The owner of four trucks used to launch drones in Ukraine’s June 1 Operation Spiderweb has been identified as a 37-year-old man originally from Zhytomyr, Ukraine, according to reporting by independent outlet Astra.
The city administration of the town of Ust-Kut in the Irkutsk Region initially published, then deleted, a wanted bulletin naming one Artyom Timofeyev. The notice included two possible birthdates and the patronymic of a different man from Donetsk.
According to leaked data reviewed by The Insider, the photo belongs to Artyom Timofeyev, born Dec. 7, 1987, in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. He was previously registered at an address on Pryrichna Street in Kyiv and studied at the National Academy of Culture and Arts Management, as indicated on his profile on the Russian social network VK.
In 2018, he changed his registration to the city of Miass in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Region, where he received a Russian passport. He listed his place of work as OFKOR («ОФКОР»), an agro-industrial company based in Miass and owned by his father. In 2024, Timofeyev obtained a Russian driver’s license in the same city by exchanging his foreign license.
The drivers of the trucks used in the attacks of June 1 told investigators they had been hired to transport prefabricated homes. On the day of the attacks, they said, they were contacted by an unknown individual who instructed them where to stop.
All four truck drivers have been detained, according to Astra. They are:
- Sergey Kanurin, 47, in the Ryazan Region
- Mikhail Ryumin, 56, in the Ivanovo Region
- Alexander Zaitsev, 56, in the Murmansk Region
- Andrey Merkuryev, 62, in the Irkutsk Region
Aссording to reports by the independent exiled Russian publication Mediazona, a fifth truck believed to be carrying drones for an attack on the Ukrainka air base in the Amur Region caught fire on a highway in the Seryshevsky District.
Local governor Vasily Orlov said there was a “fire in the trailer of a cargo vehicle” along the Chita–Khabarovsk highway near the town of Seryshevo.
“The fire has been extinguished, and the driver was injured. No drone strikes were carried out on the Ukrainka air base or nearby populated areas. The situation is under control,” Orlov said in a statement on his official Telegram channel.
On June 1, Ukraine launched Operation Spiderweb (“Pavutyna”) — an unprecedented attack targeting five Russian military air bases located deep inside the country. The facilities are home to long-range bombers that are used to launch missile attacks against Ukrainian cities.
Ukrainian media reported that the mission, carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), had been in the works for more than 18 months and was personally overseen by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Confirmed targets included Belaya air base in Irkutsk Region, Olenya air base in the Murmansk Region, Dyagilevo air base in Ryazan, Ivanovo Severny airfield in the Ivanovo Region, and Ukrainka air base in the Amur Region.
As of the morning of June 2, open source intelligence analysts had confirmed that 13 Russian aircraft — eight Tu-95 bombers, four Tu-22M3 bombers, and one An-12 transport plane — had been hit at the Belaya and Olenya air bases in the Irkutsk and Murmansk regions.
SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk reported that 41 aircraft were hit — among them were planes of the A-50, Tu-95, Tu-22 M3, and Tu-160 models. Malyuk added that “34% of [Russia’s] strategic cruise missile carriers” had been destroyed in the operation. The SBU also claimed the destroyed Russian equipment was worth approximately $7 billion, though this figure could not be independently verified.
According to Zelensky, a total of 117 drones — and a corresponding number of operators — were used in the operation.