For the first time since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russian forces attacked Kharkiv with the Grom-E1, a hybrid weapon combining a missile and a guided aerial bomb. This assault took place on the evening of Saturday, August 31, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported.
“After a brief pause in August, Russia has resumed its intensified attacks on Kharkiv. The enemy’s new targets, as always, were civilian areas and ordinary people who were at home, walking on the street, or at work when the explosions occurred. During the evening shelling on August 31, the enemy used the Grom-E1 on Kharkiv for the first time in the war, deploying an atypical weapon—a hybrid of a missile and a guided aerial bomb,” Terekhov shared on his Telegram channel on September 2.
The other time this weapon was on September 19, 2023, when Russian forces attacked Kupiansk with the Grom-E1 hybrid missile. It is known to be based on the Soviet Kh-38 missile and has a maximum range of 120 kilometers, according to the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office.
Serhiy Bolvinov, Head of the investigative department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv region, noted that the Grom-E1 missile is rarely used by Russian forces, making it an uncommon choice for strikes.
The “Grom” system was developed in 2015. These are guided missiles equipped with a high-explosive modular warhead weighing 315 kilograms, featuring a contact detonator and powered by a jet engine. The missiles’ wings deploy mid-flight, and they can be launched up to a range of 120 kilometers when dropped from a maximum altitude of 12 kilometers, with the aircraft reaching speeds of up to 1,600 kilometers per hour.
