The guy at the back of one of the crucial audacious army operations ever: RICHARD PENDLEBURY finds the sensational within tale of Operation Spider’s Web

In the annals of excessive espionage, derring-do and a hit madcap army schemes, Artem Tymofieiev indisputably merits his position. The Russians would indisputably like to understand his whereabouts these days. A national manhunt is underway.

The mysterious Mr Tymofieiev has been recognized because the Ukrainian undercover agent who ran one of the crucial audacious and brilliantly carried out army operations in fashionable historical past.

Operation Chastise, the Dambusters Raid – through which RAF Lancasters breached two Ruhr dams with bouncing bombs in 1943 – has lengthy been the yardstick towards which different not going coups de major had been measured.

I’d argue that Operation Spider’s Web, which the Ukrainian Secret Service – the SBU – carried out on Sunday afternoon, exceeds even that exploit in breathtaking scope and affect. Simultaneously, throughout 3 time zones and hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border, swarms of FPV (first-person view) kamikaze drones struck 4 Russian air bases.

These have been house to the Kremlin’s strategic long-range bombers.

Yesterday Kyiv claimed that during a stroke it had destroyed 34 in step with cent of Russia‘s heavy bomber fleet, causing some $7billion value of wear.

Mobile telephone pictures of palls of smoke emerging from the bases all over the assaults, video feed from the drones and satellite tv for pc photographs of the aftermath: all appear to endure out the declare.

The operation was once an astonishing triumph. Russian army bloggers have likened the assault’s marvel and devastation to that inflicted by way of the Japanese on the USA Navy at Pearl Harbour. But how the heck did the Ukrainians set up to drag it off?

As additional information emerges from a triumphant Kyiv and a humiliated Moscow, we will begin to piece in combination the Spider’s Web tale.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022, Russia’s heavy bomber fleet has led to common loss of life and destruction. Originally designed all over the Cold War as strategic nuclear bombers, the plane had been repurposed to hold standard ‘stand-off’ cruise missiles.

These are released from within Russian airspace, smartly out of achieve of Ukrainian air defence methods.

All 3 of the heavy bomber variants in carrier have immense payloads. The TU-95 ‘Bear’, a turboprop relic of the 1950s, can lift 16 air-launched cruise missiles. The TU-22 ‘Blinder’, Russia’s first supersonic bomber, has the capability to release the supersonic Kh-22 missile, which has the velocity to evade maximum Ukrainian air defences. The TU-160 ‘Blackjack’, Russia’s most current strategic bomber, can lift as much as 24 Kh-15 cruise missiles on one challenge.

These planes have introduced nightly terror to Ukrainian towns.

Nothing may well be carried out to prevent them, it gave the impression.

Due to the rising differ and accuracy of the Ukrainian assault drone fleet, the bombers have been moved to bases deep within Russia that were not liable to retaliation. Some have been as a long way away as Siberia and the Arctic Circle.

So, 18 months in the past, President Volodymyr Zelensky summoned SBU leader Lieutenant General Vasyl Maliuk and informed him to give you the option to take the battle to the heavy bombers’ hideouts.

Ukraine’s drones have been hidden below the roofs of cell cabins, that have been later fixed onto vehicles. They have been then piloted remotely to their objectives

How despite the fact that to strike hundreds of kilometres past the variability of Ukraine’s furthest- attaining missile or drone? Not to say penetrating one of the crucial international’s maximum refined air defence methods?

Then somebody had an concept that will have to have sounded loopy to start with – like Barnes Wallis suggesting his bouncing bomb.

Why no longer power the kamikaze drones in vehicles as much as the fringe of the air bases and release them over the fence?

To do that, the drones would wish to be smuggled into Russia and hidden someplace protected. When the time got here to assault, the UAV swarms would should be hid on industrial automobiles that may no longer arouse suspicion.

And this is excluding the problem of launching the drones on the objectives in any such method that may no longer reveal the operators or brokers at the flooring to speedy reprisal or seize.

A base was once wanted throughout the Russian Federation from which the Spider’s Web logistics may well be marshalled and the assault released. That supposed, after all, there would should be a Ukrainian agent at the flooring, a long way at the back of enemy traces, at huge non-public chance.

The indications are that the positioning selected for Spider’s Web’s Russian ‘workplace’ – as President Zelensky referred to as it – was once the small town of Chelyabinsk. It lies greater than 1,000 miles east of Moscow however – and this may had been vital for the smuggling side of the operation – simplest 85 miles by way of highway north of the border with impartial Kazakhstan.

Russian mili-bloggers have recognized a warehouse in Chelyabinsk as being the Spider’s Web hub. Rented for 350,000 rubles (£3,250) a month, this was once allegedly the place the drones and their launchers have been assembled and despatched on their method. Zelensky additionally urged that the ‘workplace’ was once subsequent door to the native headquarters of the FSB – the federal safety carrier that changed the KGB. He didn’t disclose the positioning.

Head of Ukraine’s Security Service Vasyl Maliuk appears to be like at a map of an airfield amid Russia’s assault

But who was once to run this extraordinarily advanced and excessive stakes operation?

The guy whom the Russian Interior Ministry suspect of being the native mastermind is after all Artem Tymofieiev. His title and {photograph} are being circulated by way of the government, his seize a concern.

According to Russian resources, Tymofieiev was once born within the Ukrainian town of Zhytomyr, lived in Kyiv and moved to Chelyabinsk ‘a number of years in the past’, running as an ‘entrepreneur’.

