Israeli strikes in Iran: Like Ukraine's attack on Russian bases, drones add new dimension & upend established battlefield strategies
The Israeli precision strikes on Iran, especially attacks that decapitated key Iranian military strike corps early into the current military engagement, has similarities to Ukraine's drone strike against the Russian air bases earlier this month. For one, it showcases the ability to strike in depth, really deep inside enemy territory on specific targets through strategic attacks that were planned well ahead in advance.
Israeli military officials have said that their Mossad intelligence agents smuggled precision weapons and drones into Iran in the days just ahead of this attack. They achieved targeted killings of key Iranian military officers and nuclear scientists, just weeks after Ukraine deployed a similar strategy as it struck key military targets in Russia with drones that were smuggled inside Russia and traversed via trucks deep into the latter's territory.
This new drone warfare is reshaping the battlefield construct, while also challenging the general view of military theorists that a conventional conflict typically entails a linear escalation. The idea that the adversary's military or intelligence ressources would go into another country, in peace time as in Israel's case, and really prepare the battlefield in depth to ensure that its forces could strike key military personnel with actual kinetic effect at a time of its choosing, is what is stark. That's what the Ukrainians did earlier in Russia. And this is likely to be an enduring pattern in new battlefield engagements, given how important drones are turning out.
Israel has decapitated some of Iran's key military agencies, including a key Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei aide, and assassinated Iran's senior nuclear scientists early into the conflict. One person in particular, Ali Shamkhani was a close aide to Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei and has been cited as arguably Iran's top strategist, who was often thought of as someone who could play a major leadership role inside Iran after the Supreme Leader abdicates or passes. Others neutralised by Israel include Major General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite military force, who reported directly to Khamenei and was the highest ranking official killed in the attacks. Major General Mohammad Bagheri, who served as the chief of Iran's Armed Forces General Staff since June 2016 when he was appointed to the position and Major General Gholam Ali Rashid, a veteran IRGC leader.
Iran has now told mediators Oman and Qatar that it is not open to negotiating a ceasefire while it is under Israeli attack, an official briefed on the communications was quoted by Reuters on Sunday. As Iran and Israel launched fresh attacks and raised fears of a wider conflict, what is beginning to get clear is that Iran has a very weak hand at the moment.
Iran's top leadership had been gearing up for a potential Israeli attack if nuclear talks with the US failed, but made a misjudgment in not anticipating Israel to strike before the next round of talks that was scheduled for Sunday in Oman, The New York Times said citing officials close to Iran's leadership. The country is now led by an 85-year old supreme leader who perhaps does not have the cognitive bandwidth to deal with an escalating crisis of this sort, and Israel's move to decapitate Iran's key military agencies has further impacted Tehran's ability to strategise and strike back.
Historically in these situations, Iran would threaten to unleash its proxies, Lebanese Hezbollah or Hamas in the Palestinian territories. But over the last six months, Israel has decimated these proxies. So in the regional context, Iran has a very weak hand at this point in time. Which is one reason why it was unable to stop some of these debilitating attacks by Israel, including on its Natanz nuclear facility
In an audacious attack that was planned for over a year and half, Ukraine carried out large scale drone attacks on multiple Russian air bases, including one in Siberia that was some 4,000 km away from the frontlines earlier this month. Under its Operation Spider's Web, a swarm of Ukrainian drones were unleashed on June 1 that attacked at least five military airbases deep inside Russia's borders and left some 41 bomber aircraft in flames.
Specialised drones called FPV drones were smuggled into Russia, along with mobile wooden cabins. The cabins were carried by trucks with the drones hidden inside. The cabin roofs opened remotely – and then the drones took off, zoned in on the nearby bases to precisely mount the attacks.
Ukraine claimed the attack caused $7 billion in damage, with multiple combat planes destroyed in the attack. The Russian defence ministry on Sunday said Ukraine launched FPV drone attacks on five air bases across the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions, adding that all strikes on the Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur airfields were successfully repelled.
It was one of significant raiding actions in modern warfare, given that the mission was planned for 18 months. This differed from the sort of attacks Ukraine had mounted so far – larger fixed-wing drones attacking at night, closer to areas adjoining Russia's border with Ukraine. This upended that pattern entirely, given that small drones were used this time during the day, and this was done far away from the front lines and deep into Russian territory. In Irkutsk province in eastern Siberia, thousands of kilometres away from Ukraine, locals posted footage of small quadcopter drones emerging from the roof of trucks and then flying toward a nearby airfield, followed by the smoke after impact.
The attacks at these Russian airfields are said to have destroyed 41 aircraft, including A-50 early-warning planes and Tu-22M3 and Tu-95 strategic bombers, most of which are now out of production and extremely difficult to replace. Russia is estimated to have less than 100 strategic bombers, and around a third of that fleet is impacted with this attack.
Commentators on X aligned to Ukraine's security services indicated that over a 100 quadcopter FPV drones with bombs were smuggled into Russia for the operations. These were then meticulously housed in specially-built wooden cabins, loaded on top of lorries and then released after the roofs of the cabins were retracted remotely. FPV or first-person view drones are smaller in size and have cameras built in on the front, which sends live video to the operator. This enables precise flying and manoeuvrability by the operator from a remote location, almost like an aircraft. The Economist reported that these drones used Russian mobile-telephone networks to relay their footage back to Ukraine, much of which then shared on social media.
It is entirely possible that the drivers of the trucks did not know what they were carrying. In that respect, analysts said this operation was similar to the 2022 attack on Kerch bridge, where a bomb concealed in a lorry destroyed part of the bridge linking Crimea with the Russian mainland.
Anil Sasi is National Business Editor with the Indian Express and writes on business and finance issues. He has worked with The Hindu Business Line and Business Standard and is an alumnus of Delhi University. ... Read More
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