Russia’s glide bombs are meant to strike Ukraine. Instead, they keep striking Russia. New intelligence reveals a growing pattern of friendly-fire incidents, with Russian pilots repeatedly dropping powerful munitions on their own territory and troops. From training failures and exhausted crews to aging aircraft and flawed procedures, the reasons behind these costly mistakes paint a troubling picture of Russia’s air campaign. How did one of Moscow’s key weapons become a threat to its own people?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/8BNPGrBf
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/8BNPGrBf
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Precision is kind of important in modern warfare. We know, right? No big revelation there. But it
00:05seems that Russia never got the memo that building bombs that are actually capable of hitting their
00:10targets is a good thing. At least that's what we're getting after a spate of incidents that
00:14tell us that Russia's glide bombs aren't gliding where they need to go. Those bombs are accurate
00:19at hitting Russian troops. Something is bombing Russia and it isn't Ukraine. No matter how hard
00:26Russia tries, it just can't seem to stop bombing itself. The UK's Ministry of Defense or MOD has
00:32revealed that Russia's high-tempo glide bomb campaign against Ukraine comes with some major
00:37drawbacks. The friendly fire rates that are coming out of those attacks show that a litany of issues,
00:42including poor procedures, are resulting in Russia bombing itself far too often. In its typically
00:48understated way, the MOD said, These instances demonstrate continued errors in Russia's ability
00:53to successfully employ their munitions on intended targets. In other words, Russia, why do you keep
00:59hitting yourself? The Kremlin doesn't have any answers, and the numbers show that this is a
01:03problem that has been affecting Russia ever since it introduced glide bombs into the war.
01:08The MOD analysed footage published by open-source intelligence groups such as Astra that discover
01:13that Russia has dropped 25 glide bombs onto itself and the territory that it occupies in Ukraine
01:19so far in 2026. That's a friendly fire rate of about five massive bombs dropped on Russian soldiers
01:26and civilians per month, and Ukraine isn't having to lift a finger. It's Russian pilots who take to the
01:31sky, aim, and then hit their own people in the collective face. The one bright spot in these figures
01:37is that Russia seems to be getting a little better at hitting itself. In 2025, there were 143 recorded
01:43instances of Russia hitting itself with its own glide bombs, creating an average of 11.9 incidents
01:48per month. 2024 was even worse. Russia managed to smash itself an average of 13.75 times per month
01:56with its glide bombs for an annual total of 165. So, well done, we guess. Only 25 instances of
02:03launching bombs at yourself is the best you can do, eh, Russia? While the Kremlin might celebrate the fact
02:07that it's only giving itself one black eye instead of two, the everyday Russians who feel the force of
02:12their country's own weapons won't be quite so happy. 25 friendly fire incidents is still 25 too many,
02:18as the resident of Dubova in Russia's Belgorod oblast, who was hit by a glide bomb on May 16th,
02:24would tell Putin and his cronies. At least, they would have said that to Putin. They can't now,
02:28because the terrifyingly powerful glide bomb that struck their home also claimed their life.
02:33We imagine that Russia's people are getting pretty frustrated at this point. After all,
02:37Russia hitting itself has been a problem for far too long now. As far back as April 2023,
02:42Business Insider was reporting on an incident where a Russian fighter jet accidentally bombed
02:46its own territory. Again, the incident took place in Belgorod, and it's interesting due to it
02:51happening before Russia introduced glide bombs into the war. The Russian defense ministry
02:56characterized what happened as an abnormal descent of aviation ammunition, which is an interesting
03:01way of saying that an Su-34 pilot had accidentally attacked his own people. That pilot may have been
03:06one of the first, but he was far from the last. Fast forward about a year, and Russia was at
03:11it
03:11again. This time, glide bombs were in play, as Russia was launching one of its horrific aerial
03:16assaults against the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The strike didn't go to plan. A Russian pilot
03:21mistakenly dropped their munitions on, let's check our notes here, Belgorod. Really, Russia? What did
03:27this one border city do to deserve being hit with so many of your own bombs? Was Ukraine not doing
03:31enough
03:32to hit Belgorod, so your pilots felt that they needed to get in on the action? Sarcasm aside,
03:37what these incidents show us is that Russia has always had a bit of a problem when it comes to
03:40the accuracy of its aerial weapons, and that problem has only gotten worse since the country
03:45introduced glide bombs into the fray. In a July 2024 piece that examined just what on earth was
03:51going on, the Washington Post discovered that some of Russia's failed glide bombs were being
03:55discovered by civilians, and in many cases, the Russian defense ministry didn't even know when
03:59these misguided bombs had been fired. Those that didn't explode into fiery balls of fury that
04:04killed Russian people were often left sitting where they'd landed for days before they were
04:08discovered. That's peak Russian military efficiency right there. Not knowing that you're launching
04:13bombs at yourself and then not doing anything about the bombs once they've landed sounds about right
04:17for Russia in its Ukraine campaign. The same outlet reveals that the local authorities dealing with
04:22these glide bomb mishaps have undergone an interesting evolution in terms of how they handle the problem.
