$600 Drones.

Destroyed $7 billion worth of Russian aircraft.

“I can’t do my job without News Items.” — Jim Cramer.

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1. A Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory, Ukraine’s Security Service said on Sunday, while Moscow pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones just hours before a new round of direct peace talks in Istanbul. The drones hit 41 planes stationed at military airfields on Sunday afternoon, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft, the official said. Moscow has previously used Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine, while A-50s are used to coordinate targets and detect air defenses and guided missiles. The Security Service of Ukraine said that the operation, which it codenamed “Web”, had destroyed 34% of Russia’s fleet of air missile carriers with damages estimated at $7 billion. The claim could not be independently verified. (Source: apnews.com)

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2. The Economist:

(Yesterday’s) operation is likely to be ranked among the most important raiding actions in modern warfare. According to sources, the mission was 18 months in the making. Russia had been expecting attacks by larger fixed-wing drones at night and closer to the border with Ukraine. The Ukrainians reversed all three variables, launching small drones during the day, and doing so far from the front lines. Ukraine had launched drones from within Russia previously; the difference was the scale and combined nature of the operations.

Commentators close to the Ukrainian security services suggest that as many as 150 drones and 300 bombs had been smuggled into Russia for the operations. The quadcopters were apparently built into wooden cabins, loaded onto lorries and then released after the roofs of the cabins were remotely retracted. The drones used Russian mobile-telephone networks to relay their footage back to Ukraine, much of which was released by the gleeful Ukrainians. They also used elements of automated targeting, the accounts claim….

Western armed forces are watching closely. For many years they have concentrated their own aircraft at an ever smaller number of air bases, to save money, and have failed to invest in hardened hangars or shelters that could protect against drones and missiles. America’s own strategic bombers are visible in public satellite imagery, sitting in the open. “Imagine, on game-day,” writes Tom Shugart of CNAS, a think-tank in Washington, “containers at railyards, on Chinese-owned container ships in port or offshore, on trucks parked at random properties…spewing forth thousands of drones that sally forth and at least mission-kill the crown jewels of the [US Air Force].” That, he warns, would be “entirely feasible”. (Source: economist.com)

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3. Eurointelligence:

The official result’s of the Polish presidential elections came in this morning: Karol Nawrocki, the candidate for the national-conservative Law and Justice Party won the presidential election by the breathtakingly small margin: 50.9% against 49.1% for his opponent, Rafal Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, and a member of Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition. It was the highest turnout for a Polish president election – at 71.6%.

As analysts we always need to be mindful of outcome bias, the tendency to align your narratives to a result. The margins are so thin that the only certain statement is that it could easily have swung the other way – and for a while last night it appeared that this was indeed the case.

What we know is that Poland is split right down the middle, like the US electorate, and elections can, and do, swing either way.

What we can say is that this result is an unmitigated disaster for Donald Tusk. Just as we went to press, the Polish media report that Tusk could call a confidence vote this week. He has a majority in parliament. The purpose of the vote is to nip any speculation of early elections in the bud. But Tusk also needs a supportive president to sign his laws, which the incumbent, Andrzej Duda has persistently refused to do. Without the ability to pass important legislation, he may struggle to keep his coalition together for the second part of his four-year term.