Key Points – Following the successful “Operation Spider’s Web” drone strike on Russian bomber bases, Ukraine’s future military strategy will likely continue to leverage four key areas of excellence.
-These include sophisticated asymmetric warfare, using cheap, innovative technology to inflict costly damage on a larger adversary.
-It also relies on the efficient and ruthless new leadership of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) under Vasyl Malyuk, who orchestrated the raid.
-Continued advancement in AI and new technology, such as the “Sea Baby” naval drone, and aggressive counterintelligence operations, including targeted assassinations and engineering defections, will also remain central to Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
What Comes After Operation Spider’s Web?
The Operation Spider’s Web drone strike marked one of the most remarkable Ukrainian successes in the war, and has been widely praised as Kyiv’s most ingenious assault yet.
The operation, 18 months in the making, involved Ukrainian forces launching deep-strike drone attacks on four Russian air bases. The drones were smuggled thousands of miles into Russia, targeting military aviation infrastructure and destroying anywhere between 20 and 41 Russian bombers, depending on whose figures you use.
Russia then retaliated in the early hours of Friday, June 6, launching a large-scale aerial assault across Ukrainian cities. At least 400 drones and dozens of missiles were fired in one of the war’s most extensive barrages to date, and while it’s unclear whether this strike marks the end of Moscow’s retaliation, it’s also uncertain if Ukraine has new covert operations underway.
While we cannot predict Ukraine’s next move, we can see how its military is changing the rules of warfare, combining new technologies with covert operations to fight a much larger enemy.
Ukraine is making great strides in four particular areas:
Asymmetric Warfare
Asymmetric warfare refers to the use of unconventional, low-cost, and often indirect strategies to counter a much larger and more powerful adversary. Ukraine’s recent drone strikes in Russia are a good example of this; Ukraine used domestically produced drones and clever planning to deliver results that could not have been achieved using traditional battlefield methods.
Using the element of surprise and playing the long game, Ukrainian forces smuggled drones thousands of miles into Russian territory and struck high-value targets with hundreds of millions of dollars using drones that cost as little as $600 to build.
Operational Efficiency and New Leadership
Since Vasyl Malyuk replaced Ivan Bakanov as head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) in 2022, the agency has become more agile, efficient, focused, and effective. Malyuk’s tenure so far has been defined by this dramatically improved efficiency, having overhauled hiring and promotion strategies within the agency.
Specifically, Malyuk stopped promoting individuals based on politics and favoritism, instead giving more responsibility to younger, results-driven agents who rose through the ranks.
Malyuk is also widely credited as the architect of Operation Spider’s Web.
He’s ruthless, too: After Russian paramilitary leader Zakhar Prilepin survived a car bombing widely attributed to the SBU, Malyuk noted that “his pelvis and legs were severely injured” and that he had “lost his genitals.”
AI and New Technology
Ukraine now produces around 100,000 drones per month domestically. It’s an impressive feat that even Russia struggled to match until Ukrainian intelligence confirmed that China had begun providing essential hardware components to outcompete Kyiv’s efforts.
In Operation Spider’s Web, Ukraine deployed drones integrated with artificial intelligence, allowing them to complete missions even after losing communication with their operators. There’s no doubt that this technology will continue to be used as Ukraine (and Russia) becomes increasingly dependent on drone strikes.
Malyuk has also supported the development of new technologies, including overseeing the Sea Baby marine drone project. A multi-purpose unmanned surface vehicle (USV), the Sea Baby drone is capable of delivering 850 kilograms of explosives, reaches speeds of 90 km/h, and can travel as far as 1,000 kilometers.
Counterintelligence
Malyuk has also overseen a dramatic expansion of Ukrainian counterintelligence operations designed to dismantle enemy spy networks. The SBU chief also oversaw the purging of Russian agents from his own agency.
In December 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s chemical weapons division, was assassinated in Moscow by a bomb attached to a scooter – an attack attributed to the SBU.
Additionally, in August 2023, Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) orchestrated the defection of Russian pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who flew his Mi-8 helicopter into Ukrainian territory. The operation took six months to plan and provided Kyiv with valuable intelligence.
