International • 10:49 • Modified at 12:17 Ukrainian attack causes 'a lot of damage' to Russian economy, 'expect a reaction' Author : Mark van Harreveld The Ukrainian surprise drone attack on Russian air bases, which destroyed a third of Russia's strategic bombers, has not only caught the Russians completely off guard: the damage is enormous and the consequences are great. 'The secondary effects are great', says defense specialist Patrick Bolder of the Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS). Russia must now continue to move the strategic bombers, 'because they now know that those air bases are vulnerable'.
It also means that checks on freight traffic will increase significantly, which will cost a lot of time and manpower and make logistics sluggish. 'That will cause a lot of economic damage.' But the attack is also painfully felt militarily, because the Russian ability to carry out air strikes with cruise missiles has decreased - after all, they are fired from those bombers on Ukraine. A Beriev A50 was also destroyed, a flying command center (in NATO jargon: Mainstay), which monitors and coordinates the situation during air strikes and disseminates information about the Ukrainian air defense.
According to Bolder, the Russians had already lost one of them, which had major consequences for the deployment of the air force. In addition, the destroyed planes, the Tupolev 95, 22 and 160, are irreplaceable, because the production lines no longer exist. 'You can't just replace those planes, so that's a big blow.'
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The reduced Russian air capacity will certainly relieve some of the pressure on Ukrainian air defenses, but it will have little impact on the course of the war – it is primarily a ground war. 'On the ground, Russia, partly due to its superiority, continues to advance at a crawl, at the cost of enormous losses.'
The successful attack is not only very good for Ukrainian morale, it also puts the negotiations between both parties, today in Turkish Istanbul, in a different light. According to Bolder, Ukraine shows that it is far from finished and can still deliver heavy blows.
Reactions from Moscow and Washington 'There will be a Russian reaction, you can count on it', warns BNR's foreign affairs commentator Bernard Hammelburg. According to Hammelburg, Russia has more or less confirmed that there was an attack. It also remains remarkably quiet from Washington. The operation has been in the works for a year and a half, and it is unlikely that the Biden administration was aware of it, thinks Hamelburg.
Although battlefield results usually have no effect on the peace negotiations that are being conducted at the same time, Hammelburg believes that the successful operation will give the Ukrainian delegation a strong boost. "We are going to start this conversation again, because the cards have been shuffled a little differently than at the previous meeting," Hammelburg expresses the possible mood among the Ukrainian delegation members.
'There will be a Russian reaction, you can count on it' Bernard Hammelburg, foreign commentator BNR Whatever gives Ukrainian President Zelensky a 'push in the back' - Kyiv only attacks military targets where Russia mainly hits civilian targets. Hammelburg therefore finds it unlikely that bombing Russian civilian targets is the next step on the escalation ladder. 'In the sense of international law, this gives Zelensky a huge push in the back. So in that respect they are not only morally, but also legally right on their side.'
