Late on Sunday night, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on social media that all of the operatives of the nation’s security services, SBU, who had participated in a a raid earlier in the day that knocked out about $7 billion in Russian military aircraft within the invading country’s airfields, were safe in Ukraine and accounted for.
The operation was dubbed “Spiderweb.”
“An absolutely brilliant result,” the president wrote.
“A result achieved solely by Ukraine. One year, six months, and nine days from the start of planning to effective execution. Our most long-range operation. Our people involved in preparing the operation were withdrawn from Russian territory in time,” Zelensky wrote on Facebook.
Direct residential entry for mass genocide remains unlikely, they’re too vulnerable at close range for this to be efficient at scale. The technology can’t overcome the need for lightweight assembly and will always be susceptible to a good swing from a baseball bat. This will only be used for high value targets or as a last resort while withdrawing from an area.
In urban environments they’re much more likely to just blanket the area with surveillance and slaughter people in line of sight from the air, then starve the sheltering population out like a modern siege. Like what’s literally happening in Gaza right now. It’s far more efficient in terms of ammunition, manufacturing, and psychological warfare.
But I absolutely agree. War is still Hell, but it sure is fucking changing. We’re running out of time before this asymmetry becomes mainstream and groups and leaders that are willing to deploy this technology become the only ones left.
It will still be MAD for nations to use these - as evidenced by the fact that a wartorn underdog can covertly assault a distant air field - but without major global collaboration it will be impossible to stop because unlike nuclear ICBMs these things can be built in a basement and deployed from a shed.