In the twilight of the ancient world, it was not brute force but strategic deception that felled the mighty city of Troy. The Greeks, weary of a protracted siege, devised a ruse—a wooden horse, presented as a token of surrender, secretly housed elite warriors. The horse was wheeled into the city by unsuspecting defenders, and under the cover of night, the warriors emerged from within to open the gates for the invading army. The city, proud and fortified, fell not from without but from within. Millennia later, on June 1, 2025, this tale of guile and subversion found a chilling modern parallel when Ukraine launched one of the most sophisticated and daring covert strikes in contemporary military history—Operation Spiderweb.
In a meticulously planned and precisely executed operation, Ukraine struck five major Russian airbases spanning vast distances across the Russian Federation, including targets as far as Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia—nearly 5,000 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. The scale of destruction was significant. According to Ukrainian sources, 41 Russian aircraft were damaged or destroyed, including Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 bombers—the mainstay of Russia’s long-range conventional and nuclear strike capabilities. Yet, it was not just the destruction that captured global attention, but the audacity and ingenuity behind its execution.
For 18 months before the attack, Ukraine covertly smuggled disassembled drones into Russia, concealed within mundane cargo—wooden containers mounted on ordinary trucks indistinguishable from commercial transport vehicles. These were stationed across key points, disguised in plain sight. At the chosen hour, the drones were remotely activated, emerging from their Trojan-like shells, and launched low-level strikes on strategic assets with precision. The drones, equipped with AI-driven guidance and open-source autopilot software like ArduPilot, were steered via Russia’s own 4G networks. Navigating beneath the radar horizon and through gaps in Russia’s layered air defence systems, they struck hard and deep, turning the very concept of rear-area sanctity on its head.
Operation Spiderweb was a triumph of asymmetric warfare. Each drone, reportedly costing under $3,000, reportedly helped inflict billions of dollars in damage. This was not simply a tactical strike—it was a deliberate dismantling of a core Russian strategic assumption: that its geographic vastness offers invulnerability. From Napoleon to Hitler, invaders had been worn down by Russia’s depth; however, disruptive technology has rendered that notion useless. Ukraine, with no access to conventional parity, undermined that very doctrine using creativity, adaptability, and intelligent risk-taking. Just as the wooden horse bypassed Troy’s towering walls, so too did Ukraine’s modest drones breach one of the most heavily defended airspaces in the world. Crucially, Ukraine calibrated its attack with strategic restraint. It avoided targeting Russia’s nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers, thereby steering clear of provoking a catastrophic escalation. This calculated self-restraint underlined a key aspect of modern deterrence: that messaging, not magnitude, determines the impact of a strike. Ukraine succeeded in denting Russian morale, exposing vulnerabilities, and asserting its operational reach—all without triggering Russia’s updated 2024 nuclear redlines.
The implications for India are profound. India is beset with what Chankya said, external threats with internal abetment. Facing collusive hybrid challenges from two nuclear-armed neighbours—China and Pakistan—India cannot afford to ignore the operational and psychological blueprint that Spiderweb presents. Both our adversaries are past masters in asymmetric warfare and grey zone conflicts. For India, future conflicts may not commence with conventional force-on-force engagements across borders. Instead, the opening salvos may arrive in the form of disguised civilian cargo laced with drones, malicious code embedded in software updates, or synchronised cyber-attacks targeting transportation, energy grids, and command networks. The battlefield has metastasised into the everyday, where the line between peace and war is blurred, and the enemy no longer wears a uniform. Strategic depth, once measured by geographic spread, must now be redefined as resilience of infrastructure, information systems, and institutional vigilance. Rear-echelon installations must be hardened and monitored as frontline positions. Critical infrastructure nodes must be shielded not only from missiles and drones but also from invisible saboteurs that can be embedded within logistics systems or cyberspace.
Operation Spiderweb also carries profound lessons in the evolving doctrine of dynamic responsive retaliation. The operation succeeded not through firepower but through a convergence of innovation, decentralised execution, and rapid decision-making. It was a testament to the weaponisation of software and the integration of civilian technology into the fabric of national defence, mandated by the highest political leadership of Ukraine. Open-source platforms, civilian mobile networks, and consumer-grade drone components were repurposed into a strike capability of strategic proportions.
For India, this is a clarion call to break free from its conventional mindset. Defence innovation must be agile, anticipatory, and synergistic to accelerate procurement cycles. The DRDO, the Armed Forces, and industry partners must be galvanised to develop indigenous capabilities, including drone swarms, autonomous intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems, Electronic Warfare (EW) systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI), anti-drone systems, and smart logistics. Operation Spiderweb underscores that national security is no longer solely a function of defence forces but merits a whole-of-nation approach. The civilian domain—encompassing ports, airports, railway networks, telecom infrastructure, and the digital backbone of commerce—is now a battleground. India must establish an integrated 'National Security Grid' that brings together civil administration, intelligence, law enforcement, private enterprise, and the military in a seamless security architecture.
At its core, Operation Spiderweb is also a lesson in strategic psychology. It demonstrated how a militarily inferior David can utilise innovative strategies to embarrass a mighty Goliath. For India, facing multi-domain threats, inflicting costs without triggering uncontrollable escalation must be an essential part of its strategic toolkit. It is high time India takes a bold leap to diagnose the evolving spectrum of conflicts, utilising cross-domain expertise, and develop comprehensive capabilities to deter, defeat, and exercise quid pro quo options with firm escalation dominance control.
Maj-Gen B.K. Sharma (Retd) is the Director General, United Service Institution of India, established in 1870
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
