The Kremlin's long shadow stretching across the Eurasian landmass miserably failed to stop something truly extraordinary - a daredevil Ukrainian drone strike on Russian air bases on the first of June. Though Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested to US President Donald Trump that he will have to respond to this attack, the success of Ukraine's incredible assault in the heart of Russian territory underlines the basic incongruity between the emerging technologies of conflict escalation and the existing weapon systems to respond to them.
A Signpost In Modern Warfare
The new age weaponry requires new tactics and new doctrine. The triumph of Ukrainian ingenuity marks an unequivocal signpost in the evolution of modern warfare. Like the creep of machines across the battlefields of the First World War, the clever application of cheap drone technology in almost all recent conflicts heralds the consolidation of a new paradigm - the decentralisation of strategic reach.
Some commentators are likening it, erroneously, to Pearl Harbour. Of course, there are no parallels - as this was a reprisal in a war already blazing, a war sparked by Russian aggression more than three years ago - but they can be forgiven for this analogy as it defies imagination that a nation, so embattled and so overmatched, can project force with such precision deep into the territory of a nuclear superpower. The audacious strike tore through two Russian air bases across a vast canvas - a testament to the endurance of a small nation refusing to go silently into geopolitical oblivion.
Ingenuity Wins
Already battered and besieged, Ukraine has found in ingenuity what it lacks in strategic depth. The operation, codenamed 'Spiderweb', represents a masterstroke of asymmetrical warfare. Devastating in effect, the Ukrainian drones seem to have crippled or destroyed a significant portion of Russia's strategic bombers: the Tu-95s and Tu-22s. These aircraft are capable of delivering cruise missiles as well as nuclear payloads. Thus, they are not just symbols of Russian air power but shining instruments of Moscow's threat projection. By targeting them, Ukraine delivered an unmistakable message just before the crucial ceasefire talks in Istanbul.
In the calculus of deterrence, this was an explosive disruption. It echoes India's own doctrine of 'measured response' - a principle forged in nuclear shadows and tempered by diplomatic resolve. Just as India refrained from indiscriminate bombing during its recent counter-terrorist strikes at multiple locations in Pakistani territory following the Pahalgam terror attack, Ukraine's drone strikes were neither reckless nor indiscriminate. They did not target civilians but the machinery of devastation itself.
Moscow now must reckon with an inconvenient truth that has eluded it since the first tanks rolled across Ukraine's borders: that technological improvisation and the will to resist are capable of shattering the illusion of invincibility, casting a shroud of uncertainty over Russia's future military strategy. Russia's nuclear triad is intact, but its aura of supremacy seems fractured.
Shifting Winds
The weapon does not win the war; it is the mind behind it that must be confronted. As emotions run rampant in the Kremlin, forming a tumultuous psychological storm, the European capitals anxiously await the next development. But it is hazardous to forecast when the Russian retaliation would occur and what the consequences will be.
There is no doubt that the broader geopolitical winds are shifting, too. President Vladimir Putin, whose diplomatic disguise has thinned with each passing month, may retreat into familiar tactics - ambiguous ceasefire proposals and shadow diplomacy. But the asymmetry that defined the early months of the Ukraine war seems to have eroded.
There are lessons here not only for Ukraine but for the entire world. The assumption that the arc of this war bends toward Moscow is premature at best and precariously deceptive at worst. Strategic surprise often favours the nimble and the determined. Operation Spiderweb underlines the fact that intelligent initiative can recast the battlefield without tipping into catastrophe.
What True Alignment Looks Like
As Western capitals debate further sanctions on Russia and military aid to Ukraine, and as US President Donald Trump hesitates before the Senate legislation, it is Ukraine's daring performance that offers the most persuasive argument. Should Washington act judiciously, it could press Moscow toward a genuine ceasefire. But if the West fails to capitalise on this significant moment, history will remember Ukraine's defiance just as vividly as it will lament the world's inaction.
In this age of fractured alliances and multi-polar instability, the unquestionably brilliant drone assault by Ukraine has shown what true alignment looks like - an alignment neither codified in treaties nor proclaimed in summit communiqués, but rooted in the unsentimental grasp of national interest born of historical experience and geographic imperative. For India, too, this holds huge relevance. Our own uneasy neighbourhood reminds us daily that lasting peace must be safeguarded by the willingness and the capacity to strike at the root of violence - not just its branches.
As Grimmelshausen, the seventeenth-century chronicler of brutal ironies of the Thirty Years' War, The Adventures of Simplicissimus, had remarked, "the splendid deeds of the heroic would be glorious to celebrate if they had not been achieved by other men's ruin and loss" - a sentiment that haunts Ukraine's bold drone strikes on June 1 which was nothing short of a tactical earthquake reminding the aggressor that even the beleaguered can bite back.
(Harsh V. Pant is Vice President, ORF. Vinay Kaura is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies at Sardar Patel University of Police, Security & Criminal Justice, Rajasthan, India.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
