Ukraine Uses Insurgent Tactics, Spiderweb Attack
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- Ukraine is operating successfully as both a conventional military and an insurgent force, fighting in Russian‑controlled parts of Ukraine and inside Russia itself.
- Operation Spiderweb in June 2025 destroyed or damaged a significant number of Russian strategic aircraft, including long‑range bombers, demonstrating a highly asymmetric attack.
- Vehicle‑borne improvised explosive devices have been used by Ukrainian forces to target Russian military leadership and assets, part of their insurgent tactics.
- Russian‑controlled areas such as the Donbas, Crimea, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson serve as the terrain for Ukraine’s insurgent operations, mirroring classic insurgencies.
- Scott Sweetow originally argued in 2022 that Ukraine’s tech‑driven resistance would evolve into an insurgency‑style force, a view now supported by the dual conventional‑insurgent approach.
Why it matters: Ukraine’s hybrid strategy lets it offset the early conventional force gap, inflicting costly damage on Russian air power and leadership while sustaining conventional operations; Russia faces heightened attrition of strategic assets and must contend with insurgent attacks across its occupied territories.
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