Operation Spider Web and Instrumentalizing Civilian Objects

On 1 June 2025, in one of the boldest operations of the war, Ukraine carried out a massive surprise attack against Russian military installations. The attack, known as Operation Spider Web, was carried out by drones and resulted in significant damage to strategically important Russian military aircraft. The operation was highly successful, with one commentator calling it “a signature event on par with the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva early in the war and the maritime drone assaults that forced the Russian Navy to largely abandon the home port of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea.”

The drone operation relied heavily on deception and surprise. In addition to exercising remarkable operational security, Ukraine disguised almost all aspects of the operation. From the trucks and containers that carried the drones, to the fuel stations and roadside facilities where they were launched and the unwitting civilian drivers who moved them, Ukraine masked the entire operation from Russia up to the moment of the attack.

Operation Spider Web raises several international legal questions. In this post, I focus on one of them, namely Ukraine’s use of civilian objects in the operation. I examine the law-of-war rules pertaining to civilian objects, including the principle of distinction and targeting rules governing attacks. I note that Ukraine’s use of civilian objects in the operation, though remarkable and high-profile, is an example of a common war practice. I call this practice civilian object instrumentalization.

The practice of using civilian objects for war aims is obviously not a new phenomenon. Nor has it gone unnoticed by legal scholars and practitioners. Nevertheless, it is worth noticing not only how belligerents instrumentalize civilian objects, but also just how legally uncontroversial the practice apparently is. Whereas the law-of-war principle of distinction guards closely against the instrumentalization of civilians, it is much more permissive when it comes to civilian objects.

I argue that civilian object instrumentalization deserves greater attention. It is frequently claimed that the law-of-war principle of distinction is foundational and intransgressible. If so, the law of war’s relative permissiveness of belligerents’ use of civilian objects to fight is surprising. Furthermore, given the character of contemporary warfare, belligerents may increasingly find irresistible the temptation to use civilian objects to achieve their war aims.

The Operation

Ukraine reportedly spent more than a year planning Operation Spider Web. The SBU, Ukraine’s main security and intelligence agency devised and executed the operation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy directly ordered it.

The attack was successful by any measure, marking one of the longest-range and most coordinated Ukrainian strikes of the war. It involved the near-simultaneous launch of 117 Ukrainian-made quadcopter drones. It targeted four Russian air bases, some of which were thousands of miles from the Ukrainian border. In addition to damaging the Russian air bases themselves, the attack damaged or destroyed 41 Russian military aircraft valued at approximately $7 billion. The strike was the “biggest blow of the war against Moscow’s long-range bomber fleet.”

Ukraine launched the attack from inside Russia. In an elaborate plan, the SBU arranged for the drones secretly to cross into Russian territory. They smuggled in around 150 “small strike drones, modular launch systems, and 300 explosive payloads” via “covert logistical routes.” Once the drones and other equipment were in Russia, SBU operatives assembled the weapon systems at an undisclosed location.

Once assembled, civilian cargo trucks transported the drones to their attack positions. Reportedly, Ukraine used “unwitting Russian civilian participants” in the operation, including “recruited Russian truck drivers to deliver the mobile drone launchers.” The trucks carried custom-made wooden modular cabins, designed to “camouflage” the quadcopter drones as “standard cargo loads.”

Ukraine hid the drones in the roofs of the wooden cabins. The launch positions were civilian areas, including gas stations and roadside rest stops and laybys, near the targeted Russian air bases. This allowed the drones to “bypass Russia’s layered air defense systems” on their way to the targets.

The drone weapon systems used “off-the-shelf tech.” The software relied on an “open-source system for piloting drones.” The drones appear not to have been customized, relying instead on a “fairly straightforward” application of “commercial technology.” The drones themselves were standard quadcopters featuring four rotors, costing approximately $2,000 each.

When the time came to launch the drones, the wooden cabins were opened remotely and the drones took off in swarms toward their targets. Initially, the drones were “guided manually by pilots,” but “artificial intelligence took over when some of the craft lost their signal, automatically piloting the drones to strike their targets along preplanned routes.” Artificial intelligence “likely played a supporting role in both flight stability and targeting, particularly in enabling precise strikes on vulnerable components of high-value aircraft.”

