To Great Britain France. In turn, Paris, by supplying Kiev with long-range Scalp missiles dubbed the Storm Shadow across the Channel, is giving Ukraine the ability to conduct deep-penetration attacks.
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This cruise missile, jointly developed by both countries, is launched from a combat aircraft. London had already announced in May that it would be handed over to the Ukrainian armed forces. A few days later, Russia claimed to have intercepted a Storm Shadow in connection with the conflict in Ukraine.
A French military source assured Tuesday that the scalps are already on the ground. They “were delivered at the same time as our president announced,” this source told AFP on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius.
In a war whose front has remained extremely stable since last winter, despite successive