Weapons have ‘very effective explosive effect and Ukraine has difficulty in defending against them’, say military experts
9 March 2024 • 3:13pm
Russia has started mass-producing “high-damage” glide bombs capable of destroying a multi-storey building with one hit.
FAB-1500-M54 bombs weigh 1.5 tons and carry 1,500Ib of explosives, a payload nearly five times the size of Russia’s current arsenal of glide bombs.
Russian military bloggers this week posted three videos of FAB-1500 bombs destroying multi-storey buildings in Ukrainian-held towns near the front lines in Donbas.
In the videos, the bombs speed into the frame at an angle before striking the buildings and exploding into fireballs. In one film, a building collapses after being hit.
“Epic footage of a FAB-1500 direct hit on a target in Krasnogorovka,” said the Iron Helmets Russian war propaganda channel.
Russia has focused on boosting its arsenal of weapons over the past 18 months, ramping up production at its factories and signing supply deals for drones, missiles and artillery shells with North Korea and Iran.
Glide bombs are conventional bombs retrofitted with pop-out wings and a guidance system that turns them into “smart” bombs. They are dropped by fighter jets up to 25 miles away from their target, rather than overhead, and have improved accuracy and faster speeds.
They are also more difficult to shoot down than conventional missiles and drones because they are in the air for only a short time.
John Foreman, Britain’s former military attaché in Moscow, said that Russia’s extensive use of glide bombs showed its innovation and adaptation on the battlefield. “They’re very effective in terms of price and explosive effect and Ukraine has difficulty in defending against them.”
The Kremlin has deployed glide bombs since last year. In November, Mykola Oleschuk, commander of Ukraine’s air force, warned that Russia was preparing to mass-produce the FAB-1500.
Analysts said that Russian production of the bigger glide bomb will increase the Kremlin’s firepower along the front lines, where fighter jets are running up to 100 sorties a day to fire glide bombs at Ukrainian positions.
“Russian forces used glide bomb strikes to tactical effect in their seizure of Avdiivka in mid-February and are likely attempting to replicate such effects to support ongoing operations elsewhere along the front,” said the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Russia’s capture of Avdiivka, near Donetsk, was its first major battlefield victory since the Kremlin’s Wagner mercenary group captured Bakhmut in May last year.
The ISW also said that Russia was continuing to make gains along the front lines, although military bloggers added that Ukrainian forces were strengthening their positions and mounting counter-attacks to push back this advance, which has cost Russia’s army about 900 soldiers killed or injured per day.
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This is an evil and chilling weapon. Especially when it’s in the hands of a genocidal nazi regime. We know that putler will not hesitate to use it and start murdering civilians in industrial numbers.
A very forceful and properly coordinated military response is needed from the “allies.” (In parentheses because Ukraine seems to have been virtually abandoned),
For the far left, the Pope has taken up the global role of head of the Tankies with his horrendous “white flag” remarks.
In far right circles, the magaputler murder gang are on a massive high. Trumpkov seems to have completed a takeover of the GOP and appears unstoppable.
Selected DT readers’ comments
Auclan McIntyre
For multi-storey buildings, read residential apartment blocks.
About time the Russian people got a taste of their own medicine.
Valerie Paynter
And the Pope thinks you can negotiate with this Russia.
Another Reader:
So, these bombs are designed to destroy multi-story buildings rather than military targets.
Why aren’t hundreds of thousands of people protesting on our streets every week about these war crimes?
Why aren’t they chanting “From the Dnipro River to the sea, Ukraine will be free”?
Zoe Taylor:
This is horrific! Why aren’t the protesters protesting about this?
Jo Green
So, it seems Russia is targeting civilian infrastructure…
Katy Taylor
So Russia is destroying buildings in the very region they claim to be there to protect. You really couldn’t make it up.
What will be left of Donetsk by the time Russia has finished?
Rover Wilde
Ukraine needs to reciprocate with Western help!
Stephen Stokes
Ukraine needs a load of F-16s, in order to properly control the skies. Then the fun can begin.
Amelia Salavisa
BOMB MOSCOW!
Shaun Nelson
Russia is finished whatever happens. Destroy it and break it up like Nazi Germany 😡
Fabian Redpath
It must surely be time to enforce a no-fly zone in Ukraine.
Adrian Smith
This is why so many SU34s have been shot down, they have to drop the bomb at altitude within range of SAM system.
Paul Wusteman
This must redouble our determination that the sanctions, causing ever more damage to the Russian economy, must be allowed to fulfill their inevitable consequence – the internal collapse of the Russian state. Not until that has happened will the Russian population begin to wonder if missing out on the Enlightenment and sticking with Russia’s 500 year tradition of racist savagery and autocracy was a good idea.
So many aspects of the sanctions and the consequences of Russian attempts to get round them are piling up terminal problems for the Russian economy, eg inter alia, now wholly dependent on China and increasingly using the Chinese currency IN RUSSIA rather than the Rouble which has collapsed over the last year.
The Russians are as different from us as the PRC Chinese. Having started the process of eliminating Russia as a threat, we have to see it through.
Martin Conway
Reply to Paul Wusteman –
The Russian economy is on a full war footing, and is booming. My fear is, the won’t be able to pull out of it even if they want to because it is working so well. And thus a war economy, begets war. Happened before… Nazi Germany.
Paul Wusteman
Reply to Martin Conway
It is booming on dwindling cash reserves and printed money – with no source of potential rescue as the Chinese are in deep deep doo-doo of their own making. The Russians are going to collapse. (They do not need to starve unless Putin is succeeded by another Stalin-type as they are self-sufficient in food.) The huge expenditure on war materials does nothing for the Russian people except waste their money on war materials that young Russians are slaughtered in huge numbers when using – and so bringing collapse nearer.
Arthur Lewis
Remember these are civilian targets so why would they need them unless planning more war crimes?
emma hyde
Macon is playing a blinder, he is chatting with the Baltic states re putting boots on the ground in non combat roles helping with de-mining, guarding the northern boarder, medical roles etc. France is negotiating with Arab countries about the return of previously sold French weapons for their transfer to Ukraine. Macron announced that his country would no longer supply shells and artillery systems to Qatar and Saudi Arabia in order to focus on supporting Ukraine.
It also looks like the Russian offensive has stalled and with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells on their way it doesn’t look like Putin the deceiver will get his pre election boost.