Why Russia’s ‘smart’ low-cost Soviet-era bombs are so effective against Ukrainian defenses

Why Russia’s ‘smart’ low-cost Soviet-era bombs are so effective against Ukrainian defenses

Russian Glide bombs tearing through a Ukrainian hanger early in 2024 at least that’s according to Russian military bloggers Russian and Ukrainian social media has been full of these kinds of images in recent months but seeing it on a screen doesn’t quite prepare you for seeing the impact these weapons can have with your own eyes this is the Damage Done by the smallest kind of Glide bomb currently used by Russia this is just a small part of the Glide bomb this was a 250 kg Glide bomb to give you a sense of scale I’m 2 m tall these Ukrainian soldiers know all too well what it feels like to be at the receiving end of Russian Glide bomb attacks they tell us they first came up against them about a year ago in recent months they’ve been getting bigger and more frequent Glide bombs make a hissing sound you hear that sound and soon enough there’s an explosion you’ve got debris flying around and then the shock wave hits you right now it’s the Russians goto weapon to force our infantry out of their dugouts they just flatten everything it doesn’t matter how dig you deep your trenches it won’t help this war is the first to see Glide bombs used so widely and to such effect but the technology behind them isn’t completely new this is a hybrid weapon Glide bombs are just conventional dumb bombs they have turned into precise smart bombs with the addition of special Wing kits and satellite navigation systems crucially they can fly up to 70 kilom that means Russian Pilots can launch these Glide bombs out of range of most Ukrainian air defenses and by repurposing Soviet era bombs from its fast stockpiles Russia can produce these weapons at speed and far lower cost than an equivalent missile these Russian bombs are cheaper than anything the US has they use the simplest mechanics and a very primitive winit the whole thing costs less than $20,000 for comparison even the cheapest cruise missiles Russia has fired at Ukraine are estimated to cost around a million dollar each to produce Russian Glide bom often fail to detonate giving Ukrainian troops a chance to better understand the weapon that they face sure they put together crudely but they’re effective they do more damage than artillery many ukrainians have asked why their country doesn’t try to build its own Glide bombs producing these weapons isn’t the problem though launching them safely is Russia’s S400 air defense systems can down Ukrainian planes up to 200 km away Ukrainian experts and soldiers agree there’s only one realistic answer to Russia’s Glide bombs and that’s matching Russia’s capacity to shoot down the planes that can carry these bombs Ukraine has already proven that it’s possible Ukrainian forces say they shot down more than a dozen Russian planes in February alone most experts believe that was down to Western supplied Patriot air defense systems that is until early March when Russian forces were able to destroy two Ukrainian Patriot launchers since then UK Ukraine has kept its handful of patriot systems away from the front lines preferring instead to protect the country’s big cities until Ukraine gets more of these air defense systems and can again afford to take risks Russian planes carrying Glide bombs will have little to fear I’d like to bring in Justin Crump a military veteran and the CEO of the intelligence consultancy civil line thank you for joining us what does it reveal about Russia’s strategy that two years into this war its weapon of choice now seems to be retrofitted Soviet AA bombs it’s what you just heard I mean they are they’re cheap Russia has lots of them uh and they might be crude but they work they are very effective more effective as you heard there from the front lines and artillery um and of course also the Russians can launch these in comparative safety with their Air Force and it’s notable in this conflict the Russian Air Force has virtually never crossed the front lines uh into Ukrainian territory it’s always preferred to stay in safety and deliver weapons from safety and that limited what it could do earlier in the conflict very effectively this tactic has allowed them to use their Air Force a bit more whilst keeping it largely um safe and be able to deliver these sorts of um very unfortunate uh impacts on the Ukrainian positions particularly their defensive positions so given these are relatively cheap and effective and allow these other advantages why haven’t we seen Russia use these Glide bombs more aggressively until recently I mean they’ve been building up over the last year but you have to remember that Russia effectively found itself fighting the war it didn’t expect they thought this would be a quick war in Ukraine I think they thought their more modern systems uh would achieve spectacular results and actually their more expensive systems have generally not performed very well certainly below expectations they’ve