UK to give Ukraine long-range missiles - military aid package could include Storm Shadow fighter missiles

The United Kingdom plans to be the first to deliver long-range missiles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, The Washington Post has reported. This was reported by The Washington Post.

Here's What We Know

At the end of April it was reported that the UK was preparing to buy weapons for Ukraine that would be able to hit targets at a distance of up to 300 km. The Washington Post wrote that it could be Storm Shadow air-launched missiles.

Earlier this year, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that long-range missiles would be able to penetrate Russia's defence. He also said that Ukraine was ready to provide guarantees that the weapons would be used exclusively on Ukrainian territory that had been occupied by Russian troops.

Over the past year, senior US officials have expressed concern that Ukraine could use the missiles to strike military targets on Russian Federation territory. This is one of the reasons why the U.S. does not hand over ATACMS missiles with a launch range of up to 300 km, being limited to high-precision GMLRS projectiles. They can destroy targets within a radius of 80 km.

Things did pick up a few months ago when one of the military aid packages included GLSDB missiles with a range of 150 km. However, this is a new weapon and Ukraine will only receive it by the end of this year.

As for Storm Shadow, these are air-launched missiles that can reach speeds of up to 1000km/h. The carriers are Tornado IDS, Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Mirage 2000, Dassault Rafale, F-35 and Nimrod MRA4.

The Ukrainian Air Force does not have such aircraft, but will be able to integrate missiles on Soviet MiG-29 fighters. It had previously succeeded in doing so with American AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles.

Source: The Washington Post