Was he a sleeper agent from the beginning? If so, he made no secret of his beef up for Ukraine, pals are imagined to have stated. But how may he be a risk in any such strategically insignificant position, hundreds of miles from the battle?

He was once, as one Russian blogger has put it, ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothes’. The drones have been to be carried to the objectives and released remotely from wood cabins carried at the flat beds of heavy lorries. According to President Zelensky they have been then piloted remotely to their objectives.

Four air bases have been recognized: Belaya airfield in Irkutsk oblast, Siberia, greater than 4,000km from Ukraine; the Olenya air base within the Arctic Circle close to Murmansk; the Diaghilev air base in Ryazan oblast; and a base close to the town of Ivanovo.

How to get the drones from the Kazakh border to those puts? Chelyabinsk is 2,000 miles from Murmansk, 1,750 miles to Irkutsk and greater than 1,000 miles to the opposite two bases.

But such distances are robotically traversed by way of Russian lorry drivers. And that was once the brilliantly easy way in which this high-tech assault was once stepped forward.

Russian TU-95 Bear strategic bombers on the Olenya airbase at the Kola Peninsula being destroyed by way of Ukrainian drones hundreds of miles clear of the entrance line

The explosion noticed from a highway as bystanders are stopped of their tracks 

‘Artem’ turns out to have hired 4 unwitting heavy items drivers to move what they idea have been merely wood framed properties to other places around the Russian Federation. According to the SBU, the drones have been hidden below the home roofs. According to Russian resources, the vehicles have been all registered to ‘Artem’.

Driver Alexander Z, 55, from Chelyabinsk has reportedly informed investigators he gained an order to move ‘body properties’ to the Murmansk area from a businessman named Artem, who supplied the truck.

Driver Andrei M, 61, reportedly stated he was once informed by way of Artem to move wood properties to Irkutsk. Driver Sergey, 46, had an equivalent tale. He was once informed to move modular properties to Ryazan. Another motive force was once despatched to Ivanovo.

So the scene was once set for Spider’s Web’s impressive denouement.

The 48 hours main as much as Zero Hour noticed Ukraine’s intelligence products and services demonstrating its skill to release ever deeper moves into enemy territory – and Russia hanging again with file ferocity. Last Friday, Ukraine struck objectives in Vladivostok, at the Pacific coast. Seven thousand miles from the frontier, this was once the furthest that Ukraine had hit within Russia.

The following evening, no less than seven other people have been killed and every other 69 injured, after a teach certain for Moscow was once derailed by way of an explosion in Bryansk oblast, which borders Ukraine.

Retaliation was once no longer lengthy coming. Within hours Russia released its largest drone blitz of the battle – 472 UAVs in a single evening.

The following morning, Sunday, June 1, a Russian missile struck a coaching flooring in Dnipro oblast, killing 12 infantrymen and wounding 60 extra. This brought on the Commander of Land Forces Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi to smooth his resignation.

A blow for Ukraine. But as not anything to what it might strike in go back.

Sunday, June 1, roughly 1pm native time. It is Russia’s Military Transport Aviation Day.

While en path, Driver Alexander Z have been referred to as on his cell by way of an unknown one who informed him precisely the place to prevent. This was once the Rosneft petrol station subsequent to the Olenya air base.

Driver Andrei M have been briefed to park on the Teremok cafe in Usolye-Sibirskoye, beside the Belaya base. Almost as quickly because the drivers stopped the place recommended, the arena appeared to explode round them.

According to the SBU, the truck trailer roofs have been ‘remotely opened’ and the drone swarms released from inside. They had just a few hundred metres to succeed in their objectives.

Surprise was once whole and native defences helpless. As all 4 assaults have been released on the identical time, it kind of feels, no alert may well be usefully circulated.

Social media pictures of the Belaya assault seems to turn drones rising from the rear trailer of Andrei M’s articulated wagon. It is parked at the a long way aspect of a hectic freeway which runs along the air base perimeter.

What seems like roofing panels are mendacity at the flooring beside the truck, suggesting that they have been blown off slightly than hinged.

Driver Sergey didn’t even get the risk to prevent sooner than the roof of his Scania truck’s trailer blew off and extra drones started flying out and in opposition to the objective base.

Some 117 kamikaze drones have been used within the assaults, in line with President Zelensky, managed by way of the similar collection of pilots.

Each air base can have been hit by way of as many as 30 drones concurrently. Sources counsel that the SBU used Russia’s personal cell community to keep up a correspondence with and information the huge ‘quadcopter’ drones. To achieve this they will have to have had Russian sim playing cards or modems.

The objectives have been sitting geese, the destruction immense.

The Ukrainians launched video from a drone flying over a line of Russian heavy bombers smartly parked at Belaya. One of the bombers is hit by way of every other drone, which explodes because the digital camera drone approaches.

Among the 41 plane claimed destroyed by way of the Ukrainians is a Beriev A-50 early caution and keep an eye on airplane, of which Russia has fewer than ten.

The first satellite tv for pc photographs of the aftermath at Belaya seem to turn six TU-22 sort bombers destroyed and a TU-95MS visibly broken.

‘We will strike them at sea, within the air and at the flooring,’ the SBU declared. ‘If wanted we’re going to get them from the underground too.’

And what of the mysterious Mr Tymofieiev? All the ones at the back of the operation ‘had been in Ukraine for a very long time’ now, the SBU claims. Spider’s Web’s triumph, it kind of feels, is whole.

• Additional reporting by way of Oleksandr Kostiuchenko