04:26When the first friendly fire incidents occurred, those authorities were generally pretty open
04:31about what had happened. At least they were as open as Russia can be, as we saw with the
04:35abnormal descent of aviation ammunition statement earlier. But somewhere around mid 2024, the authorities
04:42stopped mentioning ammunition and instead started being as vague as possible. They would only say
04:46things like, an explosion has occurred, likely because it was getting a little bit embarrassing to keep on
04:51saying that Russian pilots had launched bombs at their own territory. Remember there were 165 instances
04:57of this happening in 2024. It would probably start to feel like a record had skipped if Russia had to
05:02explain why things were exploding each time. Let's come back to the MOD's findings. Over the past three
05:08years, Russia has managed to bomb itself at least 330 times. That's a pretty major problem and it leads to
05:14the obvious question. What on earth is happening? There are a couple of reasons why Russia keeps
05:19smashing itself in the face that we'll get to in a few minutes. But one of the major problems that
05:23Russia has with glide bombs is that they were never designed to be precision weapons in the first place.
05:27That much was clear from the original analyses of the weapons when they first appeared in early 2024.
05:33At the time, the BBC offered basic details. Glide bombs were being made by converting old Soviet-era
05:38dumb bombs into medium-range munitions through the use of glide kits. It was actually one of the few
05:43very clever ideas that Russia had had since Putin launched his invasion. These kits have special
05:48wings that deploy when the attached bomb is dropped, allowing the bomb to glide several dozen kilometers
05:53toward a target. Glide bombs allowed Russia to launch munitions from just outside the range of
05:58Ukraine's air defenses. However, they came with the downside of being imprecise. The earliest version of
06:03the glide kits that Russia created used basic satellite navigation kits to help them stay on course.
06:08That would generally ensure that a target was roughly hit, but it wasn't enough to give these
06:12bombs the level of precision that would allow Russia to reliably take out specific pieces of
06:16infrastructure or military assets. But Russia could get over that fact by countering its new
06:20weapons' lack of precision with sheer volume. Rather than using one bomb to attack one target,
06:26Russia started dropping hundreds and eventually thousands of glide bombs every single month.
06:30For instance, Russia had launched around 3,500 of these types of bombs between January and the
06:36beginning of April 2024. The volume has only increased since then. In March 2026, Russia
06:42launched 7,987 glide bombs at Ukraine, the Kiev Independent reports. That's a new monthly record
06:49that exceeds the previous record set in February by over 1,500. So the numbers tell part of the story.
06:55What Russia has in glide bombs are Soviet-era weapons that have been given a modern touch with
07:00glide kits. That combination is never going to be perfect. And when you're launching thousands of
07:05glide bombs every month, it stands to reason that a few of the kits used to make those bombs will
07:08have
07:09manufacturing defects that send them off course. The use of satellite navigation can also cause
07:14problems. If Ukraine uses electronic warfare to jam or otherwise mess with the signals being
07:19transmitted to a glide bomb, there always exists the potential that the bomb could fall on an unintended
07:24target. Perhaps that explains why Belgorod has taken such a beating. As a border region, it's likely
07:29right in the firing line of electronic warfare countermeasures as well as being a perfect place
07:34from which to launch glide bombs. That's a pretty nasty combination that has already led to Russian
07:39bombs being dropped onto the heads of the country's own people. But there's something more at play here.
