A Storm Shadow missile inside the Royal Air Force museum in London. By Wikimedia user (Corrado Baldassi).
Ukraine received Storm Shadow cruise missiles from the United Kingdom and is set to receive 400 more in the near future, Ukrainian news sources reported on May 14.
The Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French low-observable, long-range, air-launched cruise missile developed since 1994 by Matra and British Aerospace, and now manufactured by MBDA.
The missile features a GPS-aided inertial navigation system with a terrain profile matching system. For terminal guidance, the missile is equipped with an imaging infrared scene-mapping area correlator system. The maximum range of the Storm Shadow is 560 kilometers. However, it is thought that Ukraine received the downgraded export version with a range of 250 kilometers.
The British and Ukrainian governments have not confirmed the numbers reported by Ukrainian news sources, which may be no more than speculation.
The numbers are extremely high considering the estimate of the UK’s own stockpiles of the missiles. The Independent newspaper in 1996 estimated the order for the Royal Air Force to be between 700 and 1,000 missiles.
The Ukrainian Air Force has reportedly integrated the Storm Shadow on its Soviet-era Su-24 fighter bombers, which have the capability to carry the 1,300 kg cruise missile.
With a price tag of 2 million pounds per a single Storm Shadow, the delivery of 600 missiles to Ukraine would cost the UK up to 1,2 billion.
The first reported use of Storm Shadow by Kiev was on May 12, when two missiles hit factories in Luhansk city. The very next day, May 13, at least one Storm Shadow hit the old internal affairs academy building in the city, marking the second attack with the long-rang missile.
Announcing the delivery of the Storm Shadow in the House of Commons on May 11, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that the missiles would “allow Ukraine to push back Russian forces based on Ukrainian sovereign territory”. Western officials told CNN on the same day that the UK received assurances from Kiev that these missiles will be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia.
Russia said that its military will deliver “an adequate response” for the delivery of the missiles, without providing any details.
In an apparent response to the missile strikes on Luhansk city, the Russian military two large ammunition depots of Kiev forces near teh cities of Khmelnitsky and Ternopil in western Ukraine with cruise missiles and suicide drones on May 12 and 13.
Russia has several options to neutralize the threat posed by the Storm Shadow, from deploying additional long-range air defense systems, like the S-400, in the special military operation zone, to destroying Ukraine’s remaining Su-24 fighter bombers and newly-delivered missiles on the ground.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC:
