It is 08:30 AM on a fine sun-drenched Tuesday morning, and I am just about to take my first sip of tea. Peering shortsightedly over my cup at the vibrant green leaves of the young mango tree just beneath my window, I can barely discern the fine, silvery strands of a spider’s web glistening and waving softly in the occasional breeze. Kolkata in June. It is usually hot and muggy this time of the year but today seems a little less so. I close my eyes and take a minute or two to breathe in the serene fragrance of the trees, the grass, and fresh fallen leaves(Spider Web)
“Holy Moses! Is it the 3rd of June already?” I murmur as my eye catches the calendar on my phone. I can almost hear the beep of the Reminder app and the email/SMS alert tones in anticipation of the bills that are soon to be announced by this all-powerful little device – one without which, to state the obvious, life has become impossible for the past decade and a half.(Spider Web)
As I scroll through the banking apps on my phone, checking account balances, ensuring standing instructions for payments do not fail, I hear sudden electronic whirring and buzzing, rising, and falling in intensity
“Oh dear! There goes my morning!” I sigh as I set my cup down, along with the newspaper (which, incidentally, has become more redundant than ever), at my workstation. As I scroll through the banking apps on my phone, checking account balances, ensuring standing instructions for payments do not fail, I hear sudden electronic whirring and buzzing, rising, and falling in intensity, punctuated by excited young and occasional static interference.(Spider Web)
Intrigued, I get up from my chair and walked over to the window overlooking the playground below. What the hell is this ruckus all about, I ask myself. Well, I get to know soon enough! Neel, Sanjay and Karan, the neighbors’ kids, are playing with toy drones. These small but perfectly functional devices, fully equipped with remote controls and cameras, seem to be the craze these days. The boys are having a little competition amongst themselves as to who can fly his drone the highest without hitting one of the trees.(Spider Web)
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“Ahh! Summer vacations!” I smile indulgently, as fond memories of my own childhood come rushing back. I remember gorging on all the books I can lay my hands on, all the marvelous stories, novels and plays I absolutely “must” finish reading before school reopens in July. Kids are way more advanced these days, what with all the sophisticated gadgets they get to play with, I muse, not without a touch of envy. The envy, however, is quickly replaced by a strange sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “But are they lucky? Or safe, for that matter?” pipes a tiny voice in my head. Brushing that voice aside firmly, I call out to one of them.(Spider Web)
“Hey Neel! What is that model you are playing with?”
“It’s a HORPIN drone with 4K foldable camera, Aunty,” Neel shouts back struggling in vain to extricate his drone caught in the spider’s web amongst the leaves of the mango sapling, “with remote control, 1080P HD and FPV Live Video! ”Nice!! Have fun with it, kiddo!” I reply, giving him a victory sign. He smiles and waves back. I step away from the window and amble back to my table. Sinking down into my comfortable ergonomic chair, I lift the cup to my lips to drain the last few drops of lukewarm tea.(Spider Web)
Picking up my phone again I start scrolling idly through the latest news, browsing events at home and abroad, looking for a suitable subject for my next article, when abruptly, like a bolt from the deep blue, like a blow of Thor’s hammer, there it is! Suddenly this news item is all I can see. It is a Times Of India report, dated today June 3, 2025, five hours ago. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy affirms that “Operation Spider’s Web,” the “brilliant” drone attack on Russia, will continue unless Moscow ceases its offensive!
“Spider’s Web?! Whatever is that?” I mutter, dumbfounded. Rapidly surfing through the major news websites – BBC, The Guardian, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, NDTV – I try to grab the details as fast as possible.
What I read sends ice-cold shivers down my spine.
