Is Ukraine’s Spider's Web operation Russia’s ‘Pearl Harbor’ moment? The debate explained

Russia and Ukraine held direct peace talks on Monday (June 2) in Turkey, a day after Kyiv’s surprise drone attacks against air bases deep inside Russian soil. The shadow of the operation, codenamed “Spider’s Web”, loomed large as the warring sides met for just over an hour amid little hope for a breakthrough.

Some military commentators and pro-Russian Telegram channels are dubbing Ukraine’s weekend drone attack as Russia’s “Pearl Harbor” moment. As speculation over Moscow’s expected response grows, we take a look at the similarities and differences between Ukraine’s Spider’s Web operation and America’s Pearl Harbor.

Ukraine’s drone attack stuns Russia

Ukraine on Sunday (June 1) attacked strategic bomber aircraft at several Russian air bases, using explosive-laden drones to hit the targets.

According to the Ukraine’s Security Service, Kyiv hit 41 Russian warplanes at military airfields, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft, reported Associated Press (AP).

The Tupolev Tu-22M supersonic long-range strategic bombers are housed at the Belaya air base in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, over 4,000 kilometres from Ukraine.

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This was the first time Ukraine launched a drone attack so far from the front lines.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the drone assault, calling it an “absolutely brilliant outcome”. “And an outcome produced by Ukraine independently,” he wrote on Telegram. “This is our longest-range operation.”

Later, in his nightly video address, he said 117 drones were used in Operation Spider’s Web. Zelenskyy stated that Russian forces suffered “very tangible losses, and justifiably so”, as per Reuters.

He claimed the operation had been headquartered near a regional office of Russia’s FSB intelligence service. As per the Ukrainian president, it took more than a year and a half to prepare for the complex operation.

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Ukraine smuggled hundreds of drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds, which were loaded onto trucks that were driven to the perimeter of the air bases, Reuters reported, citing a Ukrainian security official.

“At the right moment, the roofs of the houses were remotely opened, and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers,” a Ukrainian military source told AP.

Ukraine struck four air bases deep inside Russian territory in the operation personally supervised by Zelenskyy.

The Security Service claims to have destroyed 34 per cent of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers with damages estimated at $7 billion.

Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed the drone assault, which damaged aircraft and ignited fires on air bases in the Irkutsk region and the Murmansk region in the north. Strikes were also reported in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East and the western regions of Ivanovo and Ryazan.

How Ukraine’s drone attack compares to Pearl Harbor

Some pro-Russia bloggers are calling Ukraine’s large-scale drone strikes on Russian air bases the country’s Pearl Harbor – a reference to Japan’s attack in 1941 that triggered the United States’ entry into World War II.

“We hope that the response will be the same as the US response to the attack on Pearl Harbor, or even tougher,” Roman Alekhin, a Russian military blogger, said on the messaging app Telegram.

All eyes are now on Russia’s retaliation to Ukraine’s most damaging strikes of the war yet.

Meanwhile, the similarity between Ukraine’s strikes on Russia and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s attack on the US naval base in Hawaii is the element of surprise. Both Russia and the US were caught off guard by the attacks, respectively. These assaults also showed the might of their adversaries.

This is where the similarities end. A major difference is that Russia and Ukraine are already at war. The neighbouring countries have been fighting since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

However, when Japan struck the US naval base more than eight decades ago, America was not at war with the East Asian country.

In fact, the attack led the US to declare war on Japan.

The Pearl Harbor attack

On December 7, 1941, Japan hit Pearl Harbor, the US naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii.
After months of planning and practice, the Japanese forces launched a surprise attack to destroy the US Pacific Fleet.

Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes rained bombs, bullets and aerial torpedoes on the Pacific Fleet. The attack damaged or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes, as per History.com.

Over 2,400 US sailors, soldiers and civilians were also killed. About half of those who died at Pearl Harbor were on the battleship USS Arizona, which was struck by a 1,800-pound bomb.

Also, 1,178 people were wounded, while 129 Japanese soldiers were killed.

The Japanese forces sank four of the eight US battleships at Pearl Harbor, while damaging the remaining four.

The day after the attack, the then-US President Franklin Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress, seeking a declaration of war. The Senate unanimously supported the declaration.

After the president signed the declaration, the US officially entered World War II, more than two years after the conflict had begun.

While Japan’s attack on the US was a surprise, the two sides had been moving closer to war for decades. America had imposed economic sanctions on Japan to stop its expansionist agenda in Asia. This affected Japan’s access to aircraft exports.

Japanese forces attacked the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor to prevent the US challenge as Japan’s armed forces spread across the South Pacific.

With inputs from agencies