Though the knock-on effects are unclear, some military commentators have called the strike Russia's "Pearl Harbor." Hopes for direct peace talks, which resumed Monday, remain low.

U.S. military commentators praised Ukraine's "remarkable" Trojan Horse-like use of wooden sheds as it bombed as deep into Russia as Siberia.

By The Associated Press A surprise Ukrainian drone attack that targeted several Russian air bases hosting nuclear-capable strategic bombers was unprecedented in its scope and sophistication for

Ukraine unleashed more than a hundred drones smuggled deep into Russia in what it called its most damaging attack yet.

The head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasyl Malyuk, said a day after the strike that 41 enemy aircraft were destroyed. Other assessments, however, including one by BBC News Ukraine, tallied a more modest number, upward of 11 destroyed jets.

Russia’s Defense Ministry in a statement confirmed the attacks, saying they damaged aircraft and sparked fires on air bases in the Irkutsk region, as well as the Murmansk region in the north. It said strikes were also repelled in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East and in the western regions of Ivanovo and Ryazan, the ministry said.

The drone strikes on Russian air force bases weaken Moscow’s ability to wage war on its neighbor and undermine its capacity to threaten more distant rivals.

It also roughly tallies with attempts by Russian independent media, such as Meduza and Mediazona, to count the bodies. By this time last year, Meduza reckoned that between 106,000-140,000 Russian soldiers had died. Much of their analysis was based on inheritance records and obituaries on social media and in other outlets.

Ukrainian forces have destroyed dozens of Russian warplanes parked at airfields thousands of miles from the front lines, according to a source in the country’s security services, in one of Kyiv’s most audacious and sophisticated counter assaults since the beginning of the war.