Ukraine deploys its first domestically made guided bombs to battlefield, narrowing Russia’s advantages

Ukraine's domestically produced guided aerial bombs (KABs) have entered combat use, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced at the Brave1 Advantage event, Militarnyi reported. Products from two of eight Ukrainian developers involved in the program have reached frontline units; the others remain at various stages of development and testing.

Russia has deployed glide bombs at a rate of thousands per month throughout the war, giving its air force a standoff strike capability that Ukraine has struggled to match with the limited Western-supplied equivalents it received. Ukraine has been scaling domestic precision-weapons production across multiple developers to reduce that dependence.

What Fedorov said

Fedorov described the path to maximum effectiveness under real combat conditions as long and complex, but said accuracy statistics and effectiveness during testing are "pleasantly impressive." Development follows a modular approach, with multiple teams building munitions across different weight categories, technical characteristics, and guidance principles. He did not specify which two developers have cleared the threshold for frontline delivery, nor did he provide figures on how many munitions have been used in combat.

A guaranteed budget slice

Fedorov tied the bombs' combat debut to a structural shift in how Ukraine allocates defense funding under its Brave1 innovation strategy. Under an "80/20" formula he described, 20% of the relevant budget goes specifically to innovative weapons systems, all of which pass through accelerated testing at specialized ranges before transfer to combat units.

The Brave1 platform, Ukraine's government-backed defense tech cluster, has registered more than 3,500 defense developments and channeled grants to developers, including for the guided bomb program.

What is already known about Ukraine's guided bombs

Ukraine's first domestically built guided aerial bomb, the Vyrivniuvach ("Equalizer"), was declared combat-ready on 18 May 2026 by DG Industry after 17 months of development through Brave1.

It carries a 250 kg warhead and targets fortifications, command posts, and other military objects. The weapon is purpose-built from the airframe up. Ukraine's Defense Ministry purchased an initial experimental batch, and the bomb made its international debut at the Eurosatory-2026 defense exhibition in Paris in June.

A second Ukrainian company, BlueBird Tech, announced a partnership with a Ukrainian scientific and design bureau to develop and serially produce its own guided aerial bombs. Domestically produced KABs carry no donor-use restrictions, meaning Ukraine can strike targets without seeking approval from supplying countries, unlike Western-supplied munitions. The Vyrivniuvach costs roughly a third of the American JDAM-ER kit Ukraine has relied on since 2023.