Russian Aerospace Force Loves Glide Bombs It Drops on Ukraine With Impunity

The Russian Aerospace Force has sharply increased the use of difficult-to-stop glide bombs against targets in Ukraine, with civilians on the ground paying the price in lives and destroyed homes and businesses, with no help in sight any time soon. Published Ukraine Air Force data from January through June 2026 reviewed by Kyiv Post showed that the number of munitions dropped by Russian pilots in combat in the skies over or near Ukraine is averaging 250 glide bombs – each capable of leveling an apartment block – a day.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. From January to June 2026, the number of glide bombs dropped by the Russian Aerospace Force has increased by about 45 percent, rising from a 5,1717 counted in the first month of the year to 8,266 observed in June, those statistics showed. On June 13, according to that data, Russian pilots flew 127 individual sorties dropping a total of 391 aerial bombs – a record for the entire war. Russian official and Ukrainian military sources say the most common glide bomb target is a Ukrainian forward defensive position Russian infantry is unable to assault because of fortifications and drone swarms. Both sides say the weapon isn’t always accurate and sometimes misses targets. Russia’s main glide bomb technology is a guidance kit called a UMPK (Russian: Унифицированный модуль планирования и коррекции, or Uniform Module of Planning and Correction) with folding stubby wings and a simple computer brain that is fitted to a legacy “dumb bomb” which is used as the warhead, very similar to the way the US uses Mk 82, 83, 84 general purpose bombs and BLU-109 penetrator bomb-body with external kits for its GBU family of guided weapons. Other Topics of Interest Drapaty Orders Halt to Assault Regiment Recruitment Assault units can no longer receive personnel from reserve battalions or territorial recruitment centers. Once released, the bomb unfolds its wings and, linked to the Russian worldwide satellite navigation network GLONASS (Kremlin answer to US GPS), uses position data from triangulation with satellite positions and signal time stamps – taking into account general and special relativity (exactly what Android and iOS devices do) – along with its inertial navigation system (INS), and additional speed and altitude information detected by more sensors. All this positional and vector information goes through a filter to the navigation and guidance computers, which steer it to the target. The latest models allow a pilot to drop the bomb a safe 60 miles (96 km) from the target. Even when all systems work, a UMPK-equipped bomb is considered by Russian planners fully capable of missing its target by 100 feet or more, and at best only able to hit within 20-30 feet. Russian pilots usually launch glide bombs in salvos in hopes one weapon will score a useful hit. “The enemy is winning through quantity – launching 4, 8, or 12 guided aerial bombs simultaneously from [a single] tactical aircraft. They contain 100, 250, 500, or more kilograms of explosives. This way, they saturate a specific area,” said Yury Ihnat, Ukraine Air Force spokesperson, in Tuesday evening comments on the Spilny news program. Were the Kremlin at war with NATO, Russia’s glide bomb-equipped bombers would face 5th generation warplanes and high-tech surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) with an attack reach two or three times longer than a Russian glide bomb could fly. Ukraine’s heavily outnumbered forces are able only to field fighters 20 or more years older than their Russian counterparts because of inferior radar and are usually unable to approach close enough to interfere with the Russian bombers’ attack. Since early 2025, Ukraine, thanks to a pro-Russian White House, has been effectively cut off from large supplies of long-range anti-aircraft missiles that might threaten Russian bombers from the ground. The most common defense employed by Ukrainian forces against an incoming glide bomb is hiding deep underground before it hits, thanks to efficient national military and civilian air watch networks quickly reporting an approaching bomber aircraft or bomb. There have been scattered but unconfirmed accounts of ground troops using anti-aircraft missiles to detonate a glide bomb at close range. More reliable reports confirm Ukraine has fielded small numbers of ground jammers able to confuse the GLONASS satellite-dependent component of a bomb’s guidance system. Some Ukrainian troops claim Russian glide bombs are less accurate on windy days. Continuing, intense use of glide bombs by Russian forces is well-documented. Ukrainian air watch networks on Thursday issued incoming glide bomb warnings at least 27 times, with salvos spotted heading for the Ukrainian regions Sumy (3 incoming strikes observed), Kharkiv (5), Donetsk (6), Dnipro (4), Zaporizhzhia (5) and Kherson (2). According to that data, Russian Aerospace Force pilots appeared to have kept to a regular flight schedule, with most drops taking place in the windows midnight to 4 a.m., 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. According to official Ukrainian Air Force counts, on the day Russian aviation across the front conducted 85 air strikes of all types, releasing 293 guided aerial bombs. By far the most common type of bomb reported was a munition fitted with a glide kit, and containing about 200-220 pounds (90-100 kg.) of high explosive. According to data compiled from air warden warnings, of the bombs dropped that night, somewhere between one-third and one-half flew trajectories threatening residential regions, some of which impacted. The most damaging glide bomb hit that night, in the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk sector, struck an apartment building in the city of Pavlograd, killing two and injuring six. The Russian munition plowed into the Soviet-era residential structure between the second and third floors, setting fires, demolishing four residences completely, blowing out windows, and smashing parked automobiles up to 100 meters from the point of detonation, images published by Ukraine’s Emergency Response industry on Friday showed. The same night, an elderly man was killed, and two women were severely wounded in the Kharkiv region when a glide bomb hit their home. The bloodiest glide bomb strike in the past two months was in the northern city of Sumy, on Jul. 11, when a pair of FAB-500 or FAB-250 (Russian: Фугасная авиационная бомба = High-explosive aerial bomb) munitions reportedly dropped by a Su-34 fighter-bomber struck a residential and commercial district at about midday. The glide bombs smashed an apartment block, a coffee shop, adjacent retail premises, parked civilian vehicles, and killed 5 and wounded 30, almost all civilian workers or shoppers. On June 20, in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, one or two Russian Su-34 strike aircraft dropped at least ten glide bombs of varying weights, of which nine struck and detonated in a residential-industrial city district. Five persons died and at least ten were wounded in the attack, city officials said. Ten days later, the Russian Aerospace Force hit Zaporizhzhia again, with a pilot sending one or two bombs (reports are conflicting) to hit a residential district, on June 30 in the early afternoon. The strike killed two civilians and wounded 30. Portions of one apartment building collapsed from the blasts. On the battlefield, in the battlespace, and within the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Russia’s ability to drop glide bombs with near impunity is widely acknowledged. To date, the most effective countermeasure has been jammers interfering with the GLONASS signal, which work reliably but do not stop the bomb, instead skewing its flight path elsewhere. Recent deals signed by Ukraine with Sweden and France promise the delivery of potentially dozens of fighter jets fully capable of shooting down Russian aircraft carrying glide bombs; however, the earliest delivery date for a reported four older Swedish Gripen is mid-2027, with fully modern aircraft to be available only in 2029. First transfers of French Rafale fighters are planned in 2028, provided they are built and the Ukrainian pilots trained by that time. As many as 100 Rafales are hoped for by the early 2030s. Meanwhile, at current wartime sortie rates, the Russian Aerospace Force will, from late July 2026 to the first delivery of relatively modern fighter jets (the Gripen) to Kyiv, roughly a year later, have launched around 100,000 more glide bombs at targets across Ukraine – for the most part with impunity.