Russia claims to have used guided smart bombs to strike the Islamic State in Syria, but experts believe the frequency of their use is not high.

Russian soldiers at Hmeimim air base in Syria load a satellite-guided smart bomb onto a Su-34 fighter jet. Photo: AP

Since Russia launched its air campaign against the Islamic State (IS) and other terrorist groups in Syria, domestic media have continuously published news reports and promotional programs praising the superiority of the precision-guided bombs that Moscow has equipped its fighter jets with for missions there.

The RT television channel also published a series of photos showing Russian soldiers loading KAB-500S precision-guided bombs onto fighter jets parked on the runway at a military base in Syria. The Russian Ministry of Defense reportedly refused to use the KAB-500S bomb in 2012 due to its high cost.

But according to Foreign Policy magazine, in most of the airstrikes, Moscow only used older generation bombs that lacked guidance and had a high probability of missing their target. In some of the first videos released by Moscow, the bombs were supposedly only dropped near their targets.

The Russians are primarily "dropping unguided bombs from medium altitudes," said Michael Kofman, a professor of public policy at the Kennan Institute, Wilson Center.

"These are not precision weapons," commented Lieutenant General Bob Otto, deputy chief of staff for the U.S. Air Force's Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Forces, regarding Moscow's bombs, adding that this could potentially cause significant problems for Russia.

"We can tell exactly what's hanging from the Russian planes through intelligence imagery." They are all conventional bombs, notoriously inaccurate because they are dropped based on calculations of the aircraft's position and speed at the time of the attack, Otto said.

Unlike Russia, the US and its allies primarily use smart bombs when bombing ISIS and only attack targets when they are certain that the likelihood of harming innocent civilians is minimal. Therefore, the frequency of bombing missions is not as intense as Russia's, Otto added.

Time magazine argues that Russia's smart bombs lag behind their Western rivals because the collapse of the Soviet Union coincided with a period when the technology for developing such weapons was flourishing. It wasn't until after 1991 that the Russian military began focusing its investment on improving the accuracy of weapons deployed on its fighter aircraft.

Besides smart bombs, many other high-precision weapons have also appeared in President Vladimir Putin's propaganda campaign showcasing Russia's military strength, such as the Su-24 attack aircraft equipped with Kh-25ML laser-guided air-to-ground missiles. However, according to analysts, the frequency of these weapons' use in actual combat by Russia is negligible.

"Using precision-guided weapons is far more expensive than traditional gravity bombs. Moscow seems likely to sacrifice this precision strike capability to save costs on its already costly military intervention in the Middle East," commented Jorge Benitez, an expert from the Atlantic Council.

According to Sim Tack, an expert from the intelligence analysis organization Stratfor, the cost of deploying precision-guided weapons ranges from $26,000 to $1.1 million, while unguided bombs cost only about $600.

Benitez argued that Russia's greater concern was building an image of an increasingly powerful and modern military, surpassing even the United States. The war in Syria presented a good opportunity for President Putin to showcase his most advanced equipment.

The amount of money Russia has to spend to achieve this is considerable. Moscow has allocated $81 billion to defense this year, the largest amount since the Cold War, despite its economic difficulties. However, the Syrian battlefield is also seen as an opportunity for Russia to showcase the capabilities of its military. Su-34 fighter jets that have never seen combat are now being deployed to Syria. Russian soldiers are moving into the battlefield with "old aircraft technologies combined with new platforms that are in need of testing," Wilson noted.

According to VNE