Donald Trump was deliberately left in the dark about Ukraine’s unprecedented drone strike in Russia on Sunday, which destroyed nearly a third of the Kremlin’s strategic bomber fleet in a surprise attack.

The large-scale drone attack saw a fleet of drones scattered all across Russia carry out simultaneous attacks on five airbases, wiping out 40 irreplaceable military bombers worth an estimated $7 billion, which have been used to reign terror upon Ukrainian civilians.

“Operation Spider-Web” took over 18 months to plan and was personally overseen by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a source told CBS News.

  • @taladar@sh.itjust.works
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    34710 days ago

    Why would anyone even consider telling any politicians of foreign nations about a top secret project like that, much less blabbermouths like Donald Trump?

    • @Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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      6110 days ago

      Between nations that share trust and respect, theoretically, it would give them time to reposition themselves to the coming reality, and perhaps more importantly, give any assets they have in the area a warning to keep their heads down/not step on any toes.

      • @Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        3710 days ago

        Even at the height of WW2 the Allies kept secrets from each other. Churchill had no idea the US had the Atom Bomb until it was deployed.

        • @ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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          10 days ago

          This isn’t exactly true. The British were well aware of the Manhattan Project- indeed, the whole thing began as the British Tube Alloys project before they ran out of money and convinced the Americans to take it on, with the British delegation taking prominent roles.

          Britain also knew that the bomb was ready for use as the US didn’t have any bomb bay mounts strong enough to hold the weight, and they had to ask the RAF to supply a small number of mounts that had been designed for Barnes-Wallace’s 10,000kg earthquake bombs.

          • @taladar@sh.itjust.works
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            710 days ago

            The big difference is that an atomic bomb would still be useful once it is revealed while this would likely be significantly less effective.

        • @Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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          910 days ago

          There’s going to be a bit of contextual nuance when deciding whether to share intelligence and when. I’d bet if we had a respectable statesperson friendly to Ukraine’s plight leading this country we would have gotten a few days notice at least.

      • @taladar@sh.itjust.works
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        810 days ago

        You are confusing nations with people. You can’t trust a nation (or any other organization), you can only trust individuals because an organization can always contain individuals of diametrically opposed behaviors.

    • @Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      3910 days ago

      “Deliberately blindsided” is a little strong. We’re not even officially an ally of Ukraine. They don’t owe us, or anyone else jack shit as far as their war plans for defending their country. Add to that the fact that Trump is credibly accused of being a Russian asset and defers to their interests 99% of the time… Why the fuck would you trust us right now!?

    • @takeda@lemm.ee
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      710 days ago

      Yeah, frankly I think it wouldn’t even be good to tell Biden about it, he would likely discourage from that move. At best he would pretend he did not know about it.

      • SkaveRat
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        1110 days ago

        aparently that’s what they have been doing. This attack was in the works for quite a while

    • SkaveRat
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      510 days ago

      in a trusting ally relationship this would probably be fairly normal. In this case especially since the US is providing a lot of intel.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I would be more curious to know if there is anyone downstream of Trump working within the Pentagon/CIA that’s still actively coordinating US intelligence with Ukranian forces.

      Like, is the entire US military cut out of Ukrainian operations at the NATO level. Or is some faction within the Joint Chiefs pulling a SpaceX and giving Trump/Hegseth the Elon Musk busy-box while they run things outside his purview?

  • nkat2112
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    7810 days ago

    As is appropriate.

    I’m trying to recall a disco song from, I believe, the 1970s whose lyrics in the chorus went somewhat like the following - though I might be mistaken:

    “That’s the way uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh”

    • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      2010 days ago

      Exactly. As a courtesy they might give trusted allies a few hours notice, or at least inform them when the op has started. But unless they needed the assistance of an ally in planning and preparing such an attack then informing anybody well ahead of time serves no useful purpose at all.

      • @Zenith@lemm.ee
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        109 days ago

        No US weaponry was used in this righteous attack either, literally no reason to put the US in the loop

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      -229 days ago

      Ukraine is a sovereign country

      NATO to the left of me. Putler to the right.

      Ukraine’s a few steps shy of Kurdistan when it comes to sovereignty. They don’t even bother with elections anymore, given how much of the country is contended or outright occupied. So much of the killing and the dying is about changing that.

      • @Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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        89 days ago

        If it’s been said to a Russian troll once, it’s been said a thousand times now. Ukraine’s constitution doesn’t allow for elections during a state of war.

      • Tony Wu
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        59 days ago

        So much of the killing and the dying is about changing that.

        What the actual fuck are you saying? Are you implying that Russia is doing Ukraine a favor by initiating the killing so Ukraine can become part of Russia to avoid the killing that Russian could’ve simply not done?

    • @FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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      910 days ago

      He would have literally called Putin and tried to make a ‘deal’ the second he heard any plans

      I don’t like this planet anymore 👍

  • @mgnome@lemmy.world
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    5910 days ago

    Plans love silence.

