Well Done, Ukraine!

Over this past weekend, the Ukrainians pulled off an Israeli-style surprise attack against Russia that was a modern-day Trojan horse story.

In case you missed it, they hid 117 attack drones loaded with explosives in the narrow crawl space below the top of a number of shipping containers.  Somehow or other, they managed to get these “trucks” into Russia and park them on the perimeter of a military air base where several Russian long-range bombers were positioned along a taxiway.

At the appropriate moment, the drones were released by remote control from a staging area in Ukraine, and each of them sought out their targets, the long-range bombers parked at the site.  Drone video showed how one by one the bombers were destroyed, effectively crippling the air attack force assembled at the site.   Pretty impressive to say the least.

The Russians were, to say the least, taken by surprise.  By the time they realized what was happening, the damage was done, and their defenses were relatively worthless.

The event reminded me of our exploding beeper event in Lebanon last year, although the Ukrainians accomplished their mission without personal injury.  There is, of course, no doubt in my mind that they had sufficient technical resources to pull off this kind of attack.  It should be noted that in the years before COVID-19, Israel had outsourced a large portion of its software development to foreign companies, 60% of which were in Ukraine.  Thus, the Ukrainians had plenty of talent to have been able to put this together on their own, although it is possible that they had some foreign technical assistance as well.

The Russians, of course, called this a terrorist attack, which is quite comical.  After all, it was the Russians who invaded Ukraine without cause for the simple purpose of snatching territory and frightening the Kiev government into submission.  With the war now in its third year, Russian losses are reputed to be above one million, with large losses on the Ukrainian side as well.   Only Russia, which has been pounding Ukraine mercilessly for all this time, would call a counterattack “terrorism” and do so with a straight face.

So, chalk one up for Ukraine, which is doing more than anyone would have expected to protect their sovereignty and push back the Russian aggressor.  They deserve all the assistance they can get from the West, given that they are fighting to preserve Western values and prevent the rebuilding of the former Soviet empire.   For all of that, the rest of us should be grateful. May their success continue.