Ukrainian operators used Russian civilian mobile telecommunications networks to communicate with the drones. As one report put it, “Ukraine [took] advantage of commercial networks to deliver a weapon deep inside the territory of its enemy.”

According to reports, “all personnel involved in the operation were successfully moved from Russian territory to Ukraine” before the drones were launched. After the drones took flight, the trucks exploded, apparently a self-destruction function designed to preserve operational secrecy.

Operation Spider Web was part of Ukraine’s “deep-strike program,” in which Ukraine uses drones to attack Russian military weapons, equipment, vehicles, and infrastructure on Russian territory. The attack damaged or destroyed a “sizable portion” of Russia’s long-range military fleet. The operation undermined not only Russia’s air campaign in Ukraine, but also damaged and destroyed aircraft Russia would rely on to strike adversaries in a nuclear war. If Ukraine’s attack was as successful as it claims, the “loss would represent a deep blow to Russia’s status as a global superpower.” The operation will almost certainly require Russia to re-consider how it operates what remains of its strategic bomber fleet.

In addition to its near-term tactical success, Operation Spider Web demonstrated Ukraine’s “ability to execute a coordinated, multi-theater deep-strike operation, far beyond its borders, using fully indigenous systems and asymmetric tactics—blending deception, precision, and strategic surprise.”

Targeting Rules

Parties to an international armed conflict have an obligation “at all times [to] distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives.” Belligerents must direct their military operations only against combatants and military objectives. This is the principle of distinction, a foundational structural component of the law of war. Distinction establishes a legal line between those who fight (combatants) and those who do not (civilians).

The legal rules that derive from distinction, which include targeting rules, further this line-drawing function. Belligerents must apply targeting rules when conducting attacks, generally understood as uses of force or violence, whether offensive or defensive, against the adversary. Targeting rules establish the persons and things that belligerents may make the object of attack. For example, combatants and military objects may be targeted directly, but civilians and civilian objects may not be made the object of attack.

Under targeting rules nearly all individuals on or near the battlefield fall into one of two categories: combatants or civilians. (For present purposes, we can set aside other categories, such as noncombatants and so-called unprivileged belligerents). This is because the term civilian is defined in the negative, as any person who does not fall within the definition of combatant. Thus, if a belligerent determines that a potential target is not a combatant, it necessarily follows that the person is a civilian (again, setting aside other categories) and therefore is protected from direct attack.

Sometimes civilians join the fight. To address such situations, another targeting rule states that a civilian retains his legal protection, unless and for such time as he “directly participates in hostilities.” A civilian who directly participates in hostilities does not lose his civilian status. Rather, he remains a civilian, but forfeits legal protection against direct attack during the time of his participation. When a civilian directly participates in hostilities, he may be made the object of attack.

Instrumentalizing Civilians

One way to understand targeting rules, especially those based on the distinction principle, is that they aim to prevent belligerents from instrumentalizing individuals who have not voluntarily joined the fight. On this view, combatants may generally be presumed to take part in hostilities voluntarily. Civilians do not fight, and therefore are accorded legal protection unless they intentionally or deliberately and directly participate in the war. Therefore, on this understanding of targeting rules, distinction rules aim to prevent belligerents from instrumentalizing civilians for their war aims.

Other law-of-war rules support this understanding. Consider rules on human shields. Belligerents are prohibited from using civilians to shield their military forces or operations. Using human shields instrumentalizes civilians for military ends. Therefore, in part, this rule may be justified as preventing or minimizing belligerents’ instrumentalization of civilians.

Furthermore, a civilian’s decision to act as a human shield may impact how the rules apply. If a civilian is made to act involuntarily as a human shield, he retains his legal protection from direct attack. In contrast, many assert that a civilian who voluntarily acts as a human shield may be directly participating in hostilities and, therefore, loses his legal protection and may be targeted. These rules reflect a concern about instrumentalization: the law protects civilians who are used involuntarily as shields to prevent such exploitation. But the same concerns are lessened when civilians voluntarily act as human shields. In that case, they lose legal protection from direct attack, if their acts constitute direct participation in hostilities (§ 5.12.3.4).

