The Attack
By 
I want people to understand that what just happened in Russia is a Big Fucking Deal. Ukraine just inflicted serious damage on the Russian nuclear enterprise, which consists of a combination of nuclear warheads, command and control facilities, and launch platforms. The attack focused on two components of the third, the strategic bomber force and the nuclear ballistic missile submarine force. [reports on the submarine base attack are now uncertain] Russia correctly regards these as core, existential military assets.
There’s a ton we don’t know yet but evidently the Ukrainians hit these Russian targets with a combination of cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and (primarily) short-range drones launched from trucks inside Russia. The Ukrainians are boasting freely about the attack and the Russians have confirmed the nature of the damage if not the extent. Evidently the Ukrainians informed the Trump White House before the attack, which was a gutsy but probably necessary move; it ran the risk of compromising operational security but Kyiv did not want Trump to wake up to a surprise. That the Ukrainians could frame this as a strictly military response to Russia’s ongoing campaign against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure (something that Trump has complained publicly about) probably made it easier to argue the case. Reports now indicate that the US was not informed before the attack. Which… well, okay!
This is the most significant attack against a national nuclear enterprise in the history of nuclear weapons. The only thing even close in terms of the extent of damage to an existing nuclear force would be the loss of several B-52s in the raids over Hanoi in December 1972, losses that were viewed as catastrophic within the Air Force but the price of doing business by the Nixon administration.
I do not know what the Russians are going to do in response. There is nothing at this point that would surprise me. I am not kidding when I say that I would be very worried if I were in Kyiv right now. But for the moment kudos and congratulations to the Ukrainian intelligence services that pulled this off.
… see War Room for updates.