Russia says intercepted for first time a US-made JDAM smart bomb fired by Ukraine

Russia’s air defenses intercepted for the first time a US-made JDAM precision-guided bomb fired by Ukraine, defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.

He said: “During the last 24-hour period, air defense capabilities intercepted four HIMARS rockets and a US-made JDAM smart air bomb,” state news agency TASS reported.

Yan Gagin, who serves as an advisor to the Russian-installed administration in the occupied parts of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, said that the Ukrainian military had employed a US-made JDAM guided bomb in the area of Kurdyumivka, a village on the southern approaches to the city of Bakhmut which the Russian forces have targeted in a major winter offensive.

The Joint Direct Attack Munitions or JDAM is a low-cost, guided air-to-surface weapon, which uses a global positioning system aided inertial navigation system to guide its 2,000 or 1,000 pound warhead to the target with a high degree of accuracy, according to the US Department of Defense.

Essentially, JDAM is a “guidance tail kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, adverse weather ‘smart’ munitions,” according to the US Air Force.

The extended range kits (JDAM-ER) triple the striking range from 24 km to roughly 72 km.

The commander of US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, James Hecker, confirmed in March that the US had delivered JDAM-ER precision-guided bombs to Ukraine as part of the nearly $2 billion military aid package Washington announced end of December which simply listed “precision aerial munitions” without providing details at the time.

Moscow had repeatedly warned of “serious escalation” to the conflict if the US supplied Ukraine with long-range aerial weapon capabilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened last June that should Washington arm Kyiv with such aerial weapons systems and munitions, Moscow would “strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting,” without naming the targets he was referring to.

However, since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022, the US has continued to bolster Ukrainians’ fighting capabilities against the Russians’ assault through billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment and supplies. This has included long-range rocket artillery alongside a wide range of weapons systems and combat vehicles.

This military aid “has made a clear and direct difference on the battlefield” in Ukraine, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said last month.

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