Friendly fire between Russian forces. A report has been published in which it is stated that Moscow has repeatedly made mistakes in launching gliding bombs.
These are not isolated events. The accidental bombings against or even against Russian territory itself They have exceeded one hundred in both 2024 and 2025.
The British intelligence report quotes Astraan independent Russian open source intelligence group that has been reporting and publishing images documenting the destruction caused by Russian gliding bombs landing in places they shouldn’t for years.
Specifically, Astra pointed out at the end of May that the Russian Air Force has launched at least 25 gliding bombs on territories under Russian control so far in 2026. In addition, the group estimated 143 incidents of this type occurred in 2025 and another 165 occurred in 2024.
As stated the UK Ministry of Defense has highlighted that “These cases demonstrate Russia’s continued mistakes in successfully using its ammunition.” against the planned objectives”.
The causes: fatigue among military personnel and insufficient training
Furthermore, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense has expressed that “the frequency of these incidents probably highlights a a certain degree of fatigue among air and ground personnel of the Russian forcesin addition to revealing a insufficient military training”.
It should be noted that throughout the more than four years of war in Ukraine, the Russian authorities have already admitted on more than one occasion the existence of this type of incidents. The clearest recognition took place in April 2023when the Russian Defense Ministry regretted that An Su-34 had mistakenly dropped a bomb in an “anomalous aerial munition drop” over the city of Belgorod.
