Ukraine downs Russia’s new Grom-1 bomb-missile near Dnipro

Serhiy Lysak, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, reported the information.

According to him, the explosion heard in the suburbs of Dnipro was the work of air defense. He said that the military had shot down the latest Grom-1 bomb-missile.

The explosion in the city was first reported by monitoring Telegram channels. According to their information, a guided aerial bomb or a guided air-launched missile almost reached Dnipro. Meanwhile, air defense forces were operating in the city.

Around 11:30 a.m., the Air Force warned about the movement of a guided aerial bomb past Zaporizhzhia, heading towards the Dnipropetrovsk region. Soon after, an explosion was heard in the suburbs of Dnipro.

Later, the military explained that an aerial target, launched from a Russian tactical aviation aircraft, was detected in the airspace of the temporarily occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region.

"The target flew over 100 km and was shot down by air defense outside the city of Dnipro. The type of aerial target will be determined after studying the debris at the crash site," the Air Force emphasized.

At the same time, Suspilne sources in the Air Force said that an experimental bomb might have been directed at the city, but also stressed that the debris needs to be examined first.

"The standard range of a guided bomb was about 70 km. Jet engines have been installed on them for a long time. They are constantly experimenting, trying to increase this range. They are trying to reach a range of about 100 km. But again, this is not mass-produced, it is experimental," a media source noted.

In addition, the source insists that despite the possible launch of a guided aerial bomb, there is currently no great danger for Dnipro.

"Even with bombs on Kharkiv now, they are not hitting as they did, say, a year ago. At most, they use KABs on the line of combat contact," the Air Force source added.

What is known about the latest Russian Grom-1 bomb-missile

Back in March 2023, photos appeared online indicating that the Russians had used the Grom-1 aerial munition for the first time since the start of the full-scale invasion. It is positioned as a hybrid of a missile and a glide bomb, based on the Kh-38, with a maximum range of up to 120 km.

According to Defense Express, this missile was created as a dangerous replacement for the old Soviet Kh-25 and Kh-29 missiles. The Kh-38 missile was adopted by the Russian Aerospace Forces in 2012, and the first presentation of the Grom bomb-missiles took place three years later.

At that presentation, two variants were shown: the Grom-1 itself, with a warhead weighing 315 kg and a jet engine, and the Grom-2 without a jet engine but with an additional warhead weighing 165 kg.

Researcher Piotr Butowski, citing the head of the Tactical Missile Armament corporation, noted that the Grom-1 was created using the airframe of the Kh-38 missile, with corresponding structural modifications. Thus, it may no longer be entirely correct to consider the Grom-1 a hybrid of a missile and a glide bomb. Moreover, there is an assumption that the actual base for the Russian Grom-1 is the OFAB-500U aerial bomb, and for the Grom-2—the KAB-500OD aerial bomb.