New photos published by Russian sources on November 25, 2025 reveal a highly improvised but technically sophisticated Ukrainian modification to the Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile. The standard 9N123F warhead was replaced with a Soviet FAB-250 aerial bomb encased in a resin-based fragmentation jacket—highlighting Ukraine’s continued effort to keep its dwindling Tochka stock operational for deep-strike missions up to 120 km.
A Hybrid Warhead: Air-Dropped Bomb Inserted Into Ballistic Missile Structure
The images show that Ukrainian technicians:
- Removed the FAB-250’s tail assembly
- Inserted the bomb into the Tochka-U’s warhead cavity
- Wrapped it in a cylindrical resin shell filled with pre-formed steel fragments
While the FAB-250 carries less explosive material than the original Tochka warhead, the fragment density is significantly higher, making it ideal for striking troops, trucks, supply areas and exposed logistics hubs.
FAB-250: A Legacy Bomb Repurposed for Ground Launch
The FAB-250 M62 is a thin-walled, general-purpose bomb containing roughly 100 kg of explosive and a lethal radius of up to 120 meters.
Ukraine’s resin jacket effectively turns it into a pre-fragmented warhead, greatly increasing shrapnel dispersion while reducing blast.
Tochka-U: A Soviet Platform Brought Back to Life
The Tochka-U (NATO: Scarab-B) is a 120-km-range solid-fuel missile fielded in the late 1980s.
Changing the warhead’s weight and balance inevitably affects:
- Range
- Accuracy
- Aerodynamic stability
Engineers reportedly compensated by adjusting the thickness of the fragmentation sleeve.
The fuze discovered—the AVU-ET mechanical impact fuze—shows the improvisational nature of the modification. Unlike the Tochka’s normal electronic proximity fuze, this older impact fuze failed to detonate on shallow impact, exposing the entire assembly.
Why Ukraine Is Building “Franken-Tochkas”
During the early months of the 2022 invasion, Tochka-U was one of Kyiv’s few deep-strike assets, famously used in the Berdiansk port strike that sank the Russian landing ship Saratov.
As fully assembled missiles grew scarce, Ukrainian units began reactivating surplus Tochka bodies and mating them with:
- Stored FAB/OFAB gravity bombs
- improvised fuzing mechanisms
- resin-based fragmentation sleeves
This adapted production line has produced several hybrid Tochka variants, earning the nickname “Franken missiles.”
Different Variants for Different Missions
The newly revealed FAB-250 version appears optimized for:
- Area suppression
- Anti-personnel and anti-soft-target missions
- Potentially increased range (due to lower weight)
A previously documented FAB-500 variant provides:
- Much greater blast performance
- Stronger effects against hardened targets like aircraft on aprons or depot infrastructure
Together, these variants essentially recreate the Soviet concept of modular Tochka warheads—now driven by battlefield necessity, not design bureaus.
A Deep-Strike Substitute for Limited Airpower
Hybrid Tochka missiles give Ukrainian forces a way to deliver 100+ km strikes:
- Without risking aircraft against Russian long-range air defenses
- Using mobile launchers capable of surviving counterbattery threats
- At a fraction of the cost of modern precision missiles
In contrast to Russia’s practice of adding glide kits to bombs, Ukraine is adding bombs to missiles—a reverse approach to solving the same range problem.
Despite risks stemming from improvisation, poor aerodynamics, and lack of terminal guidance, the hybrid Tochka-U represents a defining trend of the war:
Ukraine is extending the life of Cold War hardware through battlefield engineering, buying time and reach until next-generation indigenous strike systems arrive.
