Par Sasha Vakulina & Jean-Philippe Liabot
Published on
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Russia has attacked a shopping center in the city of Dobropillia, in eastern Ukraine, with an aerial bomb of 500 kg of Fab type, killing at least four people and injuring 27 others, regional officials reported on Wednesday.
Fifty-four stores, 304 apartments and eight vehicles were affected, and a fire broke out following the attack, said Military Administration of the Donetsk region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack on “tjust horrible“And said she had”No military logic“.
“It is a horrible and stupid Russian terror. It is simply an attempt to kill as many people as possible. Russia only has eyes for vile strikes of this kind.” he added.
Dobropillia Is a city west of the Donetsk region, about 15 kilometers from the front line. Russian forces try to move towards her from the Southeast.
A planing aerial bomb is a basic bomb, dropped by plane, modified with wings and often equipped with a satellite navigation system, which allows it to be launched remotely rather than directly above a target.
Fab – Acronym of “highly explosive aerial bomb“In Russian – is one of the most used bombs since the Soviet era and is actively used by Russia in its total war against Ukraine.
These air bombs have become a serious threat to Ukrainian infrastructure and the cities of the front line. They are used to strike the positions of the Ukrainian armed forces, logistics centers, bridges and industrial installations, as they are more effective against static targets.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Surveillance Mission in Ukraine, Russian planing bombs killed 360 people and injured 1,861 Ukrainian civilians in 2024, three times more dead and six times more injured than in 2023.
The Russian forces use hovering bombs of different sizes, weighing 250, 500 or 1,000 kilos. The most powerful of the Russian arsenal is the Fab-3000, a 3-ton bomb highly explosive, which the Russian Defense Ministry said it had entered the mass production phase.
Planning bombs are very destructive and very difficult to shoot down. Unlike missiles, they do not have a propulsion system and therefore do not generate much warmth, which shelters them from an interception by missiles with infrared researcher.