Enormous Russian ‘vacuum bomb’ obliterates Ukrainian installation

Russia has conducted an airstrike using one of the most powerful non-nuclear bombs at Russia’s disposal – the thermobaric ODAB-1500 bomb, also called ‘the vacuum bomb.’ The Russian Defense Ministry released a video of the strike on a Ukrainian military installation near Kupyansk, in the Kharkov region, showing the powerful explosion that destroyed a building housing Ukrainian forces, 40 soldiers, five vehicles, and much of the surrounding area.

Thermobaric weapons are one of the few weapons to have an equivalent TNT explosive power greater than their actual weight, and rely on the atmosphere itself to provide the oxygen. The sheer size of the blast rockets the pressure near the explosion to up to 120 times that of normal atmospheric pressure, but that blast needs oxygen, which is drawn from the surrounding air, leaving a partial vacuum. The shockwave of overpressure and vacuum has devastating effects on the human body, while the explosion itself produces an ominous mushroom cloud. This particular ODAB-1500 was reportedly equipped with a Universal Correction and Guidance Module (UMPK), which has been used by Russia to convert older free-fall bombs into precision-guided munitions.