New Weapons Hit Zaporizhzhia

Or, an urgent message from the Glide Bomb Fairy

Last night glide bombs hit Zaporizhzhia city for the first time.

Glide bombs, also known as guided bombs, are old-style ‘dumb bombs’ fitted with guidance systems, which Russia has been using since this spring. Of Ukraine’s large cities, previously they only had sufficient range to hit Kharkiv. Apparently they now have sufficient range to hit Zaporizhzhia (30km from the active front line). Fortunately it seems only smaller ones can get here so far – you can see the level of destruction in the picture from the Real Zaporizhzhia Telegram channel above. I’m sure the Russians are working on getting bigger ones here.

I’d only been volunteering at the Big Family shelter for elderly disabled people in Kharkiv for a few hours when one of the first two glide bombs to hit the city struck our street. Last night I was further from the strikes, though I heard them. And it wasn’t quite the day I arrived this time, but I’d been here less than a week. Apparently I am the Glide Bomb Fairy. It’s a look.

It’s also a feeling. Mighty frustration…

May: The US refuses Ukraine permission to use US-supplied weaponry to hit Russian rocket launchers and planes located within Russia for fear of ‘escalation’. Russia starts using glide bombs to devastate Kharkiv city. The strike on Epitsentr (like US Walmart or UK B&Q) is sufficiently horrible that the US allows Ukraine to strike targets actively threatening Kharkiv from Belgorod region in Russia) Suddenly Russian missile launchers start blowing up instead of the missiles hitting Kharkiv. Russia does nothing to retaliate.

September: The US refuses Ukraine permission to use US-supplied weaponry to hit Russian rocket launchers and planes located further within Russia for fear of ‘escalation’. Russia starts using glide bombs to strike Zaporizhzhia city…

Now what?

Even if the local Epitsentr blows up and the US grudgingly okays the use of its weapons - and UK Storm Shadow missiles that contain US technology, it’s a bit murky how far the UK is able to rule on that - how meagre and grudging will the permission be? Will Ukraine be able to defend Zaporizhzhia a little better for now, while the Russians have leisure to keep improving glide bomb technology so they can hit Kyiv?

This pattern will be studied by historians in the future. I’m active history here, shouting at you. Some informed commentators will tell you that ‘escalation’ is more complicated than it sounds: Western governments aren’t afraid that Russia will start lobbing nukes, but that it will step up covert operations: cyber-attacks, election interference etc… As if that were not happening anyway. I’ve got a degree in Russian Studies myself and I can tell my fellow Westerners that even if we thought we were seeing some rapprochement a few decades ago, Russia is back in full empire mode, and imperial thinking is not rational. It just goes ‘mine mine mine everything should be mine’ and the only way to deal with that is to say ‘no, it’s not yours’ and defend it by any means necessary. It being in this case a large chunk of Europe.

And it is very European here, in those places that weren’t entirely starved of growth by Soviet rule. I’m sitting in a nice coffee shop on the main street, which everyone just calls Prospekt (Avenue). Autumn leaves drifting outside. A police car down the road monitoring the clean-up process from one of the glide bombs.

Please consider sharing this post with others, as its immediate eyewitness value is the point. I make no money from this blog or any volunteer work; every penny I receive is passed on to grassroots Ukrainian causes.