It seems to be the largest drone attack on Russian bases up to this point in the war, employing 117 drones that, according to Ukrainian officials
“My god! Where have I been all this time?” I reproach myself, as I see the whole world gasping in stunned astonishment, trying to wrap its head around the sheer audacity of this complex military maneuver (in Ukrainian: Операція Павутина», Romanised: Operatsija “Pavutyna”) faultlessly executed by the Security Service of Ukraine on Sunday, 1st June 2025, deep inside Russian territory some 4500 kilometers away from the Russia-Ukraine border.(Spider Web)
Still reeling from the attack are six air bases – Belaya, Dyagilevo, Ivanovo Severny, Olenya, and Ukrainka – spanning five “oblasts” (meaning regions in Russian) across five time zones. It seems to be the largest drone attack on Russian bases up to this point in the war, employing 117 drones that, according to Ukrainian officials, have damaged over forty nuclear-capable long-range bomber aircraft. Russia confirms the attack.
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By the time this article is published, readers will have all the minutiae of the operation at their fingertips – the ingenious method of smuggling the AI powered first-person view drones in Russian trucks, opening the boxes remotely, the technical specifications of the drones, which bear uncanny similarity to the ones Neel and his friends play with. More events will probably unfold in the near future, no doubt, turning the blood in our veins to ice. Events the world will watch in real time thanks to advanced technology.
But all that is wholly beside the point. What really matters here is that this devastating operation has been initiated more than 18 months ago, planned meticulously, executed flawlessly, controlled strictly, monitored rigorously, and finally closed successfully with no human casualties. One hundred and seventeen drones each costing between $600.00 and $1000.00 have destroyed around $7 billion (£5 billion) worth of Russian strategic aviation. A stupendous feat, at par with the legendary wooden horse that finally reduced “the topless towers of Ilium” to ashes, as many have noted..
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The other similar mission that comes to mind in recent times is Israel’s pager attacks on Hezbollah fighters on 17th and 18th September 2024. What’s more, the Ukrainians have pulled this off in utter secrecy. President Zelenskyy claims that an ‘office’ for the operation has been near an office of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) all along.
As a former PMI Certified Project Management Professional, I cannot but admire this “exemplary” project (the only adjective I can think of, per the Institute’s standards embodied in the PMBOK®), despite its questionable outcome!
Now here come some of the toughest questions: should the world applaud the Ukrainians and their President for this first-of-its-kind achievement, for redefining modern warfare forever? Or should we condemn them for this immense loss of property, though the targets are mostly fighter jets carrying weapons of mass destruction?
The biggest question of all is, should we push the world farther into an even deadlier spider’s web of global conflict and disaster?
Should India rethink her military strategy adopted in the recent Operation Sindoor, of which we are all so proud, and consider newer, more efficient approaches? It’s not that India does not possess or use drones (stealth UAVs) for surveillance and combat, but how advanced are these capabilities? What are the pros and cons, costs and benefits, risks, and opportunities of implementing the smaller, more inexpensive varieties of drones that Ukraine has used? And if this technology can be harnessed to destroy military targets, how long before it is used on civilian populations?
The biggest question of all is, should we push the world farther into an even deadlier spider’s web of global conflict and disaster? Have humans learnt so little from their history of action and reaction that they are busy designing a world where the clamour of children at play, their laughter ringing in the park, their friendly scuffles, their grandparents’ stories, and their mothers’ scoldings will be silenced forever?
I hope we wake up soon enough to realize that no matter how fragile and delicate a spider’s web appears, in some ways its tensile strength greater than that of steel.
Principal sources:
- Operation Spider’s Web – Wikipedia
- Ukraine drones strike bombers during major attack in Russia
- 41 fighter jets bombed in Operation ‘Spider’s Web’: 10 things to know about Ukraine’s drone attack on Russia
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Prateeti is an English Lierature major from Presidency University Kolkata who took up the technology challenge without an Engineering degree in 1993 and embarked on a full-fledged technical career, becoming a RDBMS expert. She worked as the CoE Manager for Sybase products, platforms and technologies at SAP Labs India Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore. She is a great admirer of Augusta Ada King and Marie Curie.
She is also the author of ‘Green Rose Wild Earth’ a collection of poems published by StoryMirror Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
