‘Building destroyers’: The Russian glide bombs changing the face of the war on Ukraine’s eastern front
In a Ukrainian stronghold near the front line, less than 20 miles from the eastern city of Donetsk, a winged bomb is seen hurtling towards a multistorey building.
The 1,500-kilogram explosive hits the structure in the town of Krasnohorivka, erupting into a fireball before engulfing the whole building in a plume of grey and black smoke.
The camera, filming from several hundred metres away, shakes as the ground beneath it rocks from the aftereffects of the explosion.
When the smoke subsides, the building has been completely destroyed.
This footage is one of the latest examples of Russia’s deadly new weapon, one that is proving devastating for Ukrainian defensive positions on or near the front line.
The causes of recent Russian advances in Donetsk are multifaceted – Ukraine is facing weapons and ammunition shortages as Western allies drag their feet over fresh funding and military aid – but Moscow’s newly modified FAB-1500 warheads (the number relates to its weight in kilograms) are doing plenty of damage.
Ukraine also uses guided bombs similar to the FABs, known as the joint direct attack munition system (JDAM), but the US-made weapons are in much shorter supply. John Foreman, the former UK defence attache to Moscow, describes the FABs as less effective than the JDAMs but a much cheaper weapon and one that is ultimately much more readily available to Russian forces than the JDAMs are to Ukraine.
The Russian warhead is a modified version of Soviet-era FAB bombs, the first of which, the FAB-250, was designed in 1946. These models are air-dropped warheads, carried by fighter jets, with a significant blast impact. But unlike its predecessors, all of which were especially powerful, it has been fitted with wings that allow it to fly towards its target, thereby converting it into a guided, as opposed to unguided, explosive.
The FAB-1500 (ФАБ-1500) is the latest iteration. It includes 675kg of explosives, can be fired from between 40km and 70km away from its target, and has a destruction radius of 200 metres. It has been nicknamed the “building destroyer” by Russian war bloggers.
“Fundamentally, they’re dumb unguided Soviet-era bombs with smart winglets added to them to attack fixed targets with a degree of precision,” Foreman, the former attache, says. The bomb can also have its course corrected using satellite or laser-based navigation, improving its accuracy.
A Ukrainian soldier from the 46th Separate Airmobile Brigade, which is based in the Donetsk region, has described the effect of these bombs as “hell”.
He told CNN: “The damage done by it is very serious. If you survive, you are guaranteed to have a contusion. It puts a lot of pressure on soldiers’ morale.”
There are three reasons they are proving so deadly. Firstly, their explosive impact is significant compared to artillery and munitions otherwise used on the front lines, owing to their size and weight.
Secondly, they can be fired from a distance of around 40km (25 miles), meaning Ukraine is forced to use longer-range missile interceptors that are in shorter supply. The modifications of these old bombs are cheap to carry out.
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