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Radio War Nerd EP #526 — Twilight of the Bombers: Ukraine Drone Attack (Patreon)

Published:
2025-06-03 02:43:59
Imported:
2025-06
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Recorded: June 2, 2025

The RWN crew got together for an emergency ep on the spectacular Ukrainian SBU drone attack deep inside Russia that appears to have taken out roughly a dozen Soviet-era bombers. There's more to discuss...

Total time: 48:11Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Sound production by Telescope Audio

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Comments

NYCM&AHole

Zalinsky is in his bunker saying how the 9th army commanded by Steiner will turn the tide.

Benke

This only shows how threadbare Russian state is.

Alec Rosekrans

Mark’s anti-Ukraine bias is probably the worst part of this otherwise great podcast.

Peter Z

Or Trump approved it because he's impatient with the peace talks and stupidity thinks this might soften the Russian position.

Christopher Small

Honestly, when I hear people gloat about this raid, I just picture a guy who's getting run over by a steamroller congratulating himself for throwing an empty soda can at the driver.

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

I think this really will turn the tide. Remember Russia has not been making any serious progress on the battlefield

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

Yeah the constant claim that the wheels are about to come off the Ukrainian war effort seems to not have born out

Christopher Small

In terms of weapons systems becoming obsolete and the fallout to international relations and arms control, sure. But in terms of the overall disposition of the war, which is the thing the people bragging about this care about, the impact is basically negligible

Ernesto

I think Trump could paint Zelensky as reckless and get rid of him now.

Christopher Small

Are they, though? The war’s going about as they thought it would. I mean, Ukraine will get the occasional coup, but long term they’re usually hollow

a clash of purple

Logistics, logistics, logistics. The rest of it is just publicity stunts and propaganda. I don't see how this changes the grim arithmetic that currently characterizes the war. Ukraine is massively outnumbered and outgunned, their leadership is in disarray, their morale is not great (though still far from breaking), and their economy and industry are completely destroyed. I don't think *anything* except NATO deploying hundreds of thousands of troops to the front lines can do anything more than delay the inevitable outcome. It seems to me that the Western strategy relied on the Ukrainians putting up a good fight to resist the initial Russian onslaught and holding them off long enough for the combination of international sanctions and battlefield failure to collapse the whole Russian regime. The Ukrainians did their part. Their allies and sponsors have let them down at every step. The sanctions failed badly, and Ukraine has never received the kind of logistical support they would need to win against a Russian army that has its shit together; Zelenskyy has consistently made this point. Given that the Russians have been able to maintain a war economy and Putin retains legitimacy as the leader, the rest of it is a foregone conclusion unless Ukraine is brought under the NATO aegis. As the underdog defenders, Ukraine will have sporadic moments of heroic triumph, but in cold battlefield logic, so what? Russia has more manpower, more artillery, more artillery shells, and more drones than Ukraine. Russia could conceivably give up large tracts of territory or suffer massive casualties and they won't collapse. Any losses suffered by Ukraine simply can't be recovered. The Ukrainians have to fight like heroes in every battle just to hold on. All Russia has to do is keep rolling the dice. Barring a massive change in the military logistics of the conflict (which *could* happen) the only question is how many casualties there will be and what concessions Ukraine will have to make when this ends.

a clash of purple

He's not a cheerleader for either side. He's not biased *against* Ukraine, he's just trying to remain objective. That's what journalists are supposed to do. They aren't supposed to take sides or parrot whatever state propaganda is put out to justify war. Ukraine is the underdog, Russia is the aggressor, and ultimately Ukraine was stuck in an impossible position between Russia and its rivals; Ames and Dolan have laid all this out plainly. Also, both sides are utterly amoral authoritarian kleptocracies that are corrupt to the core and riddled with Nazis. No one should be taking sides here. Everyone's first priority should be a peace that both sides can live with. Certainly plenty of Ukrainians have chosen to simply flee the country rather than fight a hopeless war just so some cold warriors in the U.S. can achieve an erection.

Mark Ames

tbf, I have taken a side going back to 2022, in that we've repeatedly called Russia's invasion a crime. Aside from that, we try to call the war as we see it. I've never argued "the wheels are about to come off" for Ukraine because wars are unpredictable, and as we've said many times, speaking from experience, Ukraine is the graveyard of war predictions. This war can go badly for Ukraine for years, or not.

Demented Avenger

Oh, do those Polish yokels really hate Germany. In a FB group dedicated to maps (ostensibly; it's super pro-NATO/anti-Russia) someone showed a map of Poland in 1667, and the Polish crowd all jumped in to claim that Royal Prussia should have been included as a Polish possession. Pointing out that this was a decade after the Treaty of Wehlau and the end of the biggest invasion in Polish history didn't deter them. Which is weird; why are the bots out in force over nerd shit?

Noah

Weren't the drones AI-piloted? Are people rejecting that as propaganda? It seems plausible to me..

Mark Ames

Do Electric Bots Dream of War Nerding?

James

How are you guys referring to a potential un-recallable flight crew on a manned strategic bomber (around 23 mins) and not mentioning Dr Strangelove?!?!

James

Worst transgression you've ever committed with regards to your commentary on this conflict, imo

CR

Who doesn’t hate Germany?

