US to send upgraded long-range bombs to Ukraine
The US has upgraded its ground-launched small diameter bombs (GLSDBs) to counter Russian jamming systems and is expected to “redeploy” them to the Ukrainian battlefield in the coming days, a Reuters source said.
The GLSDB, jointly developed by Boeing and SAAB AB, combines the GBU-39 small diameter bomb and an M26 rocket engine, creating a weapon with a range of about 160 km.
The administration of former US President Joe Biden sent an unspecified number of GLSDB units to Kiev, but Ukraine has not used the bombs for months after they proved ineffective last year, according to Reuters sources.
The Wall Street Journal reported last July that Russia’s electronic warfare capabilities had rendered Western precision-guided weapons—including the GLSDB and Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells—useless. Some of these weapons were knocked out within weeks of deployment when their guidance systems were disrupted.
Boeing has since made several upgrades, including reinforcing internal connections to improve jamming resistance. At least 19 GLSDB bombs have been tested in “recent weeks” to assess the effectiveness of the improvements, according to Reuters sources. The US has stockpiled a large number of the relatively cheap bombs in Europe and is “preparing” to ship them to Kiev in the coming days, the source said.
The potential replacement comes amid reports that Ukraine has exhausted its stock of US-supplied ATACMS, a weapon with a longer range of up to 300 km.
Kiev began using ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory in the fall of 2024, specifically targeting the border regions of Kursk, Bryansk, Belgorod and Rostov. However, the Associated Press reported on March 12 that the stockpile was completely depleted by the end of January.
Moscow has repeatedly warned the United States and its allies against allowing Ukraine to launch long-range strikes, arguing that such attacks would make NATO a direct belligerent given Kiev's reliance on Western-supplied weapons.
In response to Ukraine's first ATACMS attacks last November, Russia launched a new Oreshnik hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile targeting the Yuzhmash military-industrial facility in the city of Dnepr, Ukraine.
