Soviet- era bombs elude Ukraine’s modern defenses

Maryna Ivanova, a young woman living in a riverside village in southern Ukraine, had an uneasy feeling when her fiance and brother left for work one morning in early May. They were headed to a nearby island in the Dnieper River, the watery front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces, and the area was getting shelled heavily.

Standing at her stove, making pork and potato soup, Ivanova heard and felt an enormous blast, much more frightening, she said, than the explosions that have become routine.

“It felt like something was dropped right on us,” she said.

A few minutes later, she heard shouting outside and ran down to the dock. A boat pulled up. Inside lay her brother, soaked in blood. Slumped next to him was her fiance with part of his face blown off. Both were dead. She fell to her knees.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said.

The strike was not a mortar, a tank round or a projectile fired by long- range artillery, according to Ukrainian officials who investigated the incident. It was, they said, an 1,100- pound modified bomb dropped from a distant Russian warplane.

As Kyiv gears up for a muchanticipated counteroffensive, Ukrainian officials, independent analysts and U. S. military officials say the Russians are increasing their use of Sovietera bombs. Although they have limitations, the weapons, they said, are proving harder to shoot down than the fastest, most modern missiles that the Ukrainians have become adept at intercepting.

Much of this war is being fought with long- range munitions, from artillery shells to ballistic missiles. In the past few weeks, the Russians have launched wave after wave of missiles and exploding drones, and Ukraine has shot down just about all of them.

But the aircraft bombs are different. They are aloft for only 70 seconds or less and are much more difficult for Ukraine’s air defenses to track. They are little dots on radar screens that soon disappear after being dropped, Ukrainian officials said, and then they slam into villages.

“This is the evolution of the air war,” said Lt. Col. Denys Smazhnyi of the Ukrainian air force. “They first tried cruise missiles, and we shot them down. Then they tried drones, and we shot those down. They are constantly looking for a solution to strike us, and we are looking for one to intercept them.”

According to Ukrainian and U. S. officials, the Russians have retrofitted some of the bombs with satellite navigation systems and wings that stretch their range, turning an old- fashioned weapon into a more modern glide bomb.