I do not claim that instrumentalization is the only—or even the best—way to understand the principle of distinction and the law-of-war rules deriving from it. Nor do I attempt a complete examination of the link between distinction rules and concerns about instrumentalization. It should also be noted that other law-of-war rules, most notably proportionality (para. 2(a)(iii)), raise serious concerns about belligerents’ instrumentalization of civilians for their war aims.

My reasons for discussing instrumentalization are more modest. As offered above, I merely suggest instrumentalization as one way to understand the purpose of distinction and its derivative targeting rules. Even this limited claim is revealing when comparing the targeting rules for civilians with those for civilian objects. As we will see, the distinction rules concerning objects are more permissive toward belligerents instrumentalizing civilian objects for their war aims.

Instrumentalizing Civilian Objects

As with civilians, the law of war defines civilian objects negatively as all objects that are not military objectives. Therefore, as is the case with individuals, under targeting rules all objects on the battlefield fall into one of two categories: military objectives and civilian objects. (Once again, we will set aside other categories of objects, such as cultural property.)

Military objectives are those objects “which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.” An object that meets this definition may be targeted. An object that does not is a civilian object and is legally protected from direct attack.

Unlike with civilians, the law of war does not contain a prohibition clearly analogous to the human shield rule for civilian objects. There is no explicit prohibition of “civilian object shielding.” Rather, the law of war takes a more permissive approach to belligerents’ instrumentalization of civilian objects.

Consider once again the military objective definition. Military objectives are not only those objects that are military by their nature (we might say inherently military), such as installations, tactical vehicles, and weapons (§§ 5.6.4, 5.6.6.1). They also include objects that belligerents locate, use, or will likely use to further their military operations (§ 5.6.6.1). Thus, the logic of the military objective and civilian object definitions appears to contemplate belligerents’ instrumentalizing civilian objects for military ends.

Take an example in which a small group of soldiers are engaged in combat against enemy forces in an urban area. The soldiers come across a civilian van. The van’s keys are in the ignition. The soldiers enter the van and use it to move to a more advantageous area of the battlefield. In this scenario, when the soldiers begin using the van, it is no longer a civilian object. Rather, it becomes a military objective. In this example, the soldiers have instrumentalized what was otherwise a civilian object for their military operational ends. (I assume, for present purposes, the legal rules governing requisition of property would not apply here.)

Generally, States accept that belligerents are not prohibited from instrumentalizing civilian objects during war. For example, the New Zealand Defence Force’s law of war manual instructs that Defence Force members are prohibited from attacking “objects which are normally dedicated for civilian purposes, such as places of worship, houses and schools … unless it is clear that they are being used by the opposing force to make an effective contribution to their military effort, for example where enemy forces are using the buildings as part of their defences” (§ 8.4.8).

Canada’s law of war manual similarly asserts that “[c]ivilian vessels, aircraft, vehicles and buildings are military objectives if they contain combatants, military equipment or supplies” (§ 407(2)). This reflects an understanding that belligerents may often instrumentalize civilian objects for war aims.

The United States may go even further. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Law of War Manual explicitly recognizes belligerents’ instrumentalization of civilian objects. In the context of discussing the prohibition of human shields, the manual declares that the law of war “does not prohibit a party from using what would otherwise be a civilian object for military purposes and thereby converting it to a military objective” (§ 5.16.1).

This assertion, notably unsupported by citation to conventional or customary legal authority, could suggest not only that the law of war acknowledges military use of civilian objects, but also that international law establishes legal authority for such use, or at least accords some measure of legitimacy to its practice. (I will not investigate these claims further here).

Other Law-of-War Rules That May Apply to Civilian Object Instrumentalization

Some law-of-war rules may seem to restrict belligerents’ instrumentalization of civilian objects. Consider the rules of so-called “passive precautions.” These rules require belligerents within areas they control to attempt to remove civilian objects (and civilians) from nearby military objectives. Belligerents must also avoid locating their military forces in or near densely populated areas, which are likely to contain civilian objects (and civilians).

