Russia dropped a three-tonne bomb on a Ukrainian city and the footage of the explosion is spreading around the world. The target was Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region - a town right on the front line - and the strike produced a massive blast with a tall column of smoke visible for kilometres.

The weapon is a monster from another era. The FAB-3000 weighs three tonnes, about 1.5 of which is pure explosive. It was originally developed by the Soviet Union in 1946, and Russia revived mass production at the start of 2024 - after a full 40-year pause since it was last used in Afghanistan. The modern versions got a navigation module, which lets the pilot drop the bomb from a safe distance while it corrects its own trajectory.

The destruction figures are chilling. The blast radius reaches 240 metres, and lethal fragments fly over a kilometre from the point of impact. The system is fitted for the Su-34 tactical bombers. When something like this falls on a city, the difference between a military target and a civilian neighbourhood practically vanishes.

The war in Ukraine has dragged on far too long to still surprise us, but that is exactly the danger - we've gotten used to it. Each new day brings heavier weapons, bigger bombs, larger kill zones, and we pause less and less to think about what that means. The Balkans know well where the logic of „ever heavier weapons for a quicker end" leads - usually nowhere, except to more graves. The question rarely asked is: how much longer will the world stare at footage of explosions like postcards of someone else's tragedy?