Zelenskyy had cards
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House on February 28th he was ambushed by Trump and his best little boy J.D. Vance with vitriol and smears.
While J.D. claimed he wasn’t thankful enough for U.S. help, Trump was unbelievably rude and attacked the President of a country fighting for its survival. Constantly talking over him and turning red like a petulant child throwing a hissy fit, Trump insisted that Zelenskyy “didn’t have any cards!”
As normal, Trump was completely f#cking wrong again.
Ukraine had a whole bunch of cards up their sleeve in the form of 117 First Person View (FPV) drones hidden in containers with trap doors being distributed across the vast Russian nation. Russian drivers delivered them unknowkingly outside of at least five strategic bases of the Russian Armed Forces and at once they launched to attack the sitting duck bombers and more.
The New York Times has one of the stories:
Ukrainian officials said in their account that the transport crates were rigged to self-destruct after the drones were released.
Another video verified by the Times shows drones flying less than four miles from the Olenya air base. The man recording it suggests that the drones had been launched from a truck parked just down the road.
The Times could not confirm that the drones in the various videos were part of the assault.
In its assessment, Ukraine said the 41 planes accounted for 34 percent of the strategic cruise-missile carriers at air bases across three time zones. The Times was able to verify that four TU-95 bombers and one Antonov cargo plane were hit.
Russians are desperately trying to spin the damage as less than estimated but by any count it’s a huge strategic blow to their ability to support nuclear weapons globally and deep strike missiles into Ukraine.
As the Ukrainians explained it, they worked for a year and a half to pull off this operation to effectively destroy the bow instead of the arrows.
Larger Picture
The strike isn’t just a shock for those fighting the Ukrainian War. This capability is stunning and shows how $600 drones could be used to strategically destroy an enemy in fairly permissive environment.
Think about our own bases around the United States and world. Are they currently protected from these kinds of drones?
No.
Meanwhile, Trump is promising to spend billions of dollars on his “Golden Dome” to stop nuclear missiles. A technology that simply doesn’t exist against a threat that very few nations even possess. They sure do have cheap drones though.
I expect there are some sleepless folks at the Pentagon who wear the uniform.
I doubt Pete Hegseth lost any sleep since it doesn’t involve DEI or banning books.
Alex Vindman joins me to discuss it all
My friend Alex Vindman is a true expert on the Ukraine war and Russia. Aside from serving as the regional desk officer for Russia and Ukraine on the National Security Council before his firing by Donald Trump, he is also a child of Ukraine. He recently published his second book based on his doctoral thesis called ‘The Folly of Realism’ about the long time approach of the United States to Russia.
Needless to say, he knows some stuff on this topic. It’s a great half hour conversation you should watch!
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