Russia pounds Ukrainian border towns with ‘glide bombs’

Moscow has accelerated its destruction of frontline cities this year to a scale previously unseen in the war

Kharkiv: The first shock wave shattered aisles stacked almost to the ceiling with home improvement products. The next Russian bomb streaked down like a comet seconds later, unleashing flames that left the megastore an ashen shell. A third bomb failed to detonate when it landed behind the Epicenter shopping complex in Kharkiv.

Investigators hope it will help them trace the supply chain for the latest generation of retrofitted Russian “glide bombs” that are laying waste to eastern Ukraine.

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The Soviet-era bombs are adapted on the cheap with imported electronics that allow distant Russian warplanes to launch them at Ukraine.

Other cities that have been devastated by the weapons include Avdiivka, Chasiv Yar and Vovchansk, and Russia has nearly unlimited supplies of the bombs, which are dispatched from airfields just across the border that Ukraine has not been able to hit.

Store manager Oleksandr Lutsenko said the May 25 attack hints at Russia’s aim for Kharkiv: “Their goal is to turn it into a ghost city, to make it so that no one will stay, that there will be nothing to defend, that it will make no sense to defend the city. They want to scare people, but they will not succeed.”

Russia has accelerated its destruction of Ukraine’s front-line cities in 2024 to a scale previously unseen in the war using the glide bombs and an expanding network of airstrips, according to an Associated Press analysis of drone footage, satellite imagery, Ukrainian documents and Russian photos. The results can be seen in the intensity of recent Russian attacks.

It took a year for Russia to obliterate Bakhmut, where the bombs were first used. That was followed by destruction in Avdiivka that took months.

Then, only weeks were needed to do the same in Vovchansk and Chasiv Yar, according to images analysed by AP that showed the smouldering ruins of both cities.

Now, Russia is putting the finishing touches on yet another airstrip less than 100 km from Ukraine and launching the bombs routinely from multiple bases just inside Russian borders, according to the AP analysis of satellite pictures and photos from a Russian aviation Telegram channel.

The bombing of the Epicenter in Kharkiv killed 19 people, including two children. In all, glide bombs have hit the city more than 50 times this year, according to Spartak Borysenko of the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office.

He showed investigation documents to AP that identified at least eight Russian air bases used to launch the attacks, all within 100 km of Ukraine. He said at least one of the munitions had foreign electronics and was made in May.

That date suggests Russia is using the bombs rapidly and that it has successfully circumvented sanctions for dual-use items.

Photos on Russian Telegram channels linked to the military show glide bombs being launched three and four at a time.

In one launch of four bombs, the AP traced the aircraft’s location to just outside the Russian city of Belgorod, near the air base now under construction.

All four bombs in the photo were headed west — with Vovchansk and Kharkiv in their direct line of fire.

At the end of May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia was launching more than 3,000 of the bombs every month, with 3,200 used in May alone.

Oleh Katkov, whose military-oriented site Defense Express first traced the launch location, said hitting air bases is key to slowing the pace of the bombings by forcing Russian planes to launch farther away.

“This doesn’t mean they will completely stop their bombings, but it will become more difficult for them,” Katkov said. “They will be able to make fewer sorties per day.”