Why are military experts so interested in Ukraine's drone attack?

It took 18 months of planning and more than 100 carefully hidden attack drones smuggled to various clandestine staging sites deep inside Russian territory, waiting to be activated. And when the dust settled on June 1, Ukraine's audacious operation "Spider's Web" left dozens of Russian bombers smoldering on their airstrips in an unprecedented surprise attack.

While drones have increasingly played a role in 21st century warfare, "Spider's Web" is quickly being weighed by military analysts as a new and potentially precedent-setting expansion of unmanned combat tactics and capabilities — one which has not only altered the course of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict, but perhaps the future of war itself.

What did the commentators say?

The "strategic and symbolic" success of Ukraine's operation shows how the country has used drones in particular to "adapt and evolve" in its effort against Russia's "much larger army with more resources," said The New York Times. The scale and impact of the attack means similar long-range drone strikes are "now a commodity available to almost every nation state, and nonstate actor," so long as they have a "few million dollars and the desire to reach out and strike their adversary," said Australian Gen. Mick Ryan (Ret.), a senior fellow for military studies at the Lowy Institute, to the Times. The attack was "likely highly cost-effective," the Kyiv Independent said. The first-person-view drones believed to have been used in the operation can cost a few hundred dollars apiece, while the price tag for Russia's destroyed bombers likely "runs into the billions."

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The attack may have been a brazen success, but the "means and technology to conduct an operation like this aren't that new," said Center for New American Security Senior Fellow Samuel Bendett to the Kyiv Independent. The potential for "wide-scale, low-end, localized drone attacks against prized aircraft sitting at airfields" has been a "brewing threat," said defense industry–focused publication The War Zone. Drone technology has "proliferated dramatically," while the "threshold requirements" for carrying out an operation like this have "dropped considerably." Ukraine's drone assault was a "really good example of just how quickly technology is changing the battlefield," said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George at an AI conference yesterday, per DefenseScoop.

What next?

Ukraine's drone assault means Russia must now "devote more resources to protecting bombers and other valuable military assets" after having spent years leaving its assets "parked outside and easily visible, both for operational reasons and as part of nuclear-disarmament agreements with Washington around the end of the Cold War," said The Wall Street Journal.

Ukraine's advances in drone warfare often "outpace traditional U.S. defense contractors," said the Kyiv Post, with many tech firms "increasingly turning to Ukrainian drone makers for their frontline expertise." And it's not just corporate interests paying attention, either. This summer, Ukraine will host a group of soldiers from Denmark, training them in the art of widespread drone warfare, Defense News said. Meanwhile, a "new crop of testing facilities designed to test the small aircraft in war-like conditions" will begin operating across various European nations inspired to keep pace with Ukraine's drone innovations.