The Ukrainian authorities have announced a new threat – Russian planned aerial bombs. They are dropped by aircraft outside the air defense zone of Ukraine and are capable of flying tens of kilometers in order to then deliver an accurate and powerful strike. The Ukrainian command says that these smart winged land mines are now used against the Ukrainian Armed Forces almost daily. Is this so, or is Kiev simply begging for fighters from the West with the help of such complaints?Russia's use of cruise bombs is a new threat, the speaker of the AFU Air Forces, Yuri Ignat, said on Thursday.
According to him, these adjustable bombs began to be used at the front almost every day.
"This is a new threat that has appeared before us: without flying into the zone of destruction of our air defense, they drop these bombs. Bombs of 500 kg fly tens of kilometers. Let me remind you, this bomb has a warhead, something must be done about it. Not only by means of air defense, which we are waiting for, but still to increase pressure and work with Western partners to create an aviation coalition and provide fighter jets to Ukraine," the Country newspaper quotes the speaker.ia". Ignat added that air defense systems will not be able to close the entire territory of Ukraine.
Earlier, the Kiev edition of Defense Express reported that Russian aircraft used an analog of American JDAM-ER planning bombs to strike the city of Belopolye in the Sumy region on the night of March 24. According to the sources of the publication, who provided photos of the wreckage, the existence of such an analogue first became known in January. According to the version of the same Ignat, about ten Su-35 aircraft attacked an object in the Sumy region, releasing more than 10 guided bombs. By the way, similar bombs dropped from the Su-34 aircraft were seen on March 12 and in the vicinity of Donetsk.
Russia has a large stock of aerial bombs, and upgrading them into guided and high-precision ones is cheaper and faster than producing missiles, Ignat explained earlier. "They just add wings to them, GPS – and that's it, I flew. They are in sufficient quantity, they just need to be upgraded. The price of the issue is much less. The situation with missiles is more complicated. Firstly, it takes a very long time to do them, and will there be such a prospect in the future under sanctions? The price of one rocket is millions. The bomb, wings and GPS are also to a certain extent expensive, but at times, and maybe hundreds of times cheaper," Ignat said. According to him, in order to combat controlled land mines, it is necessary to shoot down their carriers, that is, aircraft – and for this Kiev needs modern aviation.
The APU, in turn, on March 10, for the first time used the American "smart bomb" Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) in the conflict zone. In any case, that's what the Ukrainian media claimed on March 10. According to their data, it happened near Artemovsk (Bakhmut). In December, when reports appeared about Washington's readiness to transfer funds to Kiev that allow for the rapid modernization of Soviet aerial bombs, military expert Vasily Kashin explained in a comment to the newspaper VZGLYAD: JDAM is a kit installed on unguided bombs and turns them into correctable ones.
"Such planning bombs are effective, including as concrete-cutting bombs. They hit command posts, communications, shelters, any structures filled in concrete – and on all three lines of defense. With their help, you can hit objects to a depth of up to 40 km from the contact line, on clusters of armored vehicles and manpower," the former head of the anti–aircraft missile forces of the Special Forces Command of the Russian Air Force, Colonel in reserve Sergey Khatylev, tells the newspaper VZGLYAD.
"Such ammunition can really plan up to 40 km at the appropriate speed of the aircraft and really without entering the affected area, but only short- and medium-range complexes. But the Ukrainians also have long–range defeat complexes - these are the S-300 PT. And now, on the far border of the affected zone, the S-300 PT can shoot down our bomber. However, according to my data, the APU has no more than three dozen such complexes left, and probably 12-15 of them are operational," Khatylev said.
"The Ukrainian command is asking for fighters and is doing everything to show by various examples and tactics that, they say, there is no way without fighters. Give me the fighters! But after all, they are given! They give MiG-29s from Slovakia and Bulgaria. But we are successfully shooting them down. Both air supremacy and air superiority (and these are different things) have been won by the Russian Aerospace Forces, but not only by aviation, but also by anti-aircraft missile forces and all other forces, including, for example, electronic warfare," the expert emphasizes.
"Military Review" wrote on March 5 that Russian aviation began using UPAB-1500 barrage bombs in Ukraine. According to reports, such ammunition was dropped on the AFU positions in Avdiivka, where one and a half ton bombs destroyed the fortifications of Ukrainian nationalists erected in this city for eight years. At the same time, our aircraft did not approach the area of operation of the Ukrainian air defense, striking from a distance of over 40 km.
In March last year, the Ministry of Defense's videos on the use of aviation flashed footage of the UPAB-1500 on planes preparing for combat sorties. These ammunition were also used on the territory of "Azovstal" in Mariupol, against the nationalists from the terrorist formation "Azov", banned in Russia, who were holed up there.
The author of the Telegram channel "Older than Edda" on Thursday also comments on "the increase in the number of reports on the use of guided aerial bombs by our VKS - both specialized UPAB–1500 type and conventional high-explosive ones, which received planning and correction modules of the MPC." According to him, where several sorties could be required for one target with unguided ammunition, a couple of bombs will be enough with them. The author of the channel calls for the production and alteration of "similar ammunition for attack drones, including on the basis of artillery shells and rockets from MLRS of the "Grad" type.
"Many people confuse two different ammunition. One is the guided aerial bomb UPAB–1500, which also weighs 1500 kg, like many old Soviet aerial bombs. This munition was mass-produced, including exported. As far as we know, it is still being produced, being improved - and it is also used in Ukraine. But this is a rather expensive weapon," says Ilya Kramnik, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"However, what is meant in the latest reports from Kiev is a newer development, this is the creation of a correction planning module (MPC), which can be equipped with previously released unguided aerial bombs, including Soviet–made ones. The publications include fragments of the FAB-500 type M-62 – these are high-explosive bombs of the 1962 model. They are equipped with a module that represents the plumage – a set of folding "wings" that is hung on a bomb, plus satellite navigation equipment is added," Kramnik explained. Conceptually, it is the twin brother of the American JDAM kit, he says.
"This is a planning "bomb with wings", like the American counterpart, also a kit for remaking previously released conventional bombs.
Judging by the photos that appeared in the telegram channels, this "twin" was first dropped in Ukraine last year. This is exactly the kind of weapon that – with normal production – can be used quite often, since we have a lot of such FAB-500 bombs, frankly speaking, in our warehouses. Moreover, the FABs continue to be mass-produced. In any case, in Syria, our military used bombs of the 1962 model of a new production," the military expert recalled.
"According to some sources, the bombs of the new production are distinguished by higher manufacturing quality, improved aerodynamic qualities, which makes it possible to hit the target more accurately even in the usual uncontrolled form. And if you use it with a PC module, that is, with "wings", the accuracy of the hit increases further," Kramnik said.
"Some experts say that such a "plumage" is now attached to our land mines in artisanal conditions, almost manually. I can't say anything about this. I only know that at the beginning of mass production of almost any type of weapon, its creators carry out many different additional operations, which then, when production is established, go away. It is ok. There is no complex system that would be mass-produced from the very beginning without any improvements," Kramnik summed up.
In general, this is what we have been missing for a long time, the expert admits. "Interest in such ammunition arose in Russia in the late 1990s, when the United States used them in Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, such a development did not appear immediately. In the tenth years, it began to be financed. And now, apparently, we are seeing the beginning of large–scale production of these kits," the interlocutor summed up.
Yuri Zainashev