But passive precaution rules merely require belligerents to attempt to protect civilians and civilian objects within areas they control. Moreover, these rules are subject to a condition of feasibility. More fundamentally, rules of passive precautions do not prohibit belligerents from instrumentalizing civilian objects in the way described above. A belligerent may use an object that would otherwise qualify as a civilian object (for example, a school or automobile) to engage in hostilities. As discussed, the definition of military objective would exclude such an object entirely from civilian object status, by virtue of the belligerent’s use of the object to fight. In the terms used by the U.S. DoD, the belligerent’s use of the civilian object “converts” it into a means of conducting warfare, thereby making it a military objective.

The prohibition of perfidious attacks may also seem to restrict belligerents’ instrumentalization of civilian objects. Perfidy is inviting the adversary’s confidence that international legal protection applies with the intent to betray such confidence. It is prohibited to kill or injure (or, for States that have joined the First Additional Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (AP I), to capture) an adversary by resort to perfidy.

Some may argue that instrumentalization of civilian objects violates the perfidy prohibition. I cannot explore this argument in depth (others have, including here). It suffices for present purposes to note that many examples of belligerent use of civilian objects do not implicate the perfidy prohibition (p. 252-59). For example, as some have argued, the use of civilian objects to gain a military advantage by deceiving or surprising the adversary may fall completely outside the scope of the perfidy prohibition (p. 287-95). In any event, my argument that the law of war anticipates and tolerates civilian object instrumentalization is distinguishable from the claim that some cases of instrumentalization may breach the perfidy prohibition.

Finally, some may argue that the military objective and civilian object definitions are limited to attacks and therefore are not implicated in non-attack military operations. Proponents of this argument may point to the context in which the definitions are placed in Part IV, Section I of AP I, which concerns protecting civilians and civilian objects from the effects of hostilities. As such, application of the military objective/civilian object framework should be limited to attack perspectives and, therefore, should not be employed in a broader sense. The latter would include the legal conversion (to borrow the U.S. DoD’s terminology) that occurs when a belligerent uses a civilian object for military purposes.

This is an interesting argument worthy of further examination. For present purposes, I will limit my response to pointing out that, if this argument has any merit, it is in tension with State practice as described above. States often use the military objective/civilian object framework in all aspects of hostilities, not merely attacks. Furthermore, scholars and other commentators also employ the framework more broadly when discussing legal issues in the conduct of hostilities.

Ukraine’s Drone Attacks Against Russia

Turning to Operation Spider Web, let us begin with the observation that Ukraine’s attacks were clearly directed against lawful targets. The Russian military installations and aircraft destroyed by Ukrainian drones in the attacks were, by their nature, military objectives. Therefore, they were lawfully attacked.

However, in carrying out the operation, Ukraine clearly instrumentalized civilian objects to gain a military advantage against Russia and ultimately execute a highly successful attack. Indeed, the operation was extremely sophisticated in the way it used apparently civilian objects to deceive and surprise Russian forces.

The drones were transported to their attack positions on civilian cargo trucks. The vehicles were 18-wheel cargo trucks commonly seen on roadways every day all around the world. Typically used for transporting commercial goods, such trucks were likely not to raise Russian concerns, even when traveling near a military installation.

Furthermore, the trucks carried custom-made wooden modular cabins designed to carry the drones. The cabins clearly were designed to mimic standard cargo loads commonly transported on commercial supply trucks. Ukraine undoubtedly chose both the trucks and the cargo cabins because of their civilian appearance.

After the drones were loaded into the cabins and placed on the cargo trucks, they were transported to pre-determined locations. These included fuel stations and roadside laybys. The locations were chosen because of their proximity to the targeted Russian installations. Once again, it seems likely that the civilian character of these locations factored into Ukraine’s plan. When the trucks arrived at the locations, the drones were launched remotely and directed to their military targets.

Additionally, it appears that Ukraine established a command and control center within Russia to plan and execute the attack. After the attack, President Zelenskyy revealed that Ukrainian operators set up an “office” on Russian territory near a regional headquarters of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s principal national security agency. Public reporting has not confirmed Zelenskyy’s claim, nor are many additional details available. However, it seems likely that, to preserve secrecy, the command center was deliberately established in a building that appeared civilian.

