bit, but then it's just used to great effect. So in World War II, for instance, you had the Germans using the V-1 and V-2 rockets to bombard London. You know, it would be some time, but that augured in the error of the missile.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And we've seen how missiles transformed, you know, how... countries fight or think about fighting or plan for fighting. And I think when it comes to drones, they've been around a while. Obviously, what's happened here in Ukraine is it's gotten supercharged.
The Daily
Inside Operation Spider’s Web
And just the amount of adaptation and evolution that we've seen over the course of three and a half years has forced everyone who's paying attention to rethink some of those doctrines that were long held about what does it take to, you know, both win on the battlefield and also, you know, to prepare for the next fight.