Europe claims to have found an "antidote" for Russia's UMPK bomb

Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform said that their European partners have completed testing of an air defense system, which can be used against Russian FAB bombs, equipped with unified planning and correction modules (UMPK).

The Ukrainian UMPK guided glide bomb air defense system, which is part of the Innovation Challenge project, announced in February this year, will include a number of artificial intelligence (AI)-based components to physically intercept Russian glide bombs while they are flying towards their targets.

The air defense system is an AI-based defense complex that identifies and predicts the trajectory of UMPK bombs, developed by the French company Alta Ares. It is equipped with UAVs with high-quality cameras, thermal imaging sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to process data in real time.

In terms of bomb interception, when a glide bomb or suicide UAV is detected, a swarm of FPV UAVs will be used to create an explosive barrier for Russian drones and bombs. To do this, the DWS-1 (Drone Wall System) system of the French company Atreyd, consisting of about 1 thousand UAVs, will be used. The flight of these UAVs will be adjusted by AI.

Another method to intercept the Russian UMPK glide bomb is to use the Tytan autonomous interceptor UAV, which can intercept the glide bomb with a kinetic attack. This product is developed by the German company Tytan Technology, equipped with machine vision and AI. The speed of the UAV is about 250 km/h with a range of 15 km. The mass of the explosive is 1 kg.

But according to experts, these interception methods are only effective in the laboratory, and are not suitable for fierce battlefields like in Ukraine. Russia's UMPK bombs are usually dropped on field targets in the front, so deploying such systems is impossible.

The UMPK bomb is a type of bomb developed by Russia, which aims to turn conventional bombs into glide bombs that can be automatically controlled, using the unified planning and correction module (UMPK); the operating mechanism is similar to the US JDAM-ER bomb.

Russia's successful modification of conventional bombs into UMPK guided bombs has significantly enhanced the Russian air force's ability to carry out precise strikes on Ukrainian military targets in the frontline and has become a "nightmare" weapon for Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield.

Faced with this situation, Ukrainian and Western experts have focused on solutions to counter this dangerous Russian weapon. On February 25, 2025, the blogger Fighterbomber, who specializes in the Russian air force, said that their UMPK bombs no longer hit their targets as accurately as before. The blogger explained this decline by saying that Ukraine deployed satellite jamming (SATNAV) against the UMPK module.

Fighterbomber stressed that the Ukrainian military has deployed mobile and portable electronic warfare stations. These stations are reportedly widely deployed along the front line, with the aim of neutralizing satellite-based guided weapons such as the UMPK bomb or the Geran-2 suicide drone.

Not only the blogger Fighterbomber, but also the American Forbes, in an article at the end of February, also wrote about the successful jamming of Russian UMPK guided glide bombs by the Ukrainian army. Forbes said that Ukraine had effectively jammed UMPK bombs across the front line, thereby neutralizing one of Russia's main advantages on the battlefield.

Subsequently, other Ukrainian sources and several Russian military bloggers confirmed the information about the reduced effectiveness of the Russian UMPK bomb due to Ukrainian electronic warfare measures. These developments demonstrate the constantly evolving nature of modern warfare, where electronic warfare measures can have a strong impact on the effectiveness of modern weapons.

The Ukrainian military has received significant Western assistance in improving its electronic warfare capabilities; in particular, in jamming Russian guided weapons, with a focus on countering UMPK glide bombs. The Ukrainian military’s success in countering Russian UMPK glide bombs in the first part of the year was likely due to the widespread deployment of SATNAV jammers along the frontline.

Over the past three years, the capabilities of Ukraine's electronic warfare systems have been steadily increasing. In the first months of 2025, Ukraine's electronic warfare capabilities have improved significantly, compared to the period when the new UMPK bombs were launched by Russia on the battlefield.

But “the happy days are short-lived”, Ukraine’s joy did not last long, Russia has improved the UMPK module with higher anti-jamming capabilities. Also according to the blogger Fighterbomber, Russia has just put into use an upgraded version of the UMPK module.

The most notable improvement is the new Kometa satellite navigation module, which overcomes the weaknesses that existed in the previous Kometa-M version, which was susceptible to jamming in modern combat environments. At least two videos have appeared on social networks recording the FAB-500PD glide bomb, equipped with a glide wing and UMPK guidance kit, hitting the target with high precision.

Since mid-April 2025, Fighterbomber has noted that attacks using FAB-500PD bombs equipped with UMPKs have returned with high frequency. Notably, the accuracy of the attacks has improved significantly, according to descriptions from this source.

The Russian tactical air force not only increased the number of UMPK bombs used in each attack (from 2 to 4 at a time), but also adopted a new tactic: dispersing the flight trajectories of each bomb to complicate the Ukrainian jamming efforts. This tactic both increased the overall destructive power and made it difficult for EW systems to effectively interfere with all the bombs in the attack salvo at once.

According to many analyses, Russia's continued use of UMPK bombs on a large scale shows that they possess both abundant reserves and strong production capacity, capable of producing hundreds of UMPK modules per day, to serve attacks, and Ukraine and the West must again strive to find a way to suppress this dangerous Russian weapon.

Source: https://khoahocdoisong.vn/chau-au-tuyen-bo-tim-ra-thuoc-giai-cho-bom-umpk-nga-post1550655.html