Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian guided aerial bomb near the front-line southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Feb. 7, Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat told Interfax-Ukraine.
Guided aerial bombs (KABs), while having a shorter range than missiles, are cheaper to produce and are launched from aircraft within Russian territory or Russian-occupied territories, beyond the reach of Ukrainian air defense.
They are nearly impossible to shoot down because they have heavy iron structures, and come in extremely fast from high altitudes, unlike cruise missiles or drones, according to experts.
According to Ihnat, it was not the first time Ukraine downed a guided bomb.
"To counter this threat, we need a comprehensive approach — both the use of ground-based air defense and aviation components to drive the carriers of these KABs as far as possible," the spokesperson said, without specifying how the target was shot down.
His remarks came after Telegram channels reported that Ukrainian soldiers had down the guided aerial bomb on the morning of Feb. 7, allegedly using experimental weaponry.
Russia regularly attacks Ukrainian front-line settlements with guided bombs. Over the past week, a total of 760 such bombs were launched at Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
According to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Russian glide bombs killed 360 Ukrainian civilians in 2024, and injured 1,861, a threefold increase in fatalities, and a sixfold increase in injuries compared to 2023.
Kateryna Hodunova
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