Russia has reportedly equipped its drones with fragmentation warheads during its Wednesday attack on Kyiv.
Fragmentation warheads are often equipped with a cast metal shell with grooves or indentations that shatter upon detonation, sending high-velocity shrapnel into different directions that cause damage to multiple soft targets (people, light vehicles, equipment, or aircraft) over an area.
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Ruslan Kandybor, Kyiv City State Administration’s director of the transport infrastructure, told local television Kyiv24 that drone debris damaged facilities of the city’s metro system, with “everything around is cut up with small metal fragments” that indicates a potential use of fragmentation warheads.
“The enemy is conducting insidious attacks, loading the ‘Shaheds’ with shrapnel – small fragments. And we can see this already from the scene of the events, where everything around is cut up with small metal fragments,” Kandybor said.
Kandybor added that the damage could have caused injuries if there were movements during the attack.
“If at that moment there was a rolling stock on the tracks, the carriages would be moving, there could be some casualties or injuries among people,” he added.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, announced on social media at around 6 a.m. that drone debris “fell near a metro station” at the city’s Darnytskyi district, with a subsequent update that it “damaged the fence and a separate building of the Darnytsia transit depot.”
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Later, at around 9 a.m., Klitschko reported that local air defense was operating, with a Kyiv official later reporting damage in the city’s Desnyanskyi district on social media.
In November 2024, Russia reportedly equipped its drones with thermobaric warheads in its attacks.
Thermobaric munitions, also known as aerosol or vacuum bombs, work by explosively dispersing an aerosol cloud of gas, liquid or powdered explosive which mixes with the surrounding air to create a massive fireball that produces blast overpressure with temperatures of up to 3,000°C that lasts for hundreds of milliseconds.
The overpressure and heat cause damage to fortified structures like bunkers and buildings and cause severe injuries to soft targets, including personnel and lightly armored vehicles.
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