Operation Spider Web was a 2025 Ukrainian near-field drone attack on Russian long-range aviation assets parked on flightlines deep inside Russia. The operation demonstrated that small, low-cost drones smuggled close to target bases can destroy strategic bombers at scale, transforming the U.S. domestic base-defense threat model from theoretical to concrete.
Spider Web is frequently invoked by U.S. officials including Gen. gregory-guillot as the rationale for urgency behind layered counter-small-UAS (C-sUAS) capabilities and flyaway-kit fielding. The 2026 pattern of drone-incursions over U.S. nuclear-capable bomber bases (Barksdale, suspected Whiteman) is contextualized against Spider Web’s demonstration of flightline vulnerability.