Ukraine Was Poised to Destroy Russia’s Best Warplanes, but White House Restrictions Shut Their Window of Opportunity

On Monday, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR) reported a successful strike on the Morozovsk military airfield in Russia’s Rostov region over the weekend, destroying and damaging multiple Su-34 fighter bombers some 130 km from the Ukrainian border.

But a few months prior, according to a Forbes report, Ukraine could have damaged or destroyed scores more when dozens of the same planes were parked at the Voronezh Malshevo air base, less than 300 km from the Ukrainian border. Unfortunately, for Kyiv, the US was still preventing Ukraine from striking Russian territory with its most sophisticated American-made missiles.

Destroying the Su-34 jets has been of utmost importance to the Ukrainian military as they carry powerful glide bombs – some weighing three metric tons with the ability to destroy multiple houses in one hit even if they missed their target – that continue to plague the frontline troops.

More importantly, Russia parked dozens of its Su-34 – with an estimated total of roughly 100 in service – in June at a location within reach of Western-provided weaponry that Kyiv was prohibited from using. But that window has now vanished for Ukraine as Russia redeployed them to further, less vulnerable bases.

Su-34s and glide bombs

In July, Russian state news agency TASS published a video of a Su-34 fighter bomber being equipped with a FAB-3000 bomb that contains 1,200 kg (2,650 lbs) of high explosive, which could be straight TNT or a TNT/RDX/Aluminum mix.

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As per a June Kyiv Post analysis, mainstream military commentators suggested the accuracy of glide bombs equipped with Russia’s “universal planning and correction module” (UPMK) is poor, but with a claimed main destructive radius of 230 m (750 ft) and lethal fragments out to over 1,200 m (4,000 ft), even a “near miss” by a FAB-3000 is difficult to defend against.

Russia favored glide bombs – converted from traditional “dumb bombs” like the FAB-3000 – in its invasion of Ukraine due to the relatively low cost and ability to deploy from within Russian airspace and have them glide to targets inside Ukraine.

As of June, it’s believed Russian aerospace forces carried out 3,500 glide bomb attacks with the most popular types being the smaller FAB 250 and 500 kg (550 and 1,100 lbs) bombs.

The window has vanished for Ukraine

As Forbes pointed out, dozens of Su-34s used to launch glide bombs at Ukraine were within range of US-provided Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles, but Washington denied Ukraine’s rights at the time to use the weapons against targets inside Russian territories – including the Voronezh Malshevo air base.

In late June Washington lifted restrictions on US-made weapons being used in Russia. However, the Americans would only let Ukraine strike near the border regions, within 100 kilometers of the actual border.

Since then, Russia has redeployed many of the jets.

“Between the second half of June and mid-July, Russian forces relocated a lion’s [share] of valuable military assets away from the border area with Ukraine,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight noted.

While Ukraine has had some success in targeting Russian bases with domestically produced drones – as in the recent strike on the Morozovsk military airfield – drones are still relatively easier to intercept compared to ATACMS.

Just as Ukraine is learning to cope with the new challenges, Russia too is learning from its mistakes – perhaps now the prerequisite to victory, aside from technological breakthroughs, is also the ability to capitalize on the window before it disappears.