France will have delivered a total of 600 AASM-250 Hammer rocket-assisted bombs to Ukraine by the end of the year, according to the French National Assembly Defense Committee.
The Hammers will have come from existing, aging stocks, and plans are in the works to quickly produce more.
“The production of AASM bombs must be significantly accelerated in order to renew the [French] stocks with new munitions,” the committee stated. “The Ministry of the Armed Forces now aims to produce 1,200 by 2025.”
In January, we wrote that France would send Ukraine 50 Hammers per month. The baseline 500-pound-class version has a stand-off range of up to around 43 miles (70 kilometers), similar to that of Ukraine’s U.S.-supplied winged Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range bombs, or JDAM-ERs
The Hammer bombs have been used by Ukraine to great effect. In August, we had our best look yet one of the country’s MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters employing these precision-guided munitions. A video released at the time, shot from inside the jet’s cockpit, showed the pilot utilizing a low-level toss bomb technique, which is one mode in which the rocket-boosted munitions were designed to be used.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Col. Yuri Ignat posted the footage, seen below, which shows the release of two Hammers, on social media earlier today. Ignat said he did so earlier than planned as a tribute to Oleksandr Myhulia, the Ukrainian pilot who shot the video and who was killed while flying a combat mission on August 12.
Ukraine is also using Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack aircraft as Hammer bomb trucks.
News about another potential tranche of weapons for Ukraine has emerged, this time from the collapse of the German government.
Faced with pressure, largely over a weak economy, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a snap election on Feb. 23. A leading challenger for that job issued an ultimatum to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his forces should end the fight in 24 hours or he would push to provide air-launched Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missiles to Ukraine. That’s a 180-degree change from Scholz’s position.
“Scholz absolutely refuses to deliver the Taurus missiles, even though a majority in the Bundestag sees it differently,” said Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union. “I am open to it and have suggested giving the government in Kyiv the right to say: If the bombing of civilians does not stop within 24 hours, the range restrictions on the available weapons will be jointly lifted. If that’s not enough, the Taurus missiles will be delivered a week later. This would allow Ukraine to regain the initiative.”
The Taurus missile, which offers broadly similar capabilities to the British Storm Shadow and French SCALP-EG, reportedly has a range of more than 300 miles. Ukraine has been seeking it as another weapon to strike deep behind Russian lines.
Germany recently announced plans to acquire a new variant of that missile, which you can read more about here.
Giving Ukraine Taurus missiles and lifting restrictions on the use of weapons deep inside Russia would provide Kyiv with a much-needed boost in its long-range strike capacity. Germany’s snap election comes a day ahead of the third anniversary of the full-on invasion of Ukraine. A Merz victory might be a hopeful sign for Kyiv.
The Latest
On the battlefield, Russia’s massive Kursk counteroffensive is so far making little headway, the Pentagon’s top spokesman told The War Zone on Tuesday.
The Russians have been making “incremental gains” in Kursk “with the Ukrainians largely holding a line,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder during a press briefing in response to our question.
In Ukraine, meanwhile, the Russians continue to gain territory, especially in the east near Kurakhove in Donetsk Oblast. There are also rumblings by Russian milbloggers of a potentially large-scale attack in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
“In recent days, more and more data has been coming in about the activation of Russian troops in different sections of the key front – Zaporizhzhya,” the Russian Operation Z Telegram channel claimed. “This is approximately 125 kilometers wide from the Kakhovka Reservoir in the west to the Vremyevsk salient (Velyka Novosyolka area) in the east. The Russian army is attacking in several directions at once.”
Here are some key takeaways from the Institute for the Study of War’s (ISW) latest assessment:
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast.
- Russian forces are successfully leveraging their recent seizure of Vuhledar to make tactically significant gains south of Kurakhove in support of ongoing Russian offensive operations that aim to level the frontline and eliminate the Ukrainian salient in western Donetsk Oblast.
- ISW is revising its previous assessment that Russian forces would not likely be able to take advantage of the seizure of Vuhledar for further offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast. That assessment was incorrect.
- Russian forces reportedly continue to advance in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and Russian advances northwest of Vuhledar and south of Velyka Novosilka may begin to pressure Ukrainian positions in Velyka Novosilka.
- Russian forces have advanced in western Donetsk Oblast at a moderate tempo, but Russian forces remain highly unlikely to be able to conduct a rapid mechanized maneuver that could successfully encircle Ukrainian forces.
- Ukrainian and Russian sources stated on November 11 that damage to a dam of the Kurakhivske Reservoir is causing limited flooding in nearby settlements.
- Ukrainian and Russian sources disagreed about who was responsible for damaging the dam, but Russian forces reportedly struck the dam in September 2024.
