Ukraine's massive drone attack deep inside Russia highlights how both have changed battlefield tactics

Dubbed operation “Spiderweb,” Ukraine’s audacious drone attack on Russian air bases has brought the use of unmanned aerial vehicles sharply into focus.

Dubbed operation “Spiderweb,” Ukraine’s audacious drone attack Sunday on four Russian air bases — one of them deep inside Siberia — has brought the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in modern warfare sharply into focus.

While accounts differ on the extent of the damage caused by the drones, which were reportedly smuggled to the perimeter of the bases in the backs of trucks, Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, put the estimated cost to the Kremlin at $7 billion. Russia has said little about the attacks, although its Defense Ministry acknowledged in a statement that some planes caught fire.

The strikes have highlighted the increasing importance of drones for both Russia and Ukraine in the war, which entered its fourth year in February. And experts told NBC News that both sides are increasingly turning to cheap, commercially available first-person view or quadcopter drones that can often be purchased from online retailers and easily converted into deadly weapons — simple technology that is having a huge impact on the battlefield in Ukraine and farther afield.

Their use is “going to become very, very common,” Robert Lee, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute think tank, said in an interview.