Russia’s old bombs evade Ukraine’s modern defenses

“It’s evolution, countermeasures, evolution, countermeasures,” Colonel Smazhnyi added. “It’s a non-stop process, unfortunately.”

According to Ukrainian and US officials, the Russians have retrofitted some of the bombs with satellite navigation systems and wings that extend their range, turning an old-fashioned weapon, of which Moscow has thousands, into a more modern hover bomb.

The Russians are deploying these glidebombs from Su-34 and Su-35 jets, their top-class fighter jets, said a US Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject. Flying over Russian-controlled territory, where Ukrainian air defenses cannot reach, the warplanes drop the bombs, which glide 20 miles or more, cross the front line and then hit Ukrainian territory.

These bombs are even harder to hit than the hypersonic Kinzhal missiles that the Ukrainians recently claimed to have destroyed with US Patriot air defense systems.

“A Kinzhal has a longer flight time at high altitude, so it’s easier to detect and track,” said Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile defense project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. Glide bombs, on the other hand, were not a weapon the Patriot system was designed against, he said.

Russian military bloggers have boasted about the prowess of their glide bombs, post videos And comments from the beginning of January. A Russian analyst detailed information provided about its development by Russia from the early 2000s and said its use was “a step in the right direction”.

There have been some recent accidents. In late April, a Russian fighter jet, apparently en route to Ukraine, accidentally dropped a bomb on Belgorod, a Russian town near the border. No one was killed, Russian officials said, but days later, Russian media reported that that two more unexploded aerial bombs had been discovered in the same area. It’s not clear if these were old-fashioned bombs or the newer glider versions.