A Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber launches a FAB 3000 glide bomb, one of the three strategies that's been forcing Ukrainian defenders to fall back.Russian Defense Ministry/Anadolu via Getty ImagesRussia has hit on an "offensive triangle" of tactics that are forcing Ukraine to lose ground.The key to reviving Russian airpower has been a surprisingly low-tech weapon: glide bombs.
Glide bombs shatter the fortified positions Ukraine's soldiers need to stop Russian assault troops.As the Ukraine war enters its fourth year, Russia seems to have found a winning combination to wear down Ukraine's army.This "offensive triangle," as British military analysts term it, is a triple threat of infantry, drones and glide bombs that Ukraine can't stop.
This also raises the question of whether NATO should fear this lethal trifecta.So far, these Russian tactics haven't produced any decisive battlefield breakthroughs, though they are producing small, steady — and costly — gains. What they are accomplishing is relentlessly wearing down Ukrainian troops and morale by placing them in an impossible position, made more difficult by the Trump administration's freezing of US arms shipments and intelligence.
The strategy has three components."First, the AFRF [Russian armed forces] continue to pin down Ukrainian ground forces on the line of contact with infantry and mechanized forces," according to a study by the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank; Ukraine's frontlines stretch roughly 60.
