Andrew Chuter – Defense News May 11, 2023
Britain has donated Storm Shadow cruise missiles to the Ukrainian air force in a move widely seen as a game changer in Kyiv’s ability to mount long-range strikes against invading Russian forces.
The decision to hand over a quantity of the MBDA-built cruise missiles was announced by British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace in a May 11 statement to lawmakers here.
“Storm Shadow is a long-range, conventional, precision-strike capability,” he said. “It compliments the long-range systems already gifted, including HIMARS and Harpoon missiles, as well as Ukraine’s own Neptune cruise missiles and longer-range munitions already gifted.”
The Anglo-French-developed Storm Shadow missile, known in France as Scalp-EG, has a range in excess of 250 kilometers, or 155 miles, and is particularly effective against hardened and buried targets, according to the manufacturer.
The donation of Storm Shadow missiles, many of which are already in Ukraine, means the British are the first nation to supply Kyiv with long range weapons.
Wallace described the government’s decision as a “calibrated, proportionate response to Russian’s escalation” in its invasion of Ukraine.
“These systems are not in the same league as the Russian AS-24 Killjoy hypersonic missile or Shahed Iranian one-way attack drones, or their Kalibr cruise missile with a range of over 2,000 km, roughly 7 times that of the Storm Shadow missile,” Wallace said. “Russia must recognize that their actions alone have led to such systems being provided to Ukraine.”
Wallace said technical hurdles integrating the weapon onto Ukraine’s Soviet-era combat jets had been successfully overcome.
“Having technically cleared the hurdles, and as everyone talks about an expected counter-offense, now is the right time to gift these to Ukraine, and they [Storm Shadows] are now going into or are in the country,” he said.
The British have been signaling for months their intention to donate the long-range weapon to the Ukrainians, and confirmation of the move comes ahead of a long expected offensive by Kyiv against Russian forces occupying parts of the country.
It’s part of a wider Western effort to strengthen Ukraine’s deep-strike capabilities which has recently seen a British-led effort to procure missiles or rockets with a range of 100-300km and payloads between 20kg and 490kg as part of an international funding arrangement.
The Storm Shadow weapon provides the Ukrainian air force with a substantial step up in capability, according to Douglas Barrie, senior air analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank in London.
“It really provides Ukraine with a long-range strike capability it doesn’t have,” he said. “It’s in a different league compared with other weapons in Kyiv’s arsenal.”
Storm Shadow has been used extensively by the Royal Air Force, first on Tornado strike jets and more recently the Typhoon combat jet.
The weapon was rushed into operational use against Iraq in 2003 even though it was not officially in service at the time. Since then it has been used in the Middle East and Libya.
Storm Shadow is the second sophisticated Western air-to-ground weapon known to have been supplied to Ukraine since the Russian invasion got underway in late February 2022.
Last year the U.S. integrated HARM AGM-88 missiles on Ukrainian MiG-29 and Su-27 warplanes in a matter of weeks to be able to strike Russian air defenses located in Ukraine.
Ben Nazi Wallace states that missiles (cruise) will be used inside UKraine. So there’s a legal firecracker.
The other point, these are air launched weapons, so what planes are they going to be launched from, and who will be flying them?
The first confirmed use, could end up with Russia hitting a British military asset.
But as I said yesterday, the UK is committing societal suicide. The rigged data says UK GDP fell 0.1%.
The UK has suffered falling GDP since 2008. The country is finished. All that remains, is for Russia to burn these islands off the map.
Tanks, light armour, howitzer, ammo. Special forces, intel., bunker occupiers at staff level, D.P. ammo., and now Storm Shadow!
Just how many sticks can you poke the bear with FFS!
If these missiles are launched against Russia, then Russia should send the UK Navy to the bottom in the Black Sea
Brits had better be able to swim – or at least doggie-paddle! – when that Big Wave hits… and washes them away…
Russian Freemasons will not make British Freemasons pay for this
And what will the Russians do? Nothing as per usual, they never enforce the red lines they set!
Britain = ZOG
Russia = ZOG
A grand semitic setup to wipe out more whites.Figure it out.
Gee, it’s like they deliberately want to start WW3.
What no one says (or knows) is that this is how 100 years of Fed inflation ends – with a bang. Credit is like eating all your seed corn, when all the corn is gone, and you can not plant, the only solution is to attack your neighbor who is not up to their eyeballs in debt.
I have not heard one journalier or MP or anyone questioning and calling out these idiots for involving us in a war that has nothing too do with us. Cannot remember having a conversation with anyone who has a problem with it. We truly must be the thickest and most brainwashed populace to walk this earth. The convid scam showed the levels of stupidity in the public, which I would have thought impossible beforehand, but it was on show for all to see. At the drop of a hat they had the idiots believing the government version of what the war is all about, flying their Ukraine flags and begging to adopt a refugee. There is a section of our society that would believe anything these criminals tell them. This war, if it is a war, will continue as long as they want it to.
As usual, the BRITPUPPETS do the bidding of their paymasters in Washington. And the cretinous Brit goyim cheer their leaders as they edge the nation closer to nuclear destruction.
NO thick britas in Meggico!
Bonus Diaz!
“BBC-Brainwashed Brits: The THICKEST MuthaFckers on Planet Earth?”
Discuss 🤔
The Penny will NEVER drop.
Just be glad,
You/we are different. (& a small minority at that)
mart is right 100%
bang on the button
i like all the comments especially art
i never read carl jones as hes not right in the head
Gary – do you reality think they want WW3?