Refining its tactics and technology in recent months, the Russian air force finally is making itself useful along the 600-mile front of Russia’s two-year wider war on Ukraine. Air force Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers escorted by Sukhoi Su-35 fighters are flying a hundred or more sorties every day, lobbing KAB satellite-guided glide-bombs...CONTINUE READING
at Ukrainian positions 25 miles away—and reducing those positions so Russian infantry can seize them.
The Russians don’t have a monopoly on precision glide-bombing, however. The Ukrainian air force in recent days has begun lobbing French-made Hammer glide-bombs atRussianpositions as far away as 40 miles.
But the Ukrainians aren’t dropping nearly enough glide-bombs. And theynever willas long as the United States continues sitting out Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces on Saturday circulated drone footage depicting potentially the first Hammer strike, on Russian forces in Avdiivka, the eastern city that the Russians occupied in mid-February—ironically after Russian air force fighter-bombers pummeled the ammo-starved Ukrainian garrison withhundredsof glide-bombs.
Two days later on Monday, the Ukrainians circulated a second video depicting a Hammer strike—this one targeting a Russian supply depot in Kozachi Laheri, just west of the Ukrainian marine corps’ bridgehead in Krynky, on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
It’s unclear which Ukrainian jet types are dropping the Hammers. Reportedly, French technicians
hurriedly integrated
the 550-pound, satellite-guided bombs on Ukraine’s Sukhoi Su-27s and Mikoyan MiG-29s—completing the integration just weeks after Paris announced it would supply Kyiv with 50 Hammers a month starting in January.
Russia’s relentless—but costly—glide-bombing campaign has been decisive. “These bombs completely destroy any position,” wrote
Egor Sugar, a trooper with the Ukrainian army’s 3rd Assault Brigade, which fought in the four-month battle for Avdiivka.
The Ukrainians already had some capacity to glide-bomb back thanks to a consignment of 25-mile-range Joint Direct Attack Munition glide-bombs they got from their Americans allies last year. But Russia-friendly Republicans in the U.S. Congress starting blocking aid to Ukraine back in October, throttling the supply of JDAMs.
A steady supply of French Hammers somewhat compensates for the Republican blockade of American JDAMs. But 50 bombs a month, while much better than nothing, is too few bombs a month to match the hundred or more KABs the Russians can dropevery day.
In the air and on the ground, the Russians currently enjoy a massive firepower advantage. In cutting off aid last fall, Republicans deprived Ukrainian troops of potentially hundreds of thousands of artillery shells. While awaiting European countries—the Czech Republic, especially—to ship additional ammunition, Ukrainian batteries have been firing just 2,000 rounds a day, versus the 10,000 rounds Russian batteries can fire every day.
The obvious lesson, for opponents of Russian aggression, is that the United States with its massive economy and defense industrial base remains indispensable. Yes, France, the Czech Republic and other European countries can supply Ukraine with the munitiontypesit needs to defend itself.
But not in sufficient quantities, nor nearly fast enough. Not without America’s help.