07:43The MOD specifically points to a pair of problems that are taking Russia's glide bomb strategy from having
07:48an acceptable risk level to being potentially catastrophic for Russia. These problems could
07:53change everything. But before we dig into what they are, this is a quick reminder that you are watching
07:58the military show. There's a lot more where this came from, so don't forget to subscribe if you're
08:02getting value from the channel. Problem number one, as defined by the MOD, is simple. Terrible training.
08:10Realistically, a glide bomb should be pretty simple for an experienced pilot to launch. You just get your jet
08:15airborne, pointed in the right direction, and fire. The bomb is supposed to do the rest.
08:20However, Russia's pilots don't even seem to be able to handle that anymore.
08:23A British intelligence report says, Incidents are likely occurring due to a combination of
08:28inadequate aircraft armament procedures before takeoffs and poor execution by crews during missions.
08:33In other words, glide bombs aren't being loaded into fighter jets properly by support crews,
08:38and even when they are, there's some Russian roulette going on with the pilots. You never quite know when
08:42the person entering the cockpit has been so poorly trained, they can't even handle what should be a
08:47simple task for any pilot worth their salt. Anybody who's been paying attention to Russia's approach
08:52to training since Putin invaded Ukraine won't be surprised by the revelation that poor training is
08:57a contributor to so many of the glide bomb friendly fire incidents. As far back as September 2022,
09:02it was revealed that Russia was shortening its training courses for new soldiers as it tried to
09:07deal with manpower issues that had arisen from the supposed special military operation,
09:11lasting many months beyond what Putin had anticipated. Several years later, this lackadaisical approach
09:17to training has only gotten worse. Russia has devolved from trying to fit as much as possible
09:21into too short a time span down to offering almost no training at all, because it knows that most of
09:27the soldiers it sends into Ukraine will just become cannon fodder. In a February report, United24
09:32media revealed that Russian recruits now only spend between 5 and 10 days training before they're shipped to the front.
09:37There's a pattern here. Before 2013, Russia trained soldiers for 5 or 6 months before they entered the army.
09:44That training period was cut down to 3 months in 2013, a year ahead of the launch of Putin's campaign
09:49of aggression against Ukraine. Today, Russian conscripts are supposed to get 4 months of training,
09:53and contract soldiers should get 192 hours. Neither is getting what Russia claims. You might think that the
10:00training issues that affect the rank and file on the ground wouldn't impact pilots. These are personnel who need to
10:05fly very complicated pieces of machinery. Surely Russia takes its time with them. It should. But
10:11remember that Russia has lost 436 planes and 353 helicopters since the beginning of the war,
10:17per Ukraine's Ministry of Finance. That's a lot of experienced flyers who have been turned into dust,
10:22and that has a clear effect on the level of training that Russia can offer to its pilots.
10:26Russia lost so many of its pilots in the first place because of poor training practices,
10:30forces, and the forced use of outdated equipment, according to a study by the Royal United Services
10:35Institute. Almost none of Russia's pilots have received training in providing close air support
10:40to forces on the ground, for instance. With so many pilots dead and an obvious urgency to get
10:45more in the air, it shouldn't be surprising that Russia is cutting corners on pilot training.
10:48It was already doing just that before Ukraine. Now, too many of Russia's flyers don't even know
10:54their aircraft well enough to launch a glide bomb without hitting their own territory.
10:58This problem isn't going to get better, by the way. In a May 22 report, Defense 24 pointed out that
11:03Russia's air force is a shadow of what it was during the Soviet era. A combination of lower demand
11:08for pilots before the Ukraine war and a campaign of consolidation means that Russia has fewer
11:13aviation schools than it had before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Training aircraft are ancient,
11:18with the best that most pilots can hope for being older SU and MiG models. And even as Russia tries
11:23to
11:23establish three new pilot schools in 2026, none of it is coming fast enough to lead to the sorts of
11:28improvements needed. Poor training means that more glide bombs are going to drop on Russian territory.
11:33Probably Belgorod. Sorry Belgorod.
11:36Training being such an issue is bad enough for Russia, but behind that problem lies another,
11:40and it's perhaps an even bigger issue. We'll allow British intelligence to explain.
11:45The frequency of these incidents likely indicates a certain level of fatigue among both air and ground
11:50personnel in the Russian armed forces as well as a lack of sufficient training. We'll go one step
11:55further and suggest that it's not just fatigue among Russian air force personnel that's a problem.
