According to a June 4 Reuters report, U.S. intelligence estimates are that perhaps 10 Russian aircraft were destroyed and another 10 damaged but repairable by Ukraine’s June 1 “Operation Spider’s Web” drone attacks targeting five Russian military airfields. Still, U.S. officials called the attack highly significant, with one of them telling Reuters that it could drive Moscow to a far more severe negotiating position in the U.S.-brokered talks to end more than three years of war.
A day later, the blogger Simplicius implied in a report posted Thursday night, June 5, that we may never know, at least from public sources, how many Russian aircraft were actually damaged or destroyed by the June 1 strikes. Aside from the likelihood that some of the aircraft that were hit were already non-operational, he adds the factor of fake images made using AI.
