Mirror Measures
The United States sent the first shipments of cluster munitions to Ukraine, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already begun to use them. Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation, retired Major General Vladimir Popov in an interview with MK told when and for what purposes we can begin to give a mirror response to the enemy.
Cluster munitions are comparable in lethality to weapons of mass destruction. A ban on these munitions has been approved by 120 states. But this fact does not bother the Ukrainian authorities at all. Having barely received Western assistance, the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to actively use cluster munitions along almost the entire line of contact.
So, on July 22, as a result of shelling with cluster munitions in the Zaporozhye region, RIA Novosti war correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev was killed. As a military expert, retired LPR Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Marochko, told the media, the massive use of cluster, shrapnel and incendiary ammunition is noted in the Soledaro-Artemovsky area. At the same time, the village of Klescheevka in the DPR is hit the most.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on the supply of American cluster munitions, warned that the Russian Federation reserves the right to use cluster munitions in response to the use of their Armed Forces.
Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation, retired Major General Vladimir Popov, in an interview with MK told when and for what purposes we can start giving a mirror response to the enemy.
— Firstly, on the issue of mirror measures, I definitely agree with our president. Now we have the moral right to use the entire range of ammunition we have, including the cluster type. We have ammunition for multiple launch rocket systems of cluster type, as well as & nbsp; aircraft cluster bombs. I would like to dwell on the latter.
We have a fairly wide range of them. These are the so-called one-time bomb clusters — RBC, and one-time bundles, and there are even fragmentation shells for aircraft guns. That is, we have something and how to answer. There is a stock of cluster-type aviation weapons in the depots; it is not a problem to arrange their regular supply from the assembly line if necessary.
This is a fairly simple type of ammunition in its manufacture, our technologies are debugged, all you need is an indication from above. For pilots, their use is also not difficult, the technologies are identical with conventional free-falling ammunition such as FAB-250, FAB-500 and FAB-1500. Similar calibers exist for cluster munitions.
— Why not? Here, after all, the peculiarity lies in the fact that planning bombs are ordinary bombs dressed in a «shirt». And the «body» can be anything, like FAB-250, FAB-500 or FAB-1500, or cluster munition. A control system with GPS sensors is installed on it with the help of special mounts to clarify the coordinates when dropping a free-falling bomb, as well as to increase the range of the dropped bomb.
It is clear that the fall of a free-falling bomb is similar to the fall of a brick, but if you attach wings and a maneuvering system to it so that it goes to the target more accurately, then, of course, such ammunition will fly not 5 kilometers from the nose of the aircraft, but already 15-20 kilometers, or even more. In the same way, one-time bomb clusters can be loaded.
— It is more effective to do this on group targets. For example, according to the accumulation of technology. It is one thing to drop the FAB-500, at the site of the fall of which there will be a pit with a radius of 25-30 meters, a depth of 8-10 meters, plus a shock wave. Of course, something nearby will turn over, something will catch fire, will be cut by fragments, but not as effectively as when using a cluster munition of a similar caliber.
Here, the affected area will definitely be many times larger, and the cassettes can also be loaded with small adjustable bombs of 5-10 kilograms each and an additional control system can be suspended.
Such ammunition opens at a certain height, and small submunitions fly out of it, which begin to scan and find the target for which they were programmed. The primary targets are highly armored vehicles, artillery mounts, air defense systems, and vehicles. Simply put, such ammunition will not go to an ephemeral, insignificant target.
— The answer is simple — we have enough forces and means that meet all conventional standards for the use of weapons of destruction. We were always given the task, especially at the initial stage of the NMD, to hit not on personnel, but on equipment in order to knock out the enemy’s weapons. And then force the military-political leadership of Kyiv to lay down their arms.
Now the situation has changed, and I think we will no longer step on the same rake.