Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web Shows Future of Drone Warfare

Michael C. Horowitz is senior fellow for technology and innovation at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In a daring and unexpected attack, Ukraine said it had used 117 attack drones to target airfields deep inside Russian territory. Named “Operation Spider’s Web” by Ukrainian officials, the assault required Ukraine to secretly smuggle the drones into Russia over several months.

Ukraine has alleged that it struck forty-one planes with the drones, including a third of the bombers Russia uses as strategic cruise-missile carriers. Experts believe that this could negatively affect Russia’s ability to continue its launch of cruise missiles against Ukrainian targets. The Russian Defense Ministry has acknowledged the attack and the damage to several of its aircraft, but it disputed the extent of the assault.

Operation Spider’s Web has left a ripple effect that is still being felt in the aftermath of the attack. Here is why these drone strikes were so remarkable, and how they could affect the future of conflict.

How did the Ukrainians pull off Operation Spider’s Web and why was it so significant?

Operation Spider’s Web used commercial transportation, such as trucks, to smuggle large numbers of one-way attack drones for launch close to airfields across Russia—from the country’s western border with Ukraine all the way to Siberia. Vasyl Maliuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said that the “drones were smuggled into Russia inside wooden cabins mounted on the back of lorries and concealed below remotely operated detachable roofs.”

The attack was a surprise. Russia apparently had no idea it was coming, and the strikes once again demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to be at the cutting edge of technology and tactics. Ukraine has consistently and successfully leveraged and integrated everything from old military technology and off-the-shelf commercial systems to artificial intelligence (AI) for its military operations. This has been a difference maker in the war since its early days, giving Ukraine new and unexpected vectors to attack Russian forces and territory.

This operation is another illustration of the flexibility Ukraine has relied upon throughout the conflict. By attacking airfields with Russian nuclear bombers like the Tu-95, Ukraine has shown that it is capable of using emerging capabilities to strike deep in enemy territory in a coordinated fashion while it continues to hold its own in its fight to recapture territory.

Ukraine’s devastating attack demonstrates once again that we have entered the era of precise mass in war. The combination of AI and autonomous weapons, precision guidance, and commercial manufacturing mean that low-cost precision strikes are now accessible to almost any state or militant group.

What effect might this attack have on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

The attack will not change the balance of forces along Ukraine’s frontlines, but it does show the country’s ability to strike in ways that will undoubtedly shape Russian expectations on the future of the conflict.

For example, the damage Ukraine allegedly caused to at least 40 Russian aircraft, including valuable strategic platforms that would cost billions to replace, proves yet again Ukraine’s determination to resist Russia’s invasion and continued military operations.

How have drones had a different role in this war compared to past conflicts?

The Russia-Ukraine War has seen the rise of an array of military capabilities—including the use of drones en masse as one-way attack systems—previously only used in small quantities or considered in theory.

Prior to the war, people typically thought of drones as remotely-piloted platforms, like the MQ-9 Reaper flown by the United States military. These are large systems that can loiter thousands of feet in the air for days to conduct surveillance missions and/or fire precision Hellfire missiles against potential targets.

Now, the term drone can refer to a range of things. This includes platforms similar to the MQ-9 Reaper, with Ukraine’s use of Turkey’s TB-2, particularly prominent early in the war. There is also the tactical use of quadcopters for small-unit surveillance, first-person view (FPV) one-way attack systems flown in short ranges into targets, and longer range one-way attack systems like the Iranian-built Shahed-136, which can go hundreds or thousands of kilometers and that has been used regularly by Russia in this conflict.

The use of these drones for attack has become a new, ubiquitous form of conventional warfare. Many are based on commercially-available technology and they are relatively cheap—from as little as a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. They are easy to produce and often have open architectures, which means the software is easy to update in response to jamming or other defensive countermeasures. These drones can now serve as supplements—or replacements in some instances—for traditional artillery or more expensive cruise missiles.

In what way have drones changed this conflict’s dynamic, and how have they developed during it?

Producing one-way attack drones of different sizes and ranges at speed and scale have helped Ukraine maintain an edge throughout the war. For example, the use of shorter-range one-way attack drones and FPV drones now generate up to 80 percent of the casualties along the front lines, helping Ukraine compete with larger Russian forces and providing additional options for generating firepower.

Operation Spider’s Web also appears to show the growing use of AI in one-way attack drones. AI in this context does not mean the most advanced and expensive large language models, but often simple algorithms trained on very specific datasets.

For example, there are reports that algorithms Ukraine used for at least some of the attack were trained on images of models of Russian aircraft found at museums in Ukraine, and may have used open-source autopilot systems. Autopilot, of course, has been around for decades. We are now beginning to see the use of AI for more autonomous operations if operators lose communications due to jamming or a datalink is not possible given the technologies and distances involved.

Is the success of this operation the result of lax Russian security or have the Ukrainians exposed a vulnerability that military leaders all over the world should worry about?

There is a lot we don’t know about Operation Spider’s Web, including the extent to which Ukraine exploited specific vulnerabilities in Russian security. The attack’s concept shows, however, that critical infrastructure and military installations in many places around the world could be at great risk.

Just as the overflights of US military bases over the last few years have generated concerns about their vulnerability to attack from small drones, Operation Spider’s Web makes clear that critical and military infrastructure face vulnerabilities more broadly.

How else could this operation influence the future of combat and conflicts across the globe?

Precision strike used to be something only the most advanced states could access, and traditional precision strike weapons like the Tomahawk cruise missile cost millions of dollars per shot. Now, more actors have the ability to deliver precision strikes at ever greater distances, even if their systems are not incredibly sophisticated. 

This ability to use precise mass capabilities at speed and scale—especially when fused with advancing AI for guidance—places enormous pressure on defensive measures. Think of the U.S. Navy, which has spent billions of dollars in the Red Sea in recent years to defend itself and commercial shipping from inexpensive precise mass systems used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Ukraine’s latest attack clearly shows that even targets deep in a country’s territory could now be at risk. This will create new incentives for hardening (building shelters to protect assets from simple attacks), resiliency (spreading out assets to avoid putting them all at risk in case of an attack), and countermeasures (investing more in lower-cost methods that can defeat one-way attack drones, such as directed energy).

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.