section_path: Analysis
section_name: Analysis
paragraph_text: Analysis
  
  According to the Financial Times, the damaged and destroyed aircraft made up around 20% of Russia's operational long-range aviation fleet. Many of the aircraft types affected, such as the Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, have not been produced since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, making them impossible to replace and exceptionally difficult to repair. Military expert William Alberque said that replenishing these losses could take years or even decades, and that the attacks would force Russia to disperse its bomber fleet across multiple airbases, reducing its ability to carry out large-scale strikes aimed at overwhelming Ukrainian air defences. Indeed, many sources report that Russia "has relocated dozens of its strategic bombers to more remote airbases across the country". Fabian Hoffmann at the University of Oslo commented that the loss of the bombers attacked was particularly damaging as they were the most operational examples; many others were undergoing maintenance.
  
  Wall Street Journal columnist Bernard-Henri Lévy compared the operation to Israel's pager attacks on Hezbollah fighters, describing it as one of the most ingenious military operations in history, one that would be studied for ages. He further said that the operation delivered one of the most significant blows to Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, alongside the 2022 sinking of the Moskva warship and attack on the Crimean bridge, retreat of the Russian Black Sea fleet to Novorossiysk due to vulnerability to Ukrainian attack, and the 2024 Kursk offensive.