WASHINGTON/KYIV –
The United States has responded to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for missiles that can strike deep behind the front lines of the nearly year-long conflict with Russia.
Russian forces will now have to adapt or face potentially catastrophic losses.
The new weapon, the ground-launched small diameter bomb (GLSDB), will allow the Ukrainian military to engage targets at twice the range of the missiles it now fires from the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Missile System (HIMARS). If included, as expected, in an upcoming arms aid package first reported by Reuters, the 151-kilometer (94-mile) GLSDB would put all of Russia’s eastern supply lines within range, as and part of Russian-occupied Crimea.
This would force Russia to move its supplies even further from the front lines, making its soldiers more vulnerable and greatly complicating plans for any new offensive.
“This could be delayed [a Russian assault] significantly,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister. “Just as HIMARS significantly affected the course of events, these missiles could have affected the course of events even more.”
The GLSDB is a GPS-guided glide bomb that can maneuver to hit hard-to-reach targets such as command centers. Developed jointly by SAAB AB SAABb.ST and Boeing Co BA.N, it combines the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket engine, both of which are common in the US stockpile.
It is not yet compatible with HIMARS, but the United States will provide Ukraine with new launchers for the missiles, the sources said. GLSDB could be delivered as early as spring 2023, according to a document seen by Reuters.
VULNERABLE SUPPLY LINES
When the United States first sent HIMARS launch vehicles in June, they delivered missiles with a range of 77 km (48 miles). This was a major boost for the Ukrainian military, allowing it to destroy Russian ammunition depots and weapons depots.
Once Ukraine acquires the new cruise bombs, military experts say, Russia will have to target its supplies even further.
“At the moment we cannot reach Russian military installations more than 80 kilometers away,” said Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Musyenko. “If we can get them practically all the way to the Russian border or into occupied Crimea, then of course that will reduce the attacking potential of the Russian forces.
Most importantly, Ukraine will soon be able to reach any point on the occupied land route to Crimea via Berdyansk and Melitopol. This will force Russia to divert its supply trucks to the Crimean bridge, which was badly damaged in an attack in October.
“Russia uses Crimea as a large military base from which it sends reinforcements to its troops on the southern front,” Musienko said. “If we had 150 km (munitions), we could reach that and disrupt the logistics link with Crimea.
Beyond the logistical impact, adding a longer-range weapon to Ukraine’s arsenal could shake Russia’s confidence.
Tom Karako, a weapons and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that while Ukraine would benefit from an even longer-range weapon, the GLSDB is “a really important step to give the Ukrainians more reach and kept the Russians guessing’.
NO ATACMS – YET
For the Biden administration, the decision to send the GLSDB to Ukraine represents a step toward meeting Ukraine’s demand for the Army’s 185-mile (297 km) range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which the administration has so far refused to provide, fearing further conflict escalation.
Gliding bombs, while not as powerful, are much cheaper, smaller and easier to deploy than ATACMS, making them well-suited to much of what Ukraine hopes to achieve: disrupting Russian operations and creating a tactical advantage.
Still, Karako said, it’s possible the Ukrainians could get weapons with even greater range in the future.
“Time and time again, we’ve seen the administration say they’re going to get to a certain point, but not beyond that,” he said. “Then, when the situation got worse, they found the need to actually go further.”
That was the case with HIMARS, the Patriot missile defense system and, just this month, Abrams tanks, all initially banned from Ukraine before the administration approved the supply.
But for now, the focus will be on how quickly the new planning bombs can arrive in Ukraine, Zagorodniuk said.
“If they speed it up… it could significantly change the situation on the battlefield.”
(Editing by Don Durfee and Peter Graff)
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