Allvin calls Ukraine drone strikes a wake-up call for US air defense

The Air Force’s top uniformed leader called Ukraine’s drone attacks against Russian air bases this weekend a “wake-up moment” for militaries around the globe, both for defensive and offensive posture.

“This shows us that seemingly impenetrable locations maybe are not,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin told audience members at the Center for a New American Security conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. “We need to pay more attention to that.

“Seeing how we do that in our own homeland defense is one thing … but we need to think about how we integrate that into our force design to ensure that we create dilemmas for our adversaries as well.”

The Ukrainian strikes against multiple Russian airfields June 1 involved more than 100 drones smuggled across the border and launched in a coordinated attack from thousands of miles away.

Ukrainian intelligence officials have claimed the strikes caused more than $7 billion in damage to the Russian military and incapacitated more than one-third of the country’s strategic cruise missile carriers. Russian officials have not verified those estimates.

Allvin called that reported impact “eyebrow-raising” for his staff and other military planners.

“We’ve always known that hardening our bases is something that we need to do,” he said. “And we have that in our budgets, to be able to get more resilient basing. But right now, I don’t think it’s where we need to be.”

The top Air Force leader said that President Donald Trump’s proposed $175 billion Golden Dome missile defense project may eventually have elements to counteract a similar drone attack within the United States. But he expected the Ukrainian offensive to speed some discussions on those defensive capabilities in the near future.

“It really comes down to finding the resources to meet all our priorities,” he said. “If all we’re doing is playing defense, and we can’t shoot back, then that’s not a good use of our money. So we’ll see how the conversation gets stirred up again, based on the strike.”

U.S. officials this week are mediating peace talks between the two warring countries on the possibility of a ceasefire or resolution to the decade-old conflict.