- Russian forces may have struck the dam in order to cause significant, long-lasting flooding west of Kurakhivske Reservoir that could facilitate Russian efforts to envelop Ukrainian forces north and south of Kurakhove.
Russia is continuing to lose personnel and equipment in Kursk. You can see a compilation of first-person view (FPV) drone attacks against Russians in the video below.
Heavy fighting continues around Kurakhove. Video emerging from the battlefield shows a donated Ukrainian Leopard 2A4 tank of the 33rd Brigade firing point-blank at an oncoming column of Russian vehicles. That, as well as artillery and aviation strikes reportedly destroyed two tanks and six infantry fighting vehicles. The War Zone cannot confirm that claim.
At least three people were killed in a Russian attack on an apartment building in Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown.
“The rescuers pulled the bodies of the mother Olena, and her three kids 10yo Danylo, 2yo Demyd and 2mo Ulyana from the rubble,” wrote Olena Halushka, the co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory.
Russia appears to have found an intact first-person view (FPV) drone capable of at least automated terminal homing. While we have seen this before, we have not seen the associated hardware. An astute observer named Matt Fowler stated on Twitter that one of the images of the drone shows it contained a CORAL AI dev board capable of “performing 4 trillion operations (tera-operations) per second (TOPS),” the company claims.
Having artificial intelligence acquire a target and then guide an FPV drone in its terminal phase would provide a tremendous advantage in launching and completing attacks, something we first examined back in March when this technology appeared to be used by Ukraine. You can read more about how AI will change drone operations in our deep dive here.
In another drone-on-drone warfare development, the Russians are also developing a net-shooting drone designed to better attack FPV drones. They reportedly use AI terminal guidance, which would autonomously guide the nets onto FPV drones locked onto by the controller, greatly improving its ability to complete the attack.
A video released by Russians shows the net-launching drone hunting down the FPV drone and firing a net that smothers it, causing it to crash to the ground.
The U.S. Army is also looking into the use of net-firing drones and recently observed a demonstration of one such system at the Falcon Peak 2025 drone experiment at Fort Carson, Colorado. You can read more about that here.
As we previously reported, FPV drones are being used by both sides to chase down and destroy larger recon and strike drones. Now Russia is working on using strobe lighting on their fixed-wing reconnaissance drones in hopes of temporarily blinding the video feeds of Ukrainian FPV drones hunting drones. That is designed to cause the operator to see mostly blank screens as the camera tries to adjust to the massive changes in exposure from the flashing light.
A video shows an Iranian-developed Shahed-136 drones climbing to avoid a powerline in its flight path. The Shaheds are programmed to avoid these obstacles based on the carefully planned routes that are uploaded prior to launch and that they fly on autopilot to their final destination. The routes take into account many factors, from avoiding known air defense threats to weather to coordination with other Shaheds and decoy drones, as well as the availability of electronic warfare support to cover some portions of their flights.
Not all Shahed-136s are hitting their targets. Video emerged on social media showing one striking a building in Russia’s Belgorod region.
Last week, Ukraine launched its largest drone strike of the war against Moscow. Russian authorities claim they shot down all 34 drones, but that some people on the ground were injured by falling shrapnel.
Unverified videos circulating on Russian Telegram channels “appeared to show significant damage in the wake of the attacks, with dark smoke billowing from several houses and forests and cars and residential buildings on fire,” The Washington Post reported.
The following video showed Ukrainian Air Force jets from the 114th Tactical Aviation Brigade the 422nd Luftwaffe BpS reportedly using U.S.-made GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) and GBU-62 Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range precision-guided bombs, or JDAM-ERs on Russian equipment depots and shelters.
Despite frequent pleas from Zelensky, Poland will not shoot down Russian missiles and drones over Ukrainian territory, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces Wiesław Kukuła said on Tuesday.
“No. Our and the allied position is clear. We will not do this,” he said. “Today, our responsibility for protecting the union sky is determined by our borders.”
Ukrainian forces released drone footage of their troops capturing a Russian soldier alive. He was reportedly the only one of his cohort to survive a firefight.
After hitting a mine, a Russian armored vehicle did a full flip, which you can see in the video below.
Ukraine’s donated equipment is also suffering from mine blasts, as you can see in this video of a Swedish-donated CV9040 Infantry Fighting Vehicle getting blown apart in Russia’s Kursk region.
And finally, a Russian military journalist thought he had a “gotcha” report on a donated Ukrainian Leopard tank. The journalist was crowing that explosive reactive armor tiles on the tank contained not explosives, but bricks. Then he realized that he was mistaken.
The tank was not a Leopard, but a Russian tank.
“Fuck, it’s a T-90,” he said.
That’s it for now.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com