Ukraine destroys Russian bombers with shocking barrage of drones ahead of peace talks

MOSCOW and KYIV — Ukraine attacked Russia with a series of drone strikes on military air bases deep in the Russian heartland on Sunday — an operation that appeared timed to influence a new round of Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire talks set to take place in Istanbul Monday.

After more than three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this carefully planned attack, intended to hit bombers that launch missiles on Ukrainian cities, was celebrated by Ukrainians, who called it “Operation Trojan Trucks” on social media.

Ukraine’s Security Service smuggled first-person view drones laden with small explosives onto trucks driven deep into Russia. The operation was recognized by Ukrainian officials as a much-needed win.

“The enemy has been bombing our country almost every night from these aircraft, and today they actually felt that retaliation is inevitable,” Vasyl Malyuk, the head of Ukraine’s security services, said in a statement.

The drones — deployed from trucks parked along highways in proximity to Russian military installations — were used to strike 41 heavy bomber jets in bases as far away as Murmansk in Russia’s Arctic north and Irkutsk in Siberia, more than 2,700 miles away from the Ukrainian border.

Malyuk said the drones were hidden under the roofs of wooden cabins placed on trucks. These roofs were opened remotely, and the drones flew out to hit the Russian bombers, he said.

“Our strikes will continue as long as Russia terrorizes Ukrainians with missiles and Shaheds,” he said, referring to the Iranian-designed drones that have played a central role in Russia’s aerial assault on Ukraine

In an earlier statement about the operation, officially dubbed “Spiderweb,” Ukraine’s security service claimed it destroyed $7 billion worth of Russia’s strategic aviation with the strikes — about a third of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers

Russian officials downplay impact

News of the operation was the talk of both Russia and Ukraine.

One video posted online showed the drones take off from a truck bed parked along a highway as the Russian narrator let obscenities fly. Another shows a Russian serviceman swearing into the camera as planes burn behind him. One pro-Kremlin military blogger referred to the attack as a “Russian Pearl Harbor.”

In his evening video address on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the “perfectly prepared” operation using 117 drones had been planned for more than a year and a half under the nose of Russia’s security service.

“Our people operated in different Russian regions in three time zones,” he said. “And our people were taken out of Russian territory on the eve of the operation. Those who helped us are safe.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry later confirmed the attacks on the military bases but played down their impact — claiming “only several pieces of aviation technology caught fire.”

The ministry also said its forces had thwarted additional attacks on three other bases and made several arrests — without providing details. It added no one had been injured in the attacks.

Neither the Ukrainian or Russian claims on the damage occurred could be independently verified.

Russian trains derail

The drones were far from the only violence over the weekend.

At least seven people were killed and more than 104 injured after a bridge collapsed on a passenger train traveling through western Russia’s Bryansk region Saturday night — sending debris and several trucks onto the train compartments below.

Images shared on social media showed stunned passengers trying to climb out of smashed carriages in the dark.

Meanwhile, Russian railway authorities say a separate rail bridge collapsed in the neighboring Kursk region hours later — derailing a freight train and injuring several crew members.

Russia’s Investigate Committee said it had launched a criminal probe into both incidents on terrorism grounds — but pulled back on initial claims the bridges had both collapsed due to planted explosives.

Still, several prominent Russian politicians were quick to blame Ukraine and suggest it was reason enough to continue the war at any cost. 

“Our answer will be a buffer zone so large that it prevents the penetration of terrorists onto our territory in the future,” wrote Andrei Klishas, a senior member of Russia’s upper house Federation Council.

While Ukrainian authorities did not comment on either train derailment, Ukraine’s military intelligence did confirm a hit on a Russian military train moving supplies in an occupied part of the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia.

Russian drone strikes

Russia also carried out attacks — launching more than 470 drones and several missiles at targets across Ukraine, in what Ukrainian authorities said was the largest single-day air assault since the war began.

The most deadly: what Ukraine’s army said was a “missile strike on the location of one of the training units” — killing a dozen soldiers and injuring more than 60. Ukraine’s military rarely confirms losses and did not disclose the precise location of the training camp, though Zelenskyy said in his evening address that it was in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region.

The commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack “out of a personal sense of responsibility” for the casualties. “An army where no one is held responsible for losses dies from within,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Ukraine has also accused the Kremlin of massing some 50,000 troops at its border near Sumy in northeastern Ukraine in advance of a possible summer offensive — even as Kyiv and Moscow have engaged in some of their first direct peace talks in over three years amid pressure from the Trump administration.

Peace talks 

The weekend action came as both sides geared up for a second round of negotiations in Istanbul on Monday.

The two sides are expected to discuss so-called “memoranda” — essentially counter proposals outlining terms for any future peace accord.

Writing on social media, Zelenskyy said his priorities for the talks include a full and unconditional ceasefire, the release of prisoners and the return of abducted children.

President Trump has been a strong advocate for the direct talks — saying their progress, or lack thereof, will do much to determine the future of U.S. engagement in the Ukraine conflict.

Even as Trump has threatened sanctions against Moscow over its perceived slow-walking of the negotiations, he and his administration have also made clear they believe Ukraine should accept it cannot beat its larger neighbor militarily and make concessions.

Yet if Moscow was seen as driving the terms of negotiations, political observers in Moscow suggested Ukraine’s surprise drone operation had at least undermined that dynamic for now.

“The Ukrainian delegation is headed to Istanbul clearly not feeling itself the ‘losing side of the war,’ wrote Moscow-based analyst Georgi Bovt in a post to social media.

Bovt reminded that Trump once told the Ukrainians they “don’t have the cards right now” to negotiate a favorable end to the war.

“Apparently, they found them,” added Bovt.

NPR producer Hanna Palamarenko contributed to this report from Kyiv.