Ukraine's vs. Russia's capabilities: Defense Express analyses Western KAB analogues and Soviet stockpiles

He shared the information on Espreso TV.

"Ukraine is already using Western long-range gliding bombs, we are talking about JADM. This has already been officially announced. We are talking about Ukraine using GBU-39 aircraft bombs and French Hammer guided bombs. But the fact is that  Russia has scaled up production of its own UMPK, and the Russians are producing them in huge numbers. The issue is that the JADM-ER is a new product. The US Air Force does not use it at all. This is a development that was created in the Australian segment of Boeing. So these bombs need to be manufactured. As for the SDB bombs, the situation is better, but there is a corresponding resource," Katkov said.

According to the military expert, Ukraine still has a large number of Soviet aircraft bombs.

"Why don't we create something similar to the UMPK? The difference is that Russians can use their aircraft in virtually any mode. The UMPK is dropped from a high-altitude flight at ranges of 70-80 km. That is, the enemy can approach at an altitude of 8-12 km, about 50 km from the front line, and drop a bomb and perform an anti-aircraft manoeuvre, i.e. withdraw. Ukrainian aviation cannot do this because the enemy has air superiority," Katkov said.

The military expert also added that if Ukraine is to use similar UMPK, it will be in the so-called "yawing" mode.

"That is, the aircraft must approach at low altitude, lift its nose and eject the UMPK analogue, which will follow a trajectory to the target. That's why the design is a little different. And we are not talking about gliding, here there are much more complex tasks," Katkov explained.

• Chief of Aviation of Ukraine's Air Force, Serhiy Holubotsov, said that in a few weeks Ukraine would start the first tests of domestically produced UAVs.