- Russia has used powerful guided glide bombs to wreak havoc on Ukrainian forces.
- But Ukraine turned the tables this week by using a glide bomb to hit Russian territory.
A new video shared by the Ukrainian military shows one of its fighter jets dropping a guided glide bomb on Russia's Kursk region as the air force continues to support the ground invasion in the area.
Russia regularly attacks Ukrainian territory with glide bombs — highly destructive weapons that are notoriously difficult to intercept. Ukraine's employment of such munitions is far less documented, and it is especially uncommon to see one in a strike on Russian soil.
The video footage, published on Tuesday by Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuk, the commander of Ukraine's air force, shows a Ukrainian fighter jet dropping an AASM Hammer guided aerial bomb on a Russian control center in the embattled Kursk region.
"Aviation of the Air Force strikes enemy targets in the Kursk direction every day," Oleschuk wrote in a Telegram post on Tuesday. It's unclear when and where exactly the footage was filmed.
A Ukrainian fighter jet destroys an underground enemy control post with an AASM Hammer guided air bomb.
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 20, 2024
: Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force pic.twitter.com/kvehGuvb6r
The AASM Hammer, which is formally known as the Armement Air-Sol Modulaire, is a French-made air-to-surface weapon. The kits, with wings and a rocket booster, can be used with bombs of varying sizes to create stand-off munitions that can be used for deep strikes and close-air-support missions. It is rare to see the weapon in action with the Ukrainians.
The strike on the control center appears to be another indication that Ukrainian airpower is involved in what seem to be combined-arms operations inside Kursk, which Ukrainian forces invaded two weeks ago. Kyiv's air force has also carried out recent strikes on a handful of Russian bridges in the region, seemingly in an attempt to disrupt Moscow's logistics and supply lines.
Ukraine has other glide bombs in its arsenal beyond the French AASM Hammer, including the US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range and the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb. Both of these weapons have proved vulnerable to Russian electronic warfare.
Oleschuk shared additional footage on Tuesday of what he said was a "guided air bomb" striking Russian equipment and personnel in the Donetsk region in Ukraine. It is unclear which munition the Ukrainian forces used in this strike or when the footage was captured.
"Tactical aviation is AMAZING!" Oleschuk wrote on Telegram.
Russia has used glide bombs to wreak havoc on Ukrainian cities and troop positions throughout much of the war.
However, these munitions have especially been a headache over the past few months. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Russia had used more than 750 glide bombs over the previous week, underscoring the intensity of the campaign.
Glide bombs are essentially just dumb or unguided bombs equipped with special kits that turn them into precision-guided munitions. They are almost impossible to intercept because they have small radar signatures, fairly short flight times, and travel on non-ballistic trajectories.
The only way for Ukraine to curb the glide-bomb threat has been to either intercept the Russian fighter-bombers before they drop their payloads or strike the warplanes and weapons on the ground — which Kyiv appears to have done through strikes on Russian airfields.