US glide missiles on way to Kyiv

WASHINGTON: The US has successfully tested a new 160km-range “glide missile” for Ukraine that is soon expected to arrive on the battlefield.

Ukraine will receive its first batch of Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDM), a new long-range weapon made by aviation giant Boeing, that even the US doesn’t have in its supply.

An unnamed US official told Politico it was expected to be “a significant capability for Ukraine”, with the glide missile allowing Ukraine’s military to hit targets at twice the distance the country’s rockets can currently reach.

“It gives them a deeper strike capability they haven’t had, it complements their long-range fire arsenal,” the official told Politico.

The weapon, co-developed by Boeing and Saab, is made up of a precision-guided 113kg bomb strapped to a rocket motor and fired from various ground launchers.

While the US military has a similar version of the bomb that is air-launched, a groundlaunched version does not yet exist in US inventory.

Ukraine will be the first country to use the missiles in combat, making it a critical test case for other countries that have been snapping up longrange munitions since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

It was first revealed in November 2022 that the Pentagon was considering a Boeing proposal to supply Ukraine with bombs that would allow Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines.

The two warring countries meanwhile traded hundreds of prisoners of war on Wednesday (local time), just a week after Moscow said Kyiv had shot down a plane carrying captured Ukrainian soldiers to an exchange.

The crash of a Russian military cargo plane near the border with Ukraine, which Russia said killed 65 Ukrainian POWs, had thrown doubt on future prisoner swaps between the two sides.

President Vladimir Putin said it was “obvious” Ukraine shot it down, and on Wednesday claimed Kyiv’s forces used a US Patriot system to do so.