Ukraine Just Ran Its First-Ever Bomb+Missile Attack With NATO Weapons

There is a good deal of circumstantial evidence NATO air reconnaissance was involved, though no hard proof. But it sure looked like a small NATO-style coordinated strike package à la Red/Maple Flag. Make us preferred on Google Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Ukrainian Air Force F-16AM multirole fighter shown with 0 [zero] x AIM-120 AMRAAM, 4 x AIM-9 Sidewinders, two 370 gallon (1,400 liter) external fuel tanks, with stations 3 and 7 ready for a reload of air-to-ground ordnance. (Photo by Ukrainian Air Force / X ) Content Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Flip Make us preferred on Google Strike aircraft on Tuesday, April 14, hit a Russian drone base with advanced NATO-standard bombs and missiles, in the Ukrainian Air Force’s first-ever combat use of those precision-guided weapons in a single, combined attack. The Ukrainian planes launched France-manufactured SCALP cruise missiles and dropped US-manufactured GBU-39s to hit buildings in Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine, near the Donetsk airport, reportedly damaging a strategic drone depot and inflicting casualties. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . Video published by Ukraine’s General Staff (GS) showed three or four explosions hitting badly damaged buildings geo-located at the airport. One detonation showed possible signs of an internal blast characteristic of the detonation of a SCALP missile penetrator warhead. Another blast was visually similar to secondary explosions typical of stored ammunition blowing up. According to the GS statement, the attack hit a Russian drone unit and facilities used by it to launch Shahed drones at civilian targets inside Ukraine. Confirmed Shahed launches had taken place from that site in the past. There was no direct confirmation of the GS claim; mainstream Ukrainian media and some Russian milbloggers reported the rare bomb+missile air strike had in fact taken place and that a Shahed base had been hit. France first announced it was transferring SCALP-EG (Système de Croisière Autonome à Longue Portée – Emploi Général) cruise missiles to Ukraine in May 2023. The first Ukrainian combat use of the weapon designed to penetrate deeply into a target before exploding was in August 2023, in that strike by a Soviet-era Su-24 fighter-bomber. Other Topics of Interest 'Putin Won’t Distract Us' – UK to Supply at Least 120,000 Drones to Ukraine in Largest-Ever Package Britain announced its biggest drone package for Ukraine, pledging at least 120,000 drones this year as part of broader military support. An advanced missile with terrain-following capability and strong resistance to electronic warfare (EW) jamming and spoofing, the SCALP and its British twin Storm Shadow are probably the most accurate precision-guided missiles in the Ukrainian Air Force’s arsenal. Kyiv has received only 50-100 of the weapons in total and has used them only in attacks against very high-priority targets. The publicly divulged range of SCALP/Storm Shadow is 250+ kilometers (155 miles) for the export model. The Tuesday French cruise missile attack hitting Donetsk airport, according to the GS, was paired with strikes by Boeing-manufactured GBU-39 bombs, a self-guiding glide bomb developed for the US military and used extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and most recently in Iran. When released at high altitude, the bomb can glide up to 110 kilometers (69 miles) and uses inertial guidance and GPS navigation to reliably hit a target within 5-8 meters (16.4-26.3 feet) of its desired mean point of impact (DMPI); with crypto-keys loaded by specialized ground equipment it would use enhanced differential GPS to spear a target within 1 meter (3.3 feet) of its DMPI. The GBU-39/B uses the Small Diameter Bomb with the ability to penetrate up to 1 meter of steel reinforced concrete under 1 meter of soil, with a warhead weight of 206 pounds (93 kilograms) with just 36 pounds (16 kilograms) of an advanced dual-purpose explosive fill, with a cockpit-selectable fuze to command an airburst option for increased blast and fragmentation damage or penetration to the interior of a hardened target, which requires a larger casing to explosive ratio than a general purpose bomb. Because of the small size and compact design, the delivery aircraft can carry four GBU-39s on a station that would typically carry a single 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) bomb. Another factor incorporated into the design is a decrease in collateral damage, by containing more punch in a smaller, more precise weapon. Although the GS video did not make clear which weapons hit which targets, all hits were at or near the dead center of buildings, through the roof. Intense Ukrainian and even NATO air activity preceded, coincided with, and followed the Donetsk airport attack. Preliminary attacks against air defenses in the vicinity, a common Ukrainian air activity prior to a major Ukrainian strike against a high-value target, took place repeatedly in the lead-up to the Tuesday attack. Ukraine’s 1st Separate Center of the Unmanned Systems Forces (Ukrainian: Сили безпілотних систем or SBS) on April 9 announced its teams had destroyed nine Russian Tor-M1 medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems, including in the occupied Donetsk region, along with multiple short-range Pantsir short-range gun/missile air