Ukraine’s MiG-29 Delivers Dual Target Precision Strike With French Hammer

Later reports suggest Ukrainian aviators also used the Hammer in a raid targeting a Russian drone crew near Kherson.

AFU

A MiG‑29, still proving its mettle, executed a precision strike from the southern front, successfully neutralizing both a Russian infantry cluster and an ammunition depot in one stunning sortie.

The Hammer-250 AASM, a precision-guided bomb made by France’s Safran, hit its mark with clinical accuracy in both instances. Footage posted via Sonyashnyk Telegram captures the initial impact, fire and debris tearing through the building, followed by a secondary detonation as stored munitions exploded in sequence.

Later reports suggest Ukrainian aviators also used the Hammer in a raid targeting a Russian drone crew near Kherson.

In the chaos of conflict, that MiG-29 sortie represented more than a one-off strike: it was a statement of capability under pressure. After taking off in the early dawn hours, the pilot navigated through a shifting air defense umbrella and opted for a direct low-altitude ingress toward hostile territory.

By hugging the terrain and using thermal inversion layers, the jet evaded Russian radar pickets, then released its AASM Hammer bomb on the infantry staging area positioned in an agricultural compound.

Unlike scattershot strikes, this was deliberate: the weapon hit the compound's perimeter, canceling any chance for soldiers to disperse, and triggering a secondary blast that demonstrated how underground munitions stockpiles are interlinked hazards.

Moments later, still on station, the pilot executed a textbook “S-turn” maneuver to evade radar tracking before deploying a second Hammer on the nearby ammunition depot. This depot was hardened and concealed, devoid of clear roof signatures, meaning the jet had placed precise coordinates into its systems days prior using ISR data from drone overflights and allied Finnish or Japanese SAR satellite feeds.

When the Hammer hit, the tightly bundled explosives detonated in a chain reaction, transforming the site into a ball of flame visible on open-source satellite imagery hours later. That's not happenstance, that’s operational artistry, where intel, munitions, and airframe converge in real time.

Crucially, this mission demonstrated Ukraine’s growing ability to blend legacy assets with Western ISR and firepower. The pilot was executing a scripted, multi-tiered precision strike across multiple objectives, in a single mission, without swapping to a different aircraft lane or orbiting for a reload. He launched, struck, computed terminal coordinates, and withdrew; all in a tight sortie profile that left no room for escalation or Russian scramble response.

That MiG‑29 shattered the illusion that older jets are one-trick ponies. Ukraine just wrote a new rule: legacy platforms, wired with Western smart weapons and satellite intel loops, punch above their age… and that shift won’t go unnoticed in Moscow. Also, fuck Moscow.

MiG‑29 – A Classic Platform Repurposed

Think of the MiG-29 as a battle-tested old stallion that’s just been upgraded with jet fuel, avionics, and a new mission: precision strike artistry. This jet, introduced in the early 1980s as an air-superiority fighter, has seen decades of service, but Ukraine’s engineers and pilots have resurrected it with surgical accuracy in mind.

Traditionally, a MiG‑29 was all about dogfighting: aggressive turn rates, short-range missiles, heavy thrust, but little in the way of stand-off strike capability or smart-weapons compatibility.

There was a time when I thought the MiG-29 Fulcrum was a sexy looking beast of an aircraft.

Sure, it lacked the bomb-carrying versatility and long-legged payload options NATO platforms enjoy. Now all that’s changing. Adaptations over the past two years have added Western navigation pods, data-link interfaces, and weapons wiring upgrades, allowing the MiG-29 to carry and properly "talk" to modern smart weapons.

In effect, Ukraine has retasked its fighter fleet, turning air-to-air platforms into multi-role strike assets ready for deep, precise engagements.

The cockpit itself got an overhaul. Analog gauges have been supplemented by digital screens, showing GPS waypoints, targeting cues, IR feeds. The pilot can now lock in coordinates on a tablet-secure platform and call for precision release points instead of conventional bombs. As a result, a MiG-29 that once closed to visual range now stands off 50 kilometers away, feeds on ISR data, and drops a guided weapon with the same surgical intent as a Western jet.

Even the training changed. Pilots once drilled on dogfight maneuvers and short-range engagements. Today, missions focus heavily on integrated operations: coordinating with drones, reading remote ISR, selecting strike windows, and executing sophisticated ingress-egress routes informed by battlefield data. That's not retrofitting, it’s complete role conversion.

What’s more, this transformation hasn’t come from foreign contracts or factory-overhaul programs. It’s homegrown. Ukrainian technicians, often working under blackout conditions, have reverse-engineered wiring harnesses, reprogrammed avionics computers, and integrated foreign-made targeting pods; all on a shoestring and on the fly. That tells you two things: the MiG‑29 may be old, but it’s flexible, and Ukrainian innovation isn't waiting for external help; they're upgrading under fire, out of necessity.