New reports revealed that Russia’s highly destructive guided glide bombs, which it has long used to target Ukrainian cities, are being jammed through Ukraine’s improved electronic warfare (EW) systems.
Over the past year, Russia relied heavily on satellite-guided glide bombs, often launching up to 100 per day along the 800-mile front. These weapons, fitted with Universal Planning and Correction Modules (UMPK), allowed Russian aircraft to release bombs from a safe distance while still striking deep inside Ukrainian-controlled areas.
Cities such as Avdiivka and Zaporizhzhia were among the hardest hit, as Ukrainian forces initially lacked effective countermeasures. However, recent reports claim that Ukrainian EW systems have fundamentally disrupted this strategy.
“It appears Ukraine has found a way to disrupt satellite navigation for the guidance kits bolted onto these bombs with electronic warfare,” Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher with the War Studies department at King’s College London, U.K. told Newsweek.
“Russia will need to rework its guidance kits to make them as effective as they once were,” Miron also noted.
A recent post of Fighterbomber, an unofficial Telegram channel of the Russian Air Force, translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated, states: “The golden era of the divine UMPK turned out to be short-lived.”
UMPK is a system developed for the deployment of precision-guided munitions, designed to offer real-time guidance and trajectory correction for the glide bombs.
The Russian Ministry of Defense published images of hitting Ukrainian targets with a 3-ton FAB-3000 bomb fitted with a UMPK guidance kit. pic.twitter.com/7zOmPCQFOl
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 14, 2024
“The bombs are still flying, planned targets are being hit, everyone’s busy, the charts in presentations look prettier than ever, and the numbers of sorties and destroyed targets in reports have grown so large that briefers are reading them with bated breath,” the post reads.
“But there is a catch. They’re missing. All satellite guided correction systems have officially left the chat. Both Russian and Ukrainian EW specialists have mastered portable and mobile EW stations, which now saturate the front line on both sides, rendering satellite-guided corrections for all munitions (not just UMPKs) useless.”
Russian pilot “Fighterbomber” says that the effectiveness of Russian guide bombs fell off a cliff recently due to widespread EW interference on both sides, and that Ukrainian countermeasures have now rendered satellite-guided corrections useless. He says bombs often miss their… pic.twitter.com/273V1XnAr2
— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) February 26, 2025
Reports suggest that Russia’s dependence on drones has been significantly disrupted by Ukrainian jamming efforts, compelling Russian operators to switch to more expensive fiber-optic-controlled drones, which are not only costlier but also more challenging to deploy in large quantities.
Ivan Stupak, a former officer with Ukraine’s SBU security service, told Newsweek that Ukraine had successfully deployed a significant number of electronic warfare systems, though details remain limited due to operational security.
