UMPK glide-bomb kits (FAB family)
The cheap wing-and-satnav kit that turned Russia's Soviet dumb-bomb stockpile into a standoff siege weapon — arguably its most consequential adaptation of the war.
Record
Conflict relevance
This is the catalogue's single record for this system. It is relevant to the module below; each module's Force Atlas shows how it is used there.
Battlefield role
Standoff demolition of fortifications, strongpoints and urban defences from beyond most air-defence range — the tonnage behind Russian assaults since 2023.
Strengths
Near-zero cost relative to missiles while drawing on a vast existing bomb stockpile; released in volume week after week; warheads up to three tonnes collapse fortifications no artillery shell can; range has grown steadily through improved and powered kit variants.
Limitations
Modest accuracy, partly restored by jam-resistant antenna upgrades after Ukrainian GPS jamming degraded early kits; useless against mobile targets; carrier aircraft must still approach release areas, where Patriot ambushes have imposed documented losses.
Visual identification
A standard Soviet FAB bomb body with a strap-on kit: pop-out folding wings on a dorsal rack and small tail surfaces — crude and mass-produced in appearance, unlike purpose-built Western glide weapons.
Documented conflict use
In documented use since early 2023 and central to the fall of Avdiivka in 2024, where glide-bomb tonnage was publicly assessed as decisive; employment has expanded in volume and range since, including strikes on frontline cities such as Kharkiv.
Branch & service operators
- Air ForceDocumented
- Aerospace Forces (VKS)Documented
Related key events
Avdiivka falls; Kursk incursion
Russia takes Avdiivka at heavy cost and presses in Donbas; Ukraine answers with a surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region.