defense systems, from April 1-9. A follow up strike on April 10, announced by the SBS unit 9th Battalion Kairos, took out another Tor-M1 system in Mariupol, 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Donetsk city, as well as another Pantsir at an unspecified Donetsk region location. Possible Ukrainian probes of, or attacks on, unspecified Russian regional air defenses took place almost daily in the week leading up to the Donetsk airport attack, according to Kyiv Post records of confirmed Ukrainian long-range drone activity. This activity was most intense over Crimea. Among engagements of Russian air defenses with Ukrainian drones in the area included, over that period, Gvardeyske airfield in Crimea (April 13), a Russian military base south of Donetsk near the village Rybinske (April 14), and drone strikes hitting unspecified ground targets in the Crimean cities of Armyansk, Dzhankoe, Feodosia and Simferopol. Ukraine’s GS later in the day published video showing a drone hitting a very high-value Russian Nebo-U long-range air surveillance radar station geo-located to the port city Feodosia. Destruction of Russian long-range radars prior to a strike using rare NATO nation-produced weapons is a common Ukrainian Air Force tactic, however, Kyiv Post could not independently confirm the Feodosia attack was intended as a preliminary to the Donetsk airport attack. NATO air surveillance activity over the Black Sea and eastern Poland spiked in the days leading up to the strike as well. The Kremlin has accused NATO of using intelligence gathered by its reconnaissance flights to help Ukraine find Russian targets to hit, a charge widely accepted by Ukrainian military analysts but never formally confirmed by NATO. NATO’s most common airborne platform used for electronic intelligence (ELINT) data gathering is the RC-135 Rivet Joint (RJ), a four-engine converted Boeing 707 that collects electronic emissions from ground-based radars and other devices radiating in the electromagnetic spectrum. Following a hiatus of more than a week, the RJ flew search patrols the length of the Black Sea on April 10 and April 13, one day before the strike. As in past missions, the Royal Air Force planes flew from and returned to Britain. The most common targets for a Rivet Joint are electronic signal emitters like air defense radars and military communications systems. The aircraft’s collection capability is classified; however, Russian milbloggers have suggested a Rivet Joint flight passing over the center of the Black Sea could triangulate a target deep into Ukraine and southern Russia. Along with daily Turkish Air Force maritime patrols over the southern Black Sea, a Romanian-based US “civilian” reconnaissance aircraft registered in Manassas, Virginia, tail number N159L, flew a parallel search with the Rivet Joint on April 10, and patrols of its own the length of the Black Sea on April 11 and 13. N159L is a 2020 Bombardier Challenger 650 known to have been modified into a specialized intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft called the ARTEMIS II (not to be confused with the NASA mission of last week), and owned by the private American company Lasai Aviation LLC. The US Army contracting company Leidos operates the aircraft. According to open sources, the plane, outwardly resembling a standard luxury business jet, contains extensive modifications that include antennas, sensors, servers, and computer systems to intercept and process ELINT-type emissions, and deliver data and real-time intelligence to US government users and those they grant access to the information. According to open-source flight tracking platforms, in addition, a NATO-flagged E-3A Sentry AWACS plane flew to eastern Romania and orbited in airspace there on Tuesday, the day of the Donetsk airport strike, and on Wednesday, the day after. The announced presence of that aircraft type, capable of spotting flying objects like planes or missiles several hundred kilometers distant, has been uncommon throughout the Russo-Ukrainian War. Two E3-A Sentry flights over eastern Romania for two days, visible to open-source trackers, since Russia invaded Ukraine a second time, is extremely rare, taking place about once a year, Kyiv Post records showed. A possible but unconfirmed scenario for NATO airborne support to the Donetsk airport strike could have been identification of Russian air defense systems for follow-on strikes by Ukrainian forces or real-time modification of ingress routes to bypass those defenses, and air surveillance for Russian fighters and interceptor missiles potentially attacking the Ukrainian strike aircraft as they approached. On Monday, a Russian air watch milblogger claimed a French carrier-borne reconnaissance plane escorted by four Rafale air superiority fighters flew from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and carried out patrol and intelligence-gathering work, but without corroborating evidence. No other air watch platforms confirmed that report. Stefan Korshak is the Kyiv Post Senior Defense Correspondent. He is from Houston Texas, is a Yalie and since the mid-1990s has worked as correspondent/photographer for newswire, newspapers, television and radio. He has reported from five wars but most enjoys doing articles on wildlife and nature. You can read his weekly blog on the Russo-Ukraine War on Facebook, Substack and Medium. His new book on the 2022 Siege of Mariupol is available on Amazon UK and Amazon US .