The Ukrainians were even able to organize the safe removal of Kuzminov’s family from Russia, into Ukraine. Sadly, in early 2024, Kuzminov was found dead in Spain – likely assassinated in retribution.
It’s impossible to know what comes after Operation Spider’s Web, obviously, but it’s worth noting that this attack wasn’t Ukraine’s first asymmetric assault. Ukraine has been deploying unconventional and covert tactics for some years now, largely thanks to Malyuk. And these tactics are unlikely to change any time soon.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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If the Japanese give access to their satellite radar system quickly, the quick refresh of data will give freedom of creativity to the Ukrainian fighting fathers.
If the Swedish SAB is integrated quickly then the new fresh data will give freedom of creativity to f-16 pilots and all the service fields as well.
These very long awaited technologies will be used creatively. The long wait for military hardware has caused needless death to Ukrainians.
Tactics, strategy, logistic flow, etc will be first exhibited by Ukrainian fighting fathers. The inner beltway brain trust needs to remember that the orc muscovite elite stores all changes in their fighting manner.
Is that not what Clausewitz observed about the peasant russian army over a century back? The orc muscovite elite observes and collects the innovation as their technology transfer.
The new tech will allow local level units to execute “schwerpunkt” in creative situations. Local Ukrainian fighters will see points of unity, cohesion and know when to change the centre of gravity for these military encounters.
3-D metal printers, new armour, used armour, all will be synthesized to give that life saving edge that needs to be there to protect Ukrainian lives and limbs.
Even if the orc death rate doubles, the reason for this war must be eliminated.
In 2014 the POTUS Obama-Biden-Democrat cabal unilaterally greenlighted the free, no-cost, giveaway of the geopolitical control of the Ukrainian Crimea land mass, Black/Azov Sea zones to the prime, vile cold war enemy: Putin. This O-B-D betrayal of the WEST made Putin ecstatic as at no-cost russia could seize Crimean soil and the Ukrainian families therein. Putin did so.
As Clinton did in Belgrade, the O-B-D cabal unilaterally greenlighted the Putin operation to kidnap children for cultural genocide. POTUS Obama kept the MSM quiet in 2014 as he greenlighted Putin’s “little green groomers” that traded kidnapped children for armour, tanks, ammo, etc. As local russian traitors knew what families to butcher for the child “Lolita” worth a trade for a Putin tank, local basements filled up with the russian partisan “harvest” of dead Ukrainians.
Putin air lifted the kidnapped children to very needy russian deviates ready to give free russian language lessons and table top dancing styles. The Obama elite made no attempts to stop this human trafficking as Democrats were rubbing shoulders in 2014 with their fave man about town, Jeffrey Epstein.
The reason must stop. MAGA POTUS Trump must demand in one sentence that Putin immediately transfer $10,000,000 in gold bullion for every and each human trafficked victim as compensation and reparation damages before any other agenda item is considered. Pay the gold bullion now.
Trump can screw with military hardware but not with so many victim children. Make the one sentence demand and the war will wither away. Guaranteed.
Once Putin transfers the gold bullion for the first 100,000 victims, the gold bullion needed for the next 100,000 Ukrainian victims will cause the muscovite elite the pain of thought. The 11 years of free, no-cost cuddling with little Ukrainian children by russian cultural genociders suddenly will have a cash and criminal cost.
While new tech will help Ukrainian fighter fathers stop the kidnapping, the real fast way is for MAGA POTUS Trump to challenge Putin to stop his 11 year child kidnap operation. Trump must demand that the “Lolita” harvesting that the peasant russians have done for one thousand years on Ukrainians must stop in 2025. NOW!
Can Trump self-state this or will Trump allow the O-B-D moral turpitude to slither + slimily drag on? Trump seems mysteriously wedded to giving these ruskie child victimizers another 2 weeks, and another 2 weeks to free, no-cost cuddle the “Lolita” kiddies and launch them on another round of table top russian dance numbers! -30-