Operation Spiderweb — how Ukraine masked drones before the attack

Ukrainian intelligence officers, the SBU, and engineers carried out one of the most technologically advanced and non-standard operations against Russian military facilities called "Spiderweb". The uniqueness of the operation was that the attack drones were launched right on the territory of Russia and were very successfully masked before the attack.

The video visualisation of the drone cache was shared by AiTelly engineers.

How did they manage to hide dozens of drones in the truck?

Ukrainian specialists created the clever drone-launching platform disguised as wooden cabins that looked like ordinary rural sheds or frame houses. They were mounted on truck bodies, which allowed them to move freely without arousing suspicion.

Inside these "cabins" were launch mechanisms, battery stations, cooling systems, and roofs with remote opening. The drones were loaded in advance and could be on standby for several days or weeks.

The containers on the trucks were located near strategically important Russian air bases — in forests, on farms, or near industrial facilities. Due to special signal shielding, Russian detection equipment was unable to detect the threat in a timely manner.

When the command to launch the operation came from the special services, an encrypted signal was transmitted, the roofs opened, and the drones took off. By the way, the engineers made sure that the drones could even take off vertically, and some of them had mechanisms that helped the drones operate more quietly.

Russian investigators have already questioned the drivers of the trucks from which the drones were launched. According to them, they were sure that they were transporting frame houses. All the trucks were registered to one owner, 37-year-old Artem, who, according to preliminary information, is a native of Ukraine. The criminal case under the article "terrorist act" has been opened against him, and Russian special services are searching for him.

As a reminder, on June 1, the SBU conducted the unique operation to strike Russian airfields using drones. Four airfields were attacked, and 41 military aircraft were damaged or destroyed.

Also, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, named the aim of the operation "Spiderweb".