'Operation Spider Web’ Couldn't Be Done without NATO, Says Russian Military Expert

Carl Osgood June 7, 2025 EST

Russian military expert Dmitry Kornev argued in an analysis published yesterday in RT that the June 1 drone strikes weren’t just an attack on Russian airfields. “It was a test—one that blended high-tech sabotage, covert infiltration, and satellite-guided timing with the kind of precision that only the world’s most advanced intelligence networks can deliver. And it begs the question: who was really pulling the strings?”

He added that Ukrainian agencies could not have acted alone: “Let’s be honest … [they] didn’t act alone. They couldn’t have.”

Kornev then marshals specific details of the strike to back his conclusion. Although none of those specifics have been confirmed by EIR at this time (and some are quite speculative and differ from accounts from other Russian analysts), his overall conclusion that this could not have been handled by the Kiev regime all on its own—let alone, to make the decision to do it—is sound. And it points in the direction of the British and complicit layers in the U.S.—especially those opposed to President Trump’s rapprochement with Putin.

The Kiev regime, Kornev goes on to write, “is deeply embedded within NATO’s intelligence-sharing architecture. The idea of a self-contained Ukrainian intel ecosystem is largely a thing of the past. These days, Kiev draws primarily on NATO-provided data, supplementing it with its own domestic sources where it can.”

As for the attacks themselves, “These weren’t blind attacks on static targets. Russia’s strategic bombers frequently rotate bases. Commercial satellite imagery—updated every few days at best—simply can’t track aircraft on the move. And yet these drones struck with exquisite timing. That points to a steady flow of real-time surveillance, likely derived from signals intelligence, radar tracking, and live satellite feeds—all tools in the Western intelligence toolbox,” Kornev writes. Indeed, at least one image released by the Kiev regime shows one of the targeted Tu-95 Bear bombers ready for a mission loaded with Kh-101 cruise missiles. “Could Ukraine, on its own, have mustered that kind of persistent, multidomain awareness? Not a chance….

“Real-time feeds from U.S. and European satellites, intercepts from British SIGINT stations, operational planning consultations with Western handlers—this is the new normal,” Kornev continues. “Ukraine still has its own sources, but it’s no longer running a self-contained intelligence operation. That era ended with the first HIMARS launch.”