12:00The sheer amount of strain being placed on the creaking airframes that are tasked with launching
12:04the glide bombs may also be contributing there being so many instances of friendly fire.
12:09There's plenty of logic behind the UK's intelligence statement. Russia's pilots and their crews are
12:14combining to fly more than 200 sorties against Ukraine every single day, launching anywhere between 180
12:19and 250 glide bombs in the process. It makes sense that fatigue would start to become a factor.
12:25Day in and day out it's the same old grind. Pilots go up, fire and come down. Crews are working
12:31around
12:31the clock to ensure the airframes that pilots fly are capable of doing these three things.
12:35It stands to reason that overworked and exhausted personnel will start making mistakes.
12:40Russians die as a result of those mistakes. And it's Putin's unrealistic demands, rather than anything
12:45that Ukraine does, that is the reason why. But then there's fatigue being experienced by the airframes
12:50themselves. Russia predominantly uses fighter jets such as the Su-34 in its glide bomb campaign.
12:55Those jets aren't invincible. They have a service life, typically somewhere in the region of 6,000
13:00hours for the Shukhoi range of jets. The never-ending sorties demanded by Putin mean that Russia's
13:05airframes are on the fast track to reaching the end of their lifespans. We're already starting to see
13:09evidence that this is the case. In a January 2025 report, Defense Express said that 550 of the 1,200
13:16aircraft that are in active service in the Russian military are approaching the end of their service
13:20lives. Russian manufacturing is nowhere close to keeping up with this attrition, so airframes that
13:26shouldn't really be in the sky anymore are being pushed to the very edge to squeeze the last bit
13:30of attacking potential out of them before they have to be retired. Move ahead a year or so to February
13:352026 and some interesting photos emerged from Russia's Lipetsk airbase. There is an entire aircraft
13:42graveyard building up at that base. According to Aerospace Global News, that graveyard contains 56
13:48MiG-29s, 25 MiG-31s, a pair of Su-24s, three Su-25s and seven Su-27s. The same outlet
13:59says that at least
13:5923 other aircraft have been moved to the storage ramp at Lipetsk between June 2022 and June 2025,
14:06which suggests that even more are awaiting decommissioning. What this tells us is that
14:11Russia is starting to run low on its Soviet-era airframes. That means new jets such as the Su-34
14:17will have to conduct even more sorties, which means they'll be coming to the end of their lifespans
14:21far quicker as Putin's demands for yet more glide bombs grows. Now, combine aircraft at the end of their
14:27life cycles with exhausted crews and pilots. And what do you get? A double dose of fatigue that has
14:32explosive consequences far more often than Russia wants to admit. So the real story here isn't that
14:37Russia has a precision weapons problem. It does. Russia can't build many of its most modern weapons
14:42without using Western machinery and components, which is one of the reasons why it's become so
14:46reliant on glide bombs in the first place. But the real story here is one of failure within the Russian
14:50Air Force. Pilots aren't getting the training they need, which is an issue that is being compounded by
14:55Russia's experienced flyers having been killed during the early periods of the war. Those
15:00inexperienced pilots and their crews are exhausting themselves by flying non-stop sorties in airframes
15:05that are either approaching or already at the end of their service lives. It's not a shock that Russia
15:10is hitting itself when you take all of this into account. Frankly, it's more of a shock that friendly
15:14fire incidents aren't happening more often. Still, the glide bomb strategy will stay and more Russians will
15:19die as a result. What does it matter to Putin? He's already sent almost 1.37 million of Russia's
15:24soldiers to the slaughter in Ukraine. He's not going to care about glide bombs flying into Russian
15:29cities anywhere near as much as the civilians who are being killed by their own military.
15:33Ukraine can simply sit back and watch Russia hit itself. Not that Ukraine needs any help
15:38killing Russian occupiers. As Putin's pilots smash Russians with their own bombs, Ukraine demonstrates
15:43what precision is really all about. The Butchers of Butcher found out the hard way that when Ukraine
15:48finds a target, it hits that target. Dozens of the Butchers are dead or injured,
15:52and it's all a result of one of the most impressive drone strikes of the entire war.
15:56If you want to find out more, watch our video. And if you enjoyed this video, make sure you
16:00subscribe to The Military Show to see more stories of how Russia's ineptitude is costing Putin
16:05the war that he started. And thank you, as always, for watching.
Comments