A final aspect of the operation worth mentioning is Ukraine’s use of “off-the-shelf” technology, including both hardware (drones) and software (the operating systems, including artificial intelligence). This raises important questions about the legal status of such technology, especially whether software and other objects that only exist digitally may qualify as a civilian object.

In sum, Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web is a powerful instance of belligerent instrumentalization of civilian objects to achieve war ends. Operational secrecy, deception, and surprise were key elements of the operation. The operation is a stark example of how belligerents are willing to use civilian objects to secure these elements and achieve their operational aims.

As a final note, although not directly relevant for my analysis concerning civilian objects, reporting suggests that Ukraine used apparently unwitting civilian truck drivers to transport the drones to their attack positions. Thus, Ukraine instrumentalized not only civilian objects, but civilians as well. This raises separate legal issues, including the possibility of human shielding, which I will not explore here.

The Future of Civilian Object Instrumentalization

Belligerents have long turned to civilian infrastructure and property to conceal their movements, obscure their operations, and deceive their adversaries. The novelty of Operation Spider Web is not in the employment of this method of warfare, but rather in Ukraine’s sophistication in using it and the scale of its success.

The operation illustrates how civilian objects are not merely incidental features of the contemporary battlefield. They are increasingly central in the conduct of military operations. This has been recognized by practitioners and scholars, but its legal significance remains underexplored. Operation Spider Web should make us mindful of the increasing extent to which civilian objects have become a part of contemporary warfare.

Recent high-profile operations reveal the growing role of civilian objects in enabling surprise and deception on the battlefield. Ukraine’s reliance on civilian trucks, roadside facilities, and telecommunications networks parallels Israel’s reported use of seemingly ordinary electronic devices in its covert “pager operation” against Hezbollah. (However, the causal connection between the pagers and the attack is obviously more direct.)

As these examples show, the value of civilian objects is not confined to their material properties but extends to the trust and normalcy they signify. Civilian objects do more than conceal military operations. They allow belligerents to hide in plain sight. This use of civilian objects exploits the legal line many seek to draw between civilian life and the battlespace. As satellites, drones, and other sensors and surveillance capabilities increasingly fill that battlespace, the use of civilian objects as covers of normalcy may become one of the few remaining sources of genuine tactical surprise.

This trend is amplified by ongoing shifts in the character of war. On battlefields increasingly filled with drones and long-range precision fires, concealment is both more difficult and more valuable. In urban and densely populated areas, the ubiquity of civilian objects offers both opportunity and temptation for belligerents to co-opt them for operational advantage. When adversaries have global intelligence reach and layered defenses, disguising weapons or command centers in ostensibly civilian forms may appear not only attractive but also essential. In this sense, civilian object instrumentalization is not merely opportunistic, but may represent a rational response to the technological and operational pressures of twenty-first century warfare.

Finally, the relative permissiveness of the law of war with respect to civilian objects is noteworthy. The humanitarian ethos of the law is usually understood to rest on the principle of distinction. Yet the law’s apparent willingness to allow civilian objects to be repurposed may disrupt the expectations of those who see the law of war through a humanitarian lens. If the practice of instrumentalization expands in scope and sophistication, the dissonance between humanitarian rhetoric and the law’s permissive treatment of civilian objects will become more difficult to ignore.

Conclusion

Operation Spider Web highlights not only Ukraine’s tactical ingenuity but also a deeper structural issue in the law of war. Civilian object instrumentalization, long a common war practice, has become more visible and consequential in contemporary warfare. The law of war largely tolerates it. This raises questions about the balance the law strikes between military and humanitarian interests.

The episode also demonstrates how shifts in the character of war are likely to make civilian object instrumentalization more attractive, if not inevitable. If States continue to engage in the practice with little legal constraint, we may see an expanding gap between the principle of distinction’s humanitarian promise, as many scholars and organizations perceive it, and the reality of war.

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Robert Lawless is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law and Managing Director of the Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare at the United States Military Academy, West Point.

The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense. 

Articles of War is a forum for professionals to share opinions and cultivate ideas. Articles of War does not screen articles to fit a particular editorial agenda, nor endorse or advocate material that is published. 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: Security Service of Ukraine