A

I think the only thing this proves is how God awful and compromised the FSB is and that the CIA/MI6 still has it. A huge characteristic of this war to me is how supremely outclassed Russia is in terms of intelligence. It's like they're fighting a war with someone that knows exactly where they are and what they're planning at all times, which I think is a big reason for the quagmire they're in. It's still a quagmire though because the collective West doesn't have the military production capacity to support a long term war effort and Ukraine is basically throwing out retirees to fill every hole they see in the front lines. I honestly don't see this war ever ending at this point. Forever war. Neither side seems to want it to end.

Alex Muir

The Poles seem to hate everyone. At the same time. Which hasn't always worked out well for them with all that wide, flat terrain...

Alex Muir

How do you think the next phone call from Putin to Trump will go? "Hey, Don, we don't think the Khokhols were up to organizing such a complex operation all on their own; we reckon they must have had some help from the CIA, MI6, NATO, your DoD sending satellite pics, etc., etc. In which case you knew about it & didn't stop it so you f*cked us. Or you didn't know about it and the op went ahead anyway and so your guys f*cked you, too. In any case, these little chats are pretty pointless, aren't they? We might as well let Mr. Oreshnik do all the talking from now on. And you know why all those strategic bombers were lined up in the open making such beautiful targets. Because that was part of the new START deal we signed with Obama in 2010 - the last time we had and probably will ever have a deal with a US President. All strategic bombers, yours and ours, have to be out in the open so they can be under satellite observation at all times, which has not worked out well for us. So we might as well take note of what Ames & Dolan of the War Nerd podcast say - the strategic bomber arm of the nuclear triad is an anachronism. Accordingly we will be removing our nukes from the strategic bomber bases and placing them in harder to target locations (under the sea). And we will be building a lot of bunkers (a lot more than we have bombers) to protect our dwindling bomber fleet a bit better. They're still ok for launching very long range cruise missiles, as the cocaine fuehrer will soon observe. Duh-svee-DAN-ya, Don..."

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

I don’t think they are cheerleaders or biased. I think their analysis is honest but somehow underestimates Ukraine.

Jonathan Penn

In "Red Storm Rising," Clancy wrote of timing a cruise missile strike launched from US attack submarines so that returning Soviet bombers were destroyed as they landed or on the ground, an attack quite similar to what Ukraine pulled off (Clancy also presaged 9/11 in one of his novels with a Japanese 747 crashing into the US capital during a State of the Union address). Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it is clear that fiction is suggesting how these now ubiquitous weapons can be used imaginatively. And with all respect to Russian security forces, the border is too long and too isolated in many places to permit an drone-tight cordon. Creative uses of drones, and increasing drone capability will outpace conventional weaponry for the foreseeable future. I almost dread to say this, but the same planners of this operation should look to the fiction of William Gibson ("Neuromancer," etc.) for further ideas.

Mark Ames

It was a test. You have passed. You go on to the next level.

James

Watched it a few months back, I'd forgotten that the whole crisis was sparked by a USAF General who'd convinced himself that the Soviets had made him impotent by messing with his 'precious bodily fluids' , because he'd had a few incidents with his wife that made him embarrassed... Made the film feel even more true to today, unfortunately!

William

Operation northwoods presaged the 9/11 attack just as much as Clancy

Benke

Newsflash, all of those maps in your facebook doomscrolling feed garner kneejerk reactions from the lowest common denominator. If you post a map featuring Gdańsk you'll get German and Anglo trolls calling it Danzig. Just clueless boomers doing their thing. Also, everybody hates Germans.

William

It won’t go like this

William

I don’t get this at all. The annual cia budget is .5x - 1x the size of Russia’s military budget. It’s been tempered and honed in dozens of little conflicts around the world for the past 20 years. The British have centuries of experience fucking around in countries all over the globe and doing a lot of it with the CIA. Seems to me Russia is doing fine- they adjust well to every new attack, like they always do

William

What’s there to ESTIMATE about Ukraine?

Benke

You are blaming the victim here bro

JoR

This is not a political statement at all but I can't help but make a parallel between Ukraine today and ISIS at its peak. They're both both great at tactically shifting into areas of weakness of their opponents. Struggling in Iraq? They take swaths of unguarded territory in Syria. Ukraine does the same thing in Kherson (IIRC). Also, like ISIS, Ukraine seemed to get a bit too high on their supply and wanted these unexpected victories a bit too much. Kursk, again, was a similar stroke of genius tactically, but strategically a disaster. Which is what doomed ISIS too. Now, the recent drone operation is much more impressive then anything ISIS did at the end. But also have to wonder how it's going to solve the strategic problems with manpower, logistics etc. But hey no real reason not to at this point

Michael Salmon

I think I’d like to hear three things about the war that we haven’t heard much on as of late: First, the Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities; its objectives, its results, war crimes, scale, Ukrainian society’s reaction Second, the Russian army. Its tactics, casualties, command, strategic objectives, capabilities, etc. Finally, the toll the war has had on Russian society, if any. What does it look like inside Russia nowadays? Economically with Ben yes but also just socially, culturally. Gotta be a good guest for this one