Desperate Putin bolts JET ENGINES onto dusty Soviet-era bombs to strike deeper into Ukraine as Russia encircles key city

DESPERATE Vladimir Putin has strapped jet engines onto old Soviet-era bombs to strike deeper into Ukraine.

The tyrant’s last-ditch move comes as the Kremlin battles to secure Pokrovsk – the “gateway” city to Donetsk, which Ukraine has fiercely been defending for over a year.

The KAB bombs, fitted with Chinese-made turbojet engines, can reportedly cover a staggering 125 miles.

That’s over double the 50-mile range of Russia’s existing kits, which have been deployed over the course of the war and tortuously dropped near the front lines.

Unverified pictures appear to show the remains of the deadly weapon in a field in the eastern Poltava region.

Among the debris, was a Chinese-made  Swiwin SW800Pro-Y turbojet engine, which can be bought on the popular Alibaba shopping site for about $18,000 (£13,700).

Major General Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, warned the latest inventions have been fitted with “new control modules” that make them resistant to jammers.

These are warfare weapons used to interrupt bomb flights – tools Ukraine has heavily relied on over the course of the war.

While the latest development doesn’t mean victory for the imperialist tyrant, it will put enormous pressure on Volodymyr Zelensky’s war efforts.

Experts warn the new and improved weapons will put serious strain on Ukraine’s air defence forces who will now need to protect a much wider area.

Regions such as Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Odesa, which were once considered relatively safe from bombs will now be at risk

Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre, told The Telegraph: “Cities and infrastructure facilities located up to 200km (125 miles) from the front line, which were previously considered relatively safe from guided aerial bombs, are now under threat”.

Kyiv has already been forced to scramble for air missile systems to protect critical infrastructure.

And reports suggest a key railway in the north-eastern Kharkiv region was targeted by a jet-strapped bomb, which was launched 85 miles away.

The Kremlin first started playing with the KABs in 2023 amid cruise missile shortages.

It’s believed about 40,000 have since been dropped on Ukraine but according to officials, the country is still a “long way” from mass producing them.

The development comes as Ukraine continues to battle Vlad’s forces in the fortress city of Pokrovsk.

Hundreds of Russian soldiers have surged into the urban area – dubbed the gateway to Donetsk – which Ukraine has defended for more than a year against non-stop Kremlin onslaughts.

But brave Ukrainian forces continue to defend the strategic city from falling into the hands of Russian soldiers – even though it seems inevitable.

Footage released by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) shows attack drones targeting multiple Russian soldiers before exploding – causing heavy Russian casualties.

One Russian soldier can be seen trying to ward off an attack drone by throwing his assault rifle.

Russia‘s defence ministry said that its forces had advanced in the battered city and were fighting house-to-house battles in a bid to eject Ukrainian forces from the city.

Moscow says taking Pokrovsk would give it a platform to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Donetsk region – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Russia wants to take the whole of the Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk provinces.

Ukraine still controls about ten per cent of Donbas – an area of about 1,930 square miles.

Russia has been threatening Pokrovsk for more than a year, using a pincer movement to attempt to encircle it and threaten supply lines, rather than the deadly frontal assaults it employed to capture the city of Bakhmut in 2023.

If captured by the Russians, the city would be the largest in Ukraine to fall since Bakhmut in May 2023.