KYIV, Ukraine \u2014 A Ukrainian company has produced the country\u2019s first guided aerial bombs capable of striking targets \u201cdozens of kilometers\u201d behind enemy lines with 250-kilogram warheads, giving Kyiv a homegrown equivalent to Russia\u2019s cheap, devastating glide bombs, the Ministry of Defense announced Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The aerial bomb is a winged but engineless weapon that drops from an aircraft at altitude, gliding to its target on the speed and altitude of release, steered by satellite guidance. It costs much less than cruise missiles per shot, carries much larger warheads than most drones and lets aircraft stay outside the densest air defenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe first Ukrainian guided aerial bomb is ready for combat use,\u201d Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov wrote in a Telegram<\/a> post announcing the milestone, noting the Ministry has already purchased an experimental batch and is gearing up to deploy the bombs on the front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUkraine is moving from importing individual solutions to creating its own high-tech weapons, which systematically strengthen the Defense Forces and provide a technological advantage on the battlefield,\u201d Fedorov said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until now, Ukraine had no domestic precision glide bomb. The country has relied on scarce Western donations for strikes beyond the reach of conventional artillery, like American-made JDAM-ERs and ATACMS missiles, British Storm Shadows and French SCALP-EG cruise missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cheap to produce and free of donor restrictions, the new bombs let Kyiv press the fight at mid-range and conserve scarce longer-range Western missiles for deeper targets \u2014 part of a broader Ukrainian push to use tech to change the mathematics of war in its favor after over four years of defending itself against a much larger and richer enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are scaling up solutions that increase the range and accuracy of strikes and change the rules of modern warfare,\u201d Fedorov said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DG Industry, a little-known Ukrainian firm sponsored by the state-backed defense innovation cluster Brave1<\/a>, started work on the munition 17 months ago, MoD said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n