UKRAINE WAR: Russia resorts to massive Soviet-era bombs as Ukrainian air defenses prove a match for missiles, drones.
Ukrainian investigators have increasingly found instances of Russia dropping older bombs, some around 1,100 pounds. The low-tech explosives easily circumvent modern air defenses like the U.S.-made Patriot missile systems that are designed to counter long-range missiles and drones.
Russia’s bombs, resurrected from Cold War-era ordnance stashes, have two major advantages over missiles in that they have no propulsion system for air defenses to track, and they remain airborne for barely a minute.
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With no way to counter the bombs themselves, Ukrainian forces must target the planes that drop them, a tall order for a national air force with planes far older than Russia’s modern aircraft.“Trying to intercept these bombs isn’t effective, it’s not even rational,” a Ukrainian air force spokesman told the newspaper. “The only way out of this situation and the only way to stop it is to attack the planes that launch these bombs.”
I bet F-16s would help.