PDB Situation Report | June 7th, 2025: Inside Ukraine’s Drone Strike On Russia & Clan Militias Target Hamas
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What drone strike occurred deep inside Russia?
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. New details are emerging about a drone strike deep inside Russia that damaged multiple long-range Russian bombers. Now, Ukraine says the operation took some 18 months to plan and may have utilized artificial intelligence. Ryan Macbeth, intelligence analyst and weapons expert and all-around smart guy, gives us his insight into the attack and the fallout. Later in the show, a quiet rebellion is taking shape in Gaza. This is a very interesting situation. Israel is arming a Klan-backed militia to challenge Hamas, and a new aid group is threatening Hamas's grip on power. Joe Drusman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies joins us for more on that. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. Last Sunday, Ukraine pulled off a bull strike deep inside Russian territory, now damaging several long-range strategic bombers in one of the war's most complex drone and intelligence operations yet.
The attack used modified shipping containers to launch over 100 drones, possibly guided by artificial intelligence. The goal? Well, the goal was to strike at the heart of Russia's long range bomber fleet. These are planes which have been regularly used to launch missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians. It's a dramatic shift in modern warfare and a glimpse into what the future might look like on the battlefield. Joining us now is Ryan McBeth. He's an intelligence analyst, a weapons expert, an all-around smart guy, a friend of the show, by the way, and the author of a really great novel. It's called The Wind Machine. The road to hell is paved with intervention. And that's available on Amazon.
How did Ukraine plan the drone attack?
Ryan, thank you, as always, for joining us here on The Situation Report. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's always a pleasure. Okay, give me your top-line take on this Ukrainian drone assault on the Russian strategic bombers.
What are the implications of the drone strike on Russian air defenses?
I've often said you need to create dilemmas, not problems for your adversary. A problem has one or more solutions. A dilemma has two or more solutions, each of which are equally bad. And in this case, by Ukraine taking out these Russian bombers, it's going to force Russia to do a couple of things. Those bombers were used to launch cruise missiles toward Ukraine. And now Russia has fewer of those platforms to work with. So that means they have a couple of options, all of which are bad. They can move those bombers constantly to avoid an attack like this ever happening again. That's a bad option because it creates crew fatigue, it creates stress on the airframe, and you're not able to use your assets as much as you'd like to.
What is the situation with Hamas and clan militias in Gaza?
Option two is to launch land-based cruise missiles or sea-based cruise missiles. Now, those are only going to come from a couple of directions. If they're from the sea, it's going to be from the Black Sea, Sea of Azov. If it's from the land, it will probably be from Russian-occupied territory. It won't come from Belarus. So that narrows down the windows that a missile can enter, and it makes it easier for Ukraine to target and destroy those missiles. So that's a major problem for Russia moving forward.
Now, let's talk about the damage done, right? There have been conflicting reports. Obviously, Ukrainian military is saying one thing, the Russians are saying something else. US and allied estimates seem to be somewhere in the middle. What's your insight into what the actual damage has been?
We know that between 10 and 13 strategic bombers were destroyed. Now, damage could be even greater. Damage always is. But the real issue is now you have fewer strategic bombers that can execute their mission. At any given time, between one-third to maybe 50% of any air asset is available. Now, that's because these aircraft need to be maintained. They need to have their oil changed. They need to have their services done, performed on those aircraft. Now, you can... rush all your maintainers in and surge those aircraft, but you can only do that for a certain amount of time. You have a finite number of maintainers and the airframes still need certain kinds of service life maintenance for a number of hours flown.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What drone strike occurred deep inside Russia?
0:12–2:02
2
How did Ukraine plan the drone attack?
2:02–2:16
3
What are the implications of the drone strike on Russian air defenses?
2:16–3:08
4
What is the situation with Hamas and clan militias in Gaza?
3:08–12:54
5
What role does artificial intelligence play in modern warfare?
12:54
6
How is the inventory of Russian strategic bombers affected?
9:52–28:40
7
What are the ethical concerns of using AI in military operations?
28:40–46:46
8
How does Ryan McBeth's book relate to current events?
46:46–51:10
Speakers
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