    And it’s never been truer. Doesn’t even matter who sits in White House, strictly Ukrainian business that had to pass through as little ears as possible.

  • @CircaV@lemmy.ca
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    10 days ago

    LOOK AT THE FIREPLACE! No fake spray gold ornamentation! What the shit?!? Is the Oval Office a reality tv show set? Compare the fireplace from when Zelenskyy visited to Ramaphosa’s visit on May 25:

    That’s some heinous Temu-quality decor! stay classy USA

    🤡

    • @barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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      49 days ago

      I’ll bet he picked out all that shiny crap all by himself. Probably had a blast looking through some tacky catalogue, picking out the most ostentatious tchotchkies, knowing that the government was picking up the tab. Only real gold for the president, none of that gold-plated garbage.

      I’ll bet he takes it all home with him as well. We can fix that by putting him in a jail cell for life, then auction off this gold crap to pay for his keep.

  • Ænima
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    9 days ago

    Should have fed him a false location and then monitored Putin’s move. Would have confidently proven that tRump is an asset if moves were made to the fake target. Trap this fucker and then public punishment!

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Should have fed him a false location and then monitored Putin’s move.

      Putin, the Saudis, Israel, FIFA…

      Trump’s White House possibly has the highest listening-devices-per-sqft of any office on the planet. I wonder if signal interference is a problem.

      • Phoenixz
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        89 days ago

        I can just see Putin, Saudis, Netanyahu sitting around a table bickering about who gets the best bandwidth from listening equipment at the oval office, because little children just refuse to share…

      • @frezik@midwest.social
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        29 days ago

        It works like Mr. Burns’ immune system. Everyone is trying to listen in on Trump, but they step on each others toes and cancel out.

        Star Fleet Intelligence also operates on this principle.

      • Ænima
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        39 days ago

        Hopefully, we don’t hear about some intelligence agent with a new book coming out in the future regarding how tRump was a known asset for the Kremlin and how he was caught red-handed giving info to Putin in some false-flag operation.

  • Chainweasel
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    4010 days ago

    “Operation Spider-Web” took over 18 months to plan

    Either they left the Biden admin out of the loop too, or Biden went scorched Earth on Ukraine intelligence after the election to protect Ukraine.

    • @takeda@lemm.ee
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      2210 days ago

      I would imagine the first one to be true. There’s no reason to inform everyone about it. I also predict Biden would be against it.

      • @YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub
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        1110 days ago

        Biden and Sullivan would have been talking about how this is too much escalating and fucking threw a fit. Those dudes sucked and with a less afraid President of the US, Ukraine could have repulsed Russia in the first year with top of the line American arms but Biden was a fucking asshole who sacrificed Ukrainian lives for nothing

        • queermunist she/her
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          310 days ago

          They weren’t “afraid”

          The plan was never for Ukraine to win and Biden’s actions make that very clear. The plan was to get Russia stuck in a quagmire and drain them of blood and treasure fighting an unwinnable war.

          They wanted to turn Ukraine into Iraq.

            • queermunist she/her
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              -110 days ago

              I already said? It’s clear that Biden never gave Ukraine enough military assistance to win, we all seem to agree on that, and there’s only a couple explanations for that.

              Either I’m supposed to believe the US was too afraid to go all-in for Ukraine… or the US never cared if Ukraine won.

              There’s things people have said. Lloyd Austin said; “we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” The Security Council said they wanted, “to make this invasion a strategic failure for Russia.”

              And then there’s the arms trade. The US has used this war as an opportunity to pull countries away from Russian arms trade and into the US/NATO sphere instead, switching over supply lines to benefit Western arms manufacturers. This war has the arms trade booming. Why would they ever want the war to end?

              And then they blew up the Nordstream pipeline to keep the war going and make Europe more dependent on US gas.

              But I’m sure the US are the good guys and they’re just trying their best! 😇

    • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      1210 days ago

      This is the sort of op they would typically notify an ally of when it is actually imminent or just got started. If Biden was still in the White House my guess is he would have been given roughy 72 hours notice or less.

    • MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown
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      910 days ago

      The US election was 8 months ago. The operation was probably still in the planning stages. After that day, Ukraine would have known not to share any sensitive info with the US unless absolutely necessary, knowing that a Putin fanboy would soon have his hands on it. Had Biden still been in office today, he may have gotten a heads up before the actual execution, but then again, why would he need it. It is not like that information would have been actionable to anyone except the target.

    • @corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      710 days ago

      or Biden went scorched Earth on Ukraine intelligence

      Knowing what’s at stake, what’s being shared and who’s taking over, I would hope Biden would have insisted on no mics, no papers, no record, no witnesses. Just a friendly hug between friends and a chat about upcoming vacations.

    • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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      710 days ago

      Most likely it was discussed in general terms. There were plenty of headlines about long-range strikes into Russia.