Ukraine has repeated a call for its Western allies to allow it to begin using donated air-launched cruise missiles and other advanced weapons to strike military targets inside Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the topic at a meeting of the multinational Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) at Ramstein air base in Germany on 6 September.
While Kyiv has already taken delivery of long-range missiles from France, the UK and the USA, they have to date been restricted for use only against targets in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces.
“We think it is wrong that there are such steps,” Zelensky says of the current situation. “We need to have this long-range capability not only on the divided territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace.”
France and the UK have supplied MBDA SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow cruise missiles, with the roughly 1,300kg (2,870lb) design having been rapidly integrated with the Ukrainian air force’s Su-24 ground-attack aircraft. The USA, meanwhile, has provided Kyiv with ground-launched ATACMS weapon systems.
Examples of SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow strikes have so far included attacking bridges and other infrastructure in Russian-occupied Crimea, along with several docked naval vessels, preventing operations by Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet.
Both France and the UK are believed to have earlier this year indicated that they would back the weapon’s defensive use against sites within Russia that are being used to mount attacks across the border into Ukraine, but Washington has not agreed to do the same.
Just days before the UDCG gathering in Germany, the matter also was raised in parliamentary discussion in the UK House of Commons.
Opposition-party parliamentarians pressed the UK government on its position regarding the use of transferred Storm Shadows.
“There has been no change in the UK’s position,” minister for development at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Anneliese Dodds said on 2 September. “We have been providing military aid to support Ukraine’s clear right of self-defence against Russia’s illegal attacks. That has been in accordance with international humanitarian law. We are clear that equipment provided by the UK is intended for the defence of Ukraine.”
“The media consistently report that there is an American veto on the Ukrainian use of Storm Shadow missiles to attack targets at depth in Russia, even though that would materially assist the Ukrainian war effort,” says Mark Francois, a Conservative member of the House of Commons Defence Committee. He urged the UK Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office to “talk with our American allies to get that veto removed”.
“There is really no point in the west arming Ukraine to shoot down the missiles when it cannot shoot the launch pads,” adds fellow Conservative member of parliament Sir Bernard Jenkin, a former shadow secretary of state for defence.
MBDA cites an operational range of greater than 135nm (250km) for the tandem warhead-equipped Storm Shadow.
Germany, meanwhile, also has faced calls to approve a potential transfer of Taurus stand-off-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, but has yet to green-light any such action.
A decision to not allow such equipment to be used to strike targets on Russian soil is likely to stem from Western fears of prompting an escalation of the conflict. However, such concerns were previously voiced ahead of decisions to donate other equipment to Ukraine including Patriot air-defence missile batteries, main battle tanks and Lockheed Martin F-16s.
Also speaking at the UDCG event, US secretary of defense Lloyd Austin said Russia has already moved combat aircraft which are used to deploy glide bombs against Ukrainian targets beyond the range of ground-launched ATACMS weapons. He also noted that Ukraine has developed its own long-range strike capabilities, including using armed unmanned air vehicles.
