“UK Delivers Game-Changing Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles to Ukraine”

2023.05.11 Thu posted at 19:50 JST

（ＣＮＮ） The UK has delivered several Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine. Several senior Western officials told CNN. Ukrainian forces will have a new long-range strike capability in the face of the expected reversal offensive against Russian forces.

The Storm Shadow is a stealth long-range cruise missile developed jointly by Britain and France that is normally launched from the air. The missile has a range of more than 250km, slightly lower than the 298km range of the U.S.-made ATACMS surface-to-surface missile, which Ukraine has demanded.

Importantly, Storm Shadow has the range to reach deep into the Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine.

A Western official told CNN that Britain has received assurances from the Ukrainian government that Storm Shadow will only be used inside Ukraine’s sovereign territory and not to attack Russia. I got it. British officials have said Crimea was “illegally annexed” and have repeatedly said they would consider it a sovereign territory of Ukraine.

A senior U.S. official told CNN that the Storm Shadow is “a true game-changer from a range standpoint,” giving Ukraine the capabilities it has been asking for since the beginning of the war. Currently, the maximum range of weapons provided by the United States is about 79 kilometers.

Ukrainian forces are preparing for a counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territories in the east and south. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published Wednesday that he needed “a little more” time before he could launch a counteroffensive, as he had to wait for further military aid promised by the West to arrive.

This isn’t the first time Britain has taken a more aggressive approach to weapons supply than the United States. Britain was the first country to commit to sending modern Western tanks to Ukraine, announcing the delivery of 14 Challenger 2 tanks in January. This was before the US announced the delivery of the M1 Abrams tank.