They can bring down apartment blocks 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 up to 60 kilometers before striking with devastating force. Along with various other artillery weapons, tanks, and drones, their impact is visible across Ukraine.
Wherever these Russian bombs fell, apocalyptic scenes followed. Entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble, schools and hospitals were leveled, and communities were wiped out.
In Chasiv Yar, once home to more than 10.000 people, Russian forces reached the outskirts in May 2024, but the destruction began much earlier. Drone footage shows buildings collapsing under bombardment, with hospitals and key industrial sites destroyed. Apartment blocks are now empty.
Toretsk, a city of 36.000, has seen similar devastation. After months of Russian advance, apartment buildings, churches, and schools now lie in ruins. Once bustling streets, such as Druzhby and Lisova, are now lined with the remains of destroyed homes and public buildings.
In the border town of Vovchansk, Russian forces opened a new front in the spring of 2024. Although the Ukrainian armed forces repelled the attack, the city did not escape destruction. Landmines and shelling reduced apartment blocks to rubble. Schools, kindergartens, and even the central library were hit, with walls blown away and entire structures collapsing.
Bakhmut, the city that has become a symbol of the devastation Russia has brought to Ukraine, has endured nearly a year of sustained attack. Its cultural centers, government buildings, and residential neighborhoods have all been razed to the ground. The streets are covered in craters and rubble. Rocket City still sticks out of the ground near what used to be the City Council.
In Marinka, which had been on the front lines for years, the Russian invasion brought two years of intense bombing. Today, the town is completely gone. The main avenue is unpaved and lifeless, surrounded by the ruins of apartment buildings, schools, clinics, churches and cultural sites. In the private residential 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 destruction.
The cities that have fared better are usually those outside of artillery range. This was once the case with Zaporizhia, but it came within artillery range in the summer of 2024; since then, air-dropped bombs have become the new reality there.
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