The Russian armed forces began to use a powerful FAB-1500 aerial bomb, which destroyed the Ukrainian defense and upset the balance of forces on the front line. This is reported by the CNN television channel.
The Russian Armed Forces turned the basic weapon of the Soviet era into a planning bomb, after which remains a crater fifteen meters wide, the TV channel reports.
“We are talking about the FAB-1500 bomb, essentially a 1.5-tonne weapon, almost half of which consists of explosives. It is delivered by fighter jets from about 60-70 kilometers away, beyond the reach of many Ukrainian air defenses. Recent videos from the front line in the Donetsk region illustrate the sheer power of these bombs as they hit thermal power plants, factories and high-rise buildings – places from which the Ukrainians coordinate their defenses,” the article said.
FAB-1500s, the AFU admitted, undermine the morale of soldiers.
“We used to be shelled only from artillery. Now the orcs [Russians] have taken the city more aggressively [and] have started using air force assets, particularly FAB-1500s. Why are they using FAB-1500s? Because the damage it does is very serious. If you survive, you are guaranteed to be concussed. It puts a lot of pressure on the morale of the soldiers. Not all of our guys can take it. Although they are more or less used to FAB-500s, but FAB-1500s are hell,” a serviceman of the 46th Independent Airmobile Brigade of the AFU from the frontline town of Krasnogorovka in the DPR told CNN last week.
The use of FAB bombs has become a critical element of the Russian offensive in the DNR, especially in breaking down Ukrainian defenses in and around Avdeevka, which fell in February, CNN notes.
“On the eve of and during the battle for Avdeevka, hundreds of aerial bombs were fired over several days. In the Avdeevka direction alone, 250 of them were used in just 48 hours,” AFU spokesman Yuriy Ignat told the TV channel.
The FAB-1500 is the most powerful in a family of Soviet-era “dumb bombs” that are now being remodeled at a factory near Moscow into a cheap but powerful version of the missile, the article said.
“While the production of planning kits is a bottleneck, the basic explosive package is something they (the Russian Armed Forces) have in huge quantities,” argues Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Institute for Defence Studies in London.
Thus, the Russians have very powerful firepower, which they can use to fight against immobile defenses, increasing Ukrainian losses, CNN states.
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