Russia has been plagued for years by friendly-fire incidents with its glide bombs, showing flaws in how Moscow is waging its airstrike campaign, said the UK defense ministry.
“These instances demonstrate continued errors in Russia’s ability to successfully employ their munitions on intended targets,” the ministry said in an intelligence update published on Wednesday.
The update cited an independent Russian open-source intelligence group, Astra, which has for years reported on and posted footage of destruction caused by glide bombs dropped on Russian soil and occupied Ukrainian territories.
The group said in late May that the Russian air force had dropped at least 25 glide bombs on its controlled territories so far this year, after 143 incidents in 2025 and another 165 in 2024.
Russia began hammering Ukraine with dozens of air-launched glide bomb attacks a day in 2023, and has gradually intensified the tempo of its strikes to now drop well over 100 munitions daily.
The UK defense ministry estimated that the Kremlin now conducts over 200 fighter sorties a day, delivering about 180 to 250 glide bombs daily.
The repeated friendly-fire incidents are likely due to a combination of poor procedures for arming the fighters and execution mistakes by air crews, the ministry wrote.
“The frequency of these occurrences likely demonstrates a degree of air and ground crew fatigue within the Russian force, as well as exposing inadequate military training,” it added.
Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
Russian fighter aircraft often launch glide bombs at Ukraine from inside friendly territory, using FAB general-purpose bombs modified with UPMK guidance kits.
Russian Defense Ministry/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
Analysts said that year that the rate of friendly-fire incidents, which often injure or kill civilians in Russian border cities such as Belgorod, may have been due to the guidance kits being faulty or of poor quality.
Russian officials in affected areas have acknowledged such errors before.
One of the Russian defense ministry’s most explicit admissions came in April 2023, when it said a Su-34 had mistakenly dropped a bomb in an “abnormal descent of aviation ammunition” on Belgorod. Local authorities said the munition left a 60-foot-wide crater and injured two women.