been countered what they SED to find is that more basic tactics more basic approaches more improvised Solutions are actually achieving results I mean there is no area for learning lessons like when you’re fighting a war and you know Russia’s learned the lessons in this environment adapted improvised and got better at uh using these sorts of weapons particularly in conjunction with its Ground Forces they had a lot of problems coordinating air and ground earlier in the conflict they’re getting better at that uh they’re able to bring down fire from guns and from aircraft much more quickly on Ukrainian positions than they could before so they whole system has been improving gradually and this crude but effective and available uh approach has starting to work very well for them so it’s become more and more popular as it’s work so let’s take a look at what Ukraine’s options are here what is Ukraine most in need of in order to be able to counter these kinds of attacks I mean the reason that Russian aircraft haven’t been crossing the front lines probably the same as the reason Ukrainian aircraft haven’t crossed at all which is the air defense environment the missile environment on both sides and Russia even whilst trying to operate in safety has lost some aircraft as we heard in the report well behind their own lines to pretty audacious Ukrainian tactics but Russia sort of moved to counter that they they found ways to push Ukrainian air defense P but they’re still very wary of it so the more air defense Ukraine can equip and have the better they can do they also have some hope of course around if they get the F-16 soon that they’re hoping for over the summer that are on the way uh these aircraft will potentially help them drive back Russian aircraft a bit more they just need to push some 20 30 miles further back make that a more unsafe area for the Russians and they could achieve an effect but of course they’re also going to be risked doing that because the Russians have their own defenses and the thing Ukraine’s really Fallen back on is actually using longrange drone strikes to Target the airfields where these attacks are coming from to Target the depos where the Glide bombs are being held that’s one of the other ways they can reduce this threat but at the moment that only results in a temporary reduction in the threat because Russia has so many of the these bombs it can bring forward so there’s there’s three ways Ukraine can deal with it but all of them are quite difficult for Ukraine at the moment let alone with the pressure on the cities and and now HW as we’ve heard and how do you explain the fact that many of Ukraine’s allies have not delivered the the air defense systems that Kev has been so vocally asking for there’s probably two or three reasons um one of which is there’s no point in giving people’s systems if they can’t support them Supply them have missiles to far from them have Crews to them it’s not just a case of giving Ukraine a piece of equipment we have to give them the capability to use it so sometimes you’ve got to bring all of that together to achieve something on the ground but I think another thing here particularly for missile defense and air defense and particularly since Iran’s attack on Israel I think a lot of countries of course considering how they would repel an attack of this kind were they unfortunate enough to experience one so the desire to help Ukraine is there but if you haven’t got many of these systems yourself your own country and you’re not sure where you’re going to get another one from are you willing to give the one you have to Ukraine or do you want to keep it just in case the world gets even worse and you need it so I think these have now become quite high value assets for countries and therefore particularly their defense a bit less willing to hand them over um just in case they’re needed so certainly we need a bigger initiative to support uh these sorts of assistance but Ukraine is in dire need they couldn’t possibly have enough air defense rep back well thank you so much for joining us today to share your insights that is military analyst Justin Crump

Russian missile attacks have become part of everyday life for the people of Ukraine. Western air defense systems have helped Ukraine deal with
these attacks. But on the front lines the threat from ever larger and more dangerous Russian glide bombs is growing. DW correspondent Nick Connolly meets Ukrainian soldiers who are learning to live with this danger.

#glidebomb #ukrainewar #missilestrikes
Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/deutschewelleenglish?sub_confirmation=1

For more news go to: http://www.dw.com/en/
Follow DW on social media:
►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deutschewellenews/
►Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwnews
►Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwnews
►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dwnews_hangout
Für Videos in deutscher Sprache besuchen Sie: https://www.youtube.com/dwdeutsch