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These truck-mounted and highly mobile systems were used to carry out precision strikes targeting Russian command posts, ammunition depots, and bridges and have been hailed by experts as a "game-changing" weapon. Ukraine’s assault could come in the south and east of the country, where Russia holds territory. Kyiv has struck military targets in the occupied southern cities such as Melitopol and Berdiansk with increasing frequency in recent weeks, in a possible preparation for the counteroffensive. But he warned the range of the British-supplied Storm Shadows was "not in the same league" as Russia's own missile systems - with some of Moscow's weapons being able to travel far further.
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However, it is a huge step up from the reported 49 mile range of their current equivalent. A look at the Storm Shadow cruise missile Great Britain has announced it will provide Ukraine. UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told reporters on Thursday that he understands Storm Shadow missiles have been used since they were sent to Ukraine, but he declined to go into any further details.
France to give Ukraine more cruise missiles, plans security pact - Defense News
France to give Ukraine more cruise missiles, plans security pact.
Posted: Wed, 17 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
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The Conservative government relies on an increasingly unhinged pro-war constituency in the affluent upper middle class. Britain’s role as chief provocateur in the lead up to and during NATO’s war against Russia is a matter of record. It has also led the way in ensuring ever-more lethal military hardware has been flooded into Ukraine, with the resulting mass loss of life, both Ukrainian and Russian, not even an afterthought. It was first operational and in the hands of the Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in 2003, according to the MBDA website, and has been used in warfare in the Gulf, Iraq and Libya. The decision was made, Wallace added, to provide a "calibrated & proportionate response" to Russia's escalations.
Britain says it is donating long-range ‘Storm Shadow’ missiles to Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials for months have requested ATACMS, also known as the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, because of its firing range and ability to be launched by HIMARS previously provided by the U.S. Six-hundred Brimstone anti-tank missiles were pledged as part of a package in January 2023 and by the end of March the total number of such weapons was at 3,615. It is typically launched from the air and has been fired from British planes such as the RAF Tornado GR4, seeing action since 2003 in Iraq as well as other middle eastern conflicts. Further south — where observers expect a Ukrainian counteroffensive to be focused — Russian forces are conducting “defensive operations in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions,” and had carried out a number of airstrikes, the General Staff said. A drone strike hit Bryansk, another Russian region on the Ukraine border, said Bryansk Gov. Alexander Bogomaz. Additional drone attacks were conducted over Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a Telegram post Wednesday.
On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would take an "appropriate" military response to any British-supplied Storm Shadow weapons used by Ukrainian forces. "Together we must help Ukraine to shield its cities from Russian bombs and Iranian drones," Mr Sunak said then. "That's why the United Kingdom will be the first country to give Ukraine longer-range weapons." "If we could strike at a distance of up to 300 kilometres, the Russian army wouldn't be able to provide defence and will have to lose," he told an EU meeting. Mr Wallace said the missiles would "allow Ukraine to push back Russian forces based on Ukrainian sovereign territory".
Russia's New Kh-69 Cruise Missiles Used in Latest Missile Strike on Ukraine - Kyiv Post
Russia's New Kh-69 Cruise Missiles Used in Latest Missile Strike on Ukraine.
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The number of lootings and robberies allegedly committed by Russian troops has increased during Russia’s evacuation of occupied territories, according to Ukraine’s deputy defense minister. Ukraine used the HIMARS to degrade the effectiveness of Russia's battlefield tactic, which depended heavily on Moscow's ability to stage massive amounts of artillery shells near the front line to sustain a high rate of fire, Barros, the ISW analyst, said. To mitigate their new problem, Russian forces had to move their ammunition back outside the range of the HIMARS to prevent it from being destroyed. Since the early weeks of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and even now, the Kremlin's forces have relied on a tactic of carrying out massive artillery barrages to destroy Ukrainian positions and then advancing through the rubble. When this wasn't possible, they sent human waves into urban environments to make territorial gains at high costs.
The armor-penetrating precursor blasts a hole into the target’s surface, allowing the larger main charge to pass inside the targeted structure before detonating—making BROACH effective against hardened targets like underground storage facilities and bunkers. If the missile can’t find the target, it can be assigned a crash point so as not to risk collateral damage. But on finding a match, it swoops down and, just before impact, discharges the pre-cursor charge of its nearly half-ton (992-pound) BROACH warhead. But the real bullseye falls on Russia’s extensive military infrastructure on the Crimean Peninsula, including airbases and much of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Russia had leased bases in that area from Ukraine for two decades, only for Putin to invade the entire peninsula in 2014. The first stage of the warhead makes the way for the second stage by cutting the surface of the target.
