They can make apartment blocks collapse like a house of cards. In Ukraine, Russia's use of air-dropped bombs equipped with glide kits and precision-guidance systems has brought staggering destruction to civilian areas. These weapons can glide for up to 60 kilometers before striking with devastating force. Together with various other artillery, tanks, and drones, their impact is evident across Ukraine.
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Drone Footage Reveals How Russian Glide Bombs And Artillery Obliterated Ukrainian Cities (Video)
Everywhere Russia has reached with this type of bomb, apocalyptic scenes have followed. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, schools and hospitals flattened, and communities erased.
Chasiv Yar
In Chasiv Yar, once home to more than 10,000 people, Russian forces reached the outskirts in May 2024 -- but the damage began long before that. Drone footage shows buildings collapsing under bombardment, with hospitals and key industrial sites destroyed. Apartment blocks are now hollowed-out shells.
Toretsk
Toretsk, a city of 36,000, has seen similar devastation. After months of Russian advances, apartment buildings, churches, and schools now lie in ruins. Streets once filled with life, like Druzhby and Lisova, are lined with the remains of shattered homes and public buildings.
Vovchansk
In the border city of Vovchansk, Russian forces opened a new front in Spring 2024. Though Ukrainian armed forces repelled the assault, the city did not escape destruction. Glide bombs and shelling reduced apartment blocks to smoking husks. Schools, kindergartens, and even the central library were hit, with walls blown apart. Entire structures collapsed.
Bakhmut
Bakhmut, a city that became a symbol of the destruction Russia has brought to Ukraine, endured nearly a year of continuous assaults. Its cultural centers, government buildings, and residential districts were all leveled. Streets are littered with craters and debris. A Grad rocket still juts out of the earth near what used to be the City Council.
Maryinka
In Maryinka, which had already been on the front line for years, the full-scale Russian invasion brought two years of intense bombardment. Today, the town is gone. The main avenue is unpaved and lifeless, flanked by the ruins of residential buildings, schools, clinics, churches, and cultural sites. In the private housing sector, only garden gates remain.
Russia regularly denies targeting civilian infrastructure. However, as soon as a city falls within range of weapons capable of widespread destruction, it is devastated -- often to the point of near-total ruin.
The cities that have fared better are typically those beyond the reach of artillery. That used to be the case for Zaporizhzhya, but it came within artillery range in the summer of 2024; since then, air-dropped bombs have become a new reality there.