Russia has started mass-producing “high-damage” glide bombs capable of destroying a multi-storey building with one hit.

FAB-1500-M54 bomb explosion.

FAB-1500-M54 bombs weigh 1.5 tons and carry 1,500Ib of explosives, a payload nearly five times the size of Russia’s current arsenal of glide bombs.

Russian military bloggers this week posted three videos of FAB-1500 bombs destroying multi-storey buildings in Ukrainian-held towns near the front lines in Donbas.

In the videos, the bombs speed into the frame at an angle before striking the buildings and exploding into fireballs. In one film, a building collapses after being hit.

“Epic footage of a FAB-1500 direct hit on a target in Krasnogorovka,” said the Iron Helmets Russian war propaganda channel.

Russia has focused on boosting its arsenal of weapons over the past 18 months, ramping up production at its factories and signing supply deals for drones, missiles and artillery shells with North Korea and Iran.

Glide bombs are conventional bombs retrofitted with pop-out wings and a guidance system that turns them into “smart” bombs. They are dropped by fighter jets up to 25 miles away from their target, rather than overhead, and have improved accuracy and faster speeds.

They are also more difficult to shoot down than conventional missiles and drones because they are in the air for only a short time.

John Foreman, Britain’s former military attaché in Moscow, said that Russia’s extensive use of glide bombs showed its innovation and adaptation on the battlefield. “They’re very effective in terms of price and explosive effect and Ukraine has difficulty in defending against them.”

The Kremlin has deployed glide bombs since last year. In November, Mykola Oleschuk, commander of Ukraine’s air force, warned that Russia was preparing to mass-produce the FAB-1500.

Analysts said that Russian production of the bigger glide bomb will increase the Kremlin’s firepower along the front lines, where fighter jets are running up to 100 sorties a day to fire glide bombs at Ukrainian positions.

“Russian forces used glide bomb strikes to tactical effect in their seizure of Avdiivka in mid-February and are likely attempting to replicate such effects to support ongoing operations elsewhere along the front,” said the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Russia’s capture of Avdiivka, near Donetsk, was its first major battlefield victory since the Kremlin’s Wagner mercenary group captured Bakhmut in May last year.

The ISW also said that Russia was continuing to make gains along the front lines, although military bloggers added that Ukrainian forces were strengthening their positions and mounting counter-attacks to push back this advance, which has cost Russia’s army about 900 soldiers killed or injured per day.