APACHE AP Development
The first firing test took place in July 2013 and was successful.[8] The MdCN has been operational on French FREMM frigates since 2017 and also equips France's Barracuda nuclear attack submarines, which entered operational service in 2022. Storm Shadow is a long-range, air-launched attack missile manufactured by France-based MBDA Systems, mainly for the U.K. It can be operated in extreme conditions in both day and night, offering deep-strike capability with a firing range in excess of 250 kilometers (155 miles)—about 30 miles short of the range of ATACMS. The Storm Shadow is a long-range cruise missile with stealth capabilities, jointly developed by the UK and France, which is typically launched from the air. With a firing range in excess of 250km, or 155 miles, it is just short of the 185-mile range capability of the US-made surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, that Ukraine has long asked for.
The UK announced earlier this month plans to provide Ukraine with the Storm Shadow, an air-launched cruise missile developed in partnership with France that has seen combat experience in various conflicts across the Middle East. When released from an aircraft, these missiles drop to fly at a low altitude and avoid detection. The day after the British announcement, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed Ukrainian aircraft had already struck a pair of industrial cities in the Russian-controlled eastern city of Luhansk using the cruise missiles, an attack U.S. officials seemingly confirmed to CNN. The following Monday, the Russian MoD claimed to have downed one of the missiles elsewhere in Ukraine. MBDA is a defense joint venture of the Airbus Group (37.5 percent), BAE Systems (37.5 percent), and Leonardo (25 percent).
If history is a guide, however, ATACMS may have a certain degree of success before the shock fades and Russia adapts. Storm Shadow missiles, while effective, have a "very similar capability with a very similar payload used very much against the targets that ATACMS would have been used against," Kofman said on the podcast. The US has so far refused to provide ATACMS to Ukraine out of concern for its use against targets inside Russia — though the Biden administration is now reconsidering that policy — but some Western and Ukrainian experts believe a long-range weapon like ATACMS could reshape the conflict.
Once released from the aircraft, the missile follows a pre-programmed path at low level with the help of continuous updates from the onboard navigation system. It employs imaging infrared seeker to compare the actual target area with stored imagery repeatedly until reaching the target. Kyiv has most likely only received a few hundred missiles, and the aircraft launching them are vulnerable in the highly contested airspace over Ukraine. That raises questions about whether Ukraine's military can bring enough Storm Shadows to bear against targets that are hard to find or knock out. With an extensive front like that in Ukraine, it's impossible for the Russian military "to not have ammo stored anywhere, or to not have vulnerabilities in command-and-control, or to not have to use bridges," Kofman said.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the missiles would give Ukrainians the “best chance to defend themselves” as Russia continues its “deliberate targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, which is against international law”. The British-supplied missiles can only be fired by aircraft, but French missiles can be fired from ships and submarines. "Ukraine is ready to provide any guarantees that your weapons will not be involved in attacks on the Russian territory." Earlier this year, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov insisted longer-range missiles would not be used to attack targets within Russia itself.
Storm Shadow is officially advertised as having a range “exceeding 250km,” or 155 miles, with other figures (including some given by the president of France) suggesting it has a maximum range of 250, or even 350, miles. Last October, the MOD confirmed that it would donate hundreds more air defence missiles to Ukraine to protect against Russian missile strikes and to protect critical national infrastructure after Russia launched a series of drone and missile attacks against civilian targets. Seventy will be AMRAAM rockets, for use with the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) being provided by the United States. The AMRAAM rockets are the first capability pledged by the UK capable of shooting down cruise missiles.
Once launched, the Storm Shadow drops to low altitude to avoid detection by enemy radar, before latching onto its target with an infra-red seeker. By contrast, the US-supplied Himars missiles used by Ukraine only have a range of around 80 km (50 miles). Storm Shadow’s success—versus Russia’s technically superior air defenses—will depend in part on its stealth characteristics.
"Ukraine has a right to be able to defend itself against this. The use of Storm Shadow will allow Ukraine to push back Russian forces based within Ukrainian sovereign territory." The UK has also provided over 200,000 items of non-lethal aid, including unmanned aerial systems, body armour, helmets, night vision equipment, mine detection equipment, medical equipment and winter clothing. In April, the MOD confirmed that the UK is set to provide more than 300,000 artillery shells to Ukraine during 2023. The amount of defensive lethal aid being provided would therefore more than double to be in excess of 10,000 missiles. All information was taken from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and was correct as of May 12.
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