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Russia attacked a shopping centre in the eastern Ukrainian town of Dobropillia with a FAB-type 500-kg aerial bomb, killing at least four people and injuring 27 others, regional officials reported Thursday.
Fifty-four retail outlets, 304 apartments, and eight vehicles have been struck, and a fire broke out following the attack, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the strike as “simply horrific” and said there was “no military logic” to it.
“This is horrendous, dumb Russian terror. Simply an attempt to kill as many as possible. Russia is all about vile strikes like this.”
Dobropillia is a town located in the west of the Donetsk region, approximately 15 kilometres from the front line. Russian forces are attempting to advance towards it from the southeast.
A glide aerial bomb is a basic, often primitive air-dropped bomb modified with wings and frequently equipped with a satellite navigation system, allowing it to be launched from a distance rather than directly over a target.
FAB — an acronym for “high-explosive aerial bomb” in Russian — is one of the most widely used bombs since Soviet times and is actively employed by Russia in its all-out war against Ukraine.
These aerial bombs have become a serious threat to Ukrainian infrastructure and frontline cities. They are used in strikes against Ukrainian Armed Forces positions, logistics hubs, bridges and industrial facilities, as they are most effective against static targets.
According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Russian glide bombs killed 360 and injured 1,861 Ukrainian civilians in 2024, a threefold increase in fatalities and a sixfold increase in injuries compared to 2023.
Russian forces employ various sizes of glide bombs, weighing 250, 500, or 1,000 kilograms. The most powerful in Russia’s arsenal is the FAB-3000, a three-tone high-explosive bomb, which the Russian Defence Ministry claimed has gone into mass production.
Glide bombs are highly destructive and very difficult to shoot down. Unlike missiles, they do not have a propulsion system, so they don’t generate much heat and are therefore largely immune to interception by infrared homing missiles.
