FAB UMPK

Russia's cheap, mass-produced glide-bomb conversion kit — turned Soviet-era free-fall bombs into standoff weapons and became the defining Russian strike capability of the war in Ukraine.

Overview

The UMPK (УМПК — Unifitsirovannyi Modul Planirovaniya i Korrektsii, “Unified Gliding and Correction Module”) is an add-on wing and guidance kit that transforms thousands of Soviet-era unguided bombs into satellite-guided standoff glide bombs. First fielded in early 2023, it enabled Russian tactical aircraft to strike fixed ground targets from outside the reach of most Ukrainian short- and medium-range air defences, at a fraction of the cost of a cruise missile. The kit has been fitted to FAB-250, FAB-500, FAB-1500, FAB-3000, ODAB thermobaric and RBK-500 cluster bombs, spawning a family that now includes extended-range and jet-powered derivatives.

Development

NPO Bazalt proposed a modular glide-kit family as early as 2002, but the idea languished unfunded for two decades. It was hastily revived after Russia’s 2022 invasion consumed large numbers of precision missiles and Ukrainian air defences made low-level unguided bombing unsustainable. The first photographs of an operational UMPK appeared in January 2023, and Russia’s Ministry of Defence publicly acknowledged the kit in May 2023 after it had already been employed in combat for several weeks. According to Wikipedia, the Tactical Missiles Corporation (KTRV) is the developer and producer, though the manufacturer has never been officially named. Production has been scaled continuously; Ukrainian intelligence quoted by European Security & Defence reported that Russia planned up to 120 000 glide bombs in 2025 alone.

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