Ukraine used French-supplied bombs to destroy a Russian position
The Ukrainian Air Force bombed Russian positions in Bakhmut using a powerful French bomb according to a recent report from the Ukrainian military news website Militarnyi.
A Ukrainian MiG-29 equipped with French AASM bombs carried out an air strike on a building in Bakhmut Footage of the attack was later published by the Telegram channel Soniah_hub with geolocated coordinates of the airstrike's location.
Photo Credit: Telegram @soniah_hub
“Judging by the footage, there were two bombs. They hit the multi-story building almost simultaneously,” Militarnyi reported and added the strike resulted in “part of the building was destroyed.” No information about Russian casualties was relayed.
Photo Credit: Telegram @soniah_hub
The strike was reportedly carried out by the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade but the more interesting aspect of the strike was that it included the use of French-supplied AASM bombs, a weapon Paris first provided to Ukraine at the beginning of 2024.
Photo Credit: Telegram @soniah_hub
During a January 18th interview with the French daily newspaper Le Figaro, Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu revealed France would be sending its Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range kits to Ukraine.
Commonly referred to by the acronym AASM Hammer or sometimes just Hammer bomb kits, these kits are a lot like the American Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits that were already in use by the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the time.
France’s AASM Hammer kits are a type of modernization tool that turn unguided aerial bombs into weapons with increased range and precision strike capabilities according to a breakdown of the French bombs by Defense Express.
Two different types of kits were developed by French engineers. The first is the Hammer 250 KG, which can be fitted with an MK 82 bomb, and the second is the Hammer 1000, which can be fitted with the BLU 09 or MK 84 bombs.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Killersurprise64 - Own Work
Newsweek reported that the AASM Hammer kits were developed to be a standoff weapon that is launched from the air at low altitudes and over rough terrain. However, there were two key ways the French weapons were set to help Ukraine at the beginning of 2024.
First, a standoff weapon is designed to be fired at a distance so that an attacker can escape the effectiveness of the weapon and enemy defenses according to Wikipedia, so the French weapon will provide a safer means for Ukrainian pilots to attack Russian positions.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By U.S. Air Force
“Hammer, like JDAM-ER before it, would give Ukraine's Air Force a very valuable way of precisely engaging Russian targets, including those situated further back from the front lines,” explained The Warzone’s Joseph Trevithick.
Trevithick added that the “stand-off range that Hammer would allow Ukrainian pilots to prosecute their targets while staying further away from enemy defense, as well” before noting the weapon’s rocket boosters gave it an advantage over the US JDAM-ER.
Photo Credit: Wiki CommonsBy U.S. Air Force / Photo By Staff Sgt. Michael B. Keller
Second, Minister Lecornu noted in his interview with Le Figaro that the Hammer kits had been adapted so that they could be used with Soviet-era aircraft, which was critical since a majority of the Ukrainian Air Force's airframes at the time were made up of Soviet aircraft.
Minister Lecornu also said France would be sending Ukraine at least 50 Hammer units per month starting in January 2024 through to the end of the year. That means Ukraine was set to receive a total of 600 bombs for use against Russia.
Ukraine’s MiG-29 and Su-27 airframes were the most likely candidates to be the aircraft that will carry the Hammer 250 KG model according to the Ukrainian military news outlet Military, which noted only the Su-24M could carry the weight of the Hammer 1000 KG.
Depending on the mixtures of Hammer types sent, Kyiv was going to see a big increase in the range at which its fighter bombers could hit key frontline targets. Defense Express noted that the designer of the kits, Safran, says they have a range of 70 kilometers or roughly 43.5 miles.
Newsweek reported that the popular pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Russian Military Informant described the French AASM Hammer as the “biggest threat” in a post regarding the news that France was supplying the weapon to Ukraine.
"The degree of operational readiness of this weapon is unknown, but the possibility of its testing by the Ukrainian Armed Forces for testing in real combat cannot be ruled out," the Russian Telegram channel explained.