Ukraine's drone strikes are a strategic game-changer

POLITICAL FUTURES

- IAN BREMMER

On Sunday, Ukraine executed one of the most extraordinary asymmetric operations in modern military history. Using domestically built first-person-view (FPV) drones deployed from deep inside Russian territory, Kyiv launched a coordinated assault against several military airbases as far as eastern Siberia, the border with Mongolia and the Arctic.

Known as "Operation Spiderweb," the attacks destroyed or severely damaged as many as 20 strategic aircraft, including nuclear-capable bombers and early-warning planes; Kyiv claims the true toll could reach 41. Only two days later, on Tuesday, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) struck again — this time detonating underwater explosives and damaging the Kerch Bridge, the critical rail and road artery connecting Russia to occupied Crimea.

The combined message from Kyiv could not have been clearer: we may be far smaller and — on paper at least — weaker, but we can strike hard and reach far into Russia. Using drones produced indigenously for less than the cost of an iPhone, Ukraine took out strategic bombers worth upward of $100 million each —many of which are nearly impossible to replace due to sanctions and Russia's degraded industrial base. At a 300,000-to-one return on investment, this is the kind of asymmetric operation that can upend the rules of modern warfare.

Just as significant as the material damage is what the attacks revealed: that a small but determined and innovative nation can deploy cheap, scalable and decentralized tech to challenge a much larger, conventionally superior foe — and even degrade elements of a nuclear superpower's second-strike capacity. The lessons will reverberate globally, from Taipei to Islamabad.