MOSCOW: Russia plans to start serial production of its new glide Drel bomb this year, the state TASS news agency cited a representative of the Rostec state defence conglomerate as saying in remarks published on Wednesday.

The bombs, some of Russia’s newest weapons, are capable of flying independently using a gliding flight path onto a target at a greater distance and opening above it at “the right moment,” TASS reported.

“To date, the product has passed all types of tests,” TASS cited an unnamed representative at Rostec as saying.

“The production of the first batch of the Drel aerial bomb is planned for 2024.”

Russia to do ‘everything’ to halt Ukrainian shelling

The Drel is designed to destroy armoured vehicles, ground-based radar stations, power plant control centres and anti-aircraft missile systems, TASS said.

Military analysts say it is also resistant to jamming and to radar detection, making it difficult to destroy.

Russian and Western sources say Drel is a type of cluster bomb.

Cluster munitions are prohibited by more than 100 countries.

They typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area.

Those that fail to explode can pose a danger for decades.

Ukraine, which has received cluster munitions from the United States but pledged to use it only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers, has said Russia has already been deploying its bombs to Ukraine, calling them “an extremely great threat.”

TASS cited the Rostec representative as saying that the information about the use of the bombs in Ukraine is confidential.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said in July of last year that Russia will use cluster bombs in Ukraine if it has to.

TASS said the if the destructive element of the Drel bomb does not work on a given target, it will self-destruct after a certain time and “will not pose a danger to the population after the cessation of hostilities.”