The U.K. has already provided Ukraine with multiple long-range cruise missiles Storm Shadow, CNN wrote on May 11, citing senior Western officials.
Storm Shadow, jointly developed by the U.K. and France, has a range of over 250 kilometers or 155 miles. It is only slightly inferior to the 185-mile U.S. Army Surface-to-Surface System (ATACMS), which Ukraine has long requested.
Such missiles can reach Russia's territory, but Kyiv promised the U.K. government not to use them to strike targets inside Russia, according to an official cited by CNN.
Instead, Kyiv says it would use donated long-range weapons to attack Russian command centers, supply lines, ammunition, and fuel depots deep in Crimea and the occupied territories of Ukraine's east.
The Storm Shadow missile is "a real game changer from a range perspective," a top U.S. military official told CNN, and gives Kyiv the capabilities it has been requesting since the start of Russia's all-out war. The U.S.-provided missiles that Ukraine currently uses have a range of 80 kilometers and cannot reach many of the Russian-occupied areas.
According to CNN, U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is supposed to announce to the country's parliament that the U.K. is supplying Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine.
On May 9, the Washington Post reported, citing a procurement notice by the U.K.-led International Fund for Ukraine, that the U.K. was preparing to send Ukraine long-range missiles. An unnamed U.K. official told the publication that no final decision on the weaponry type had been made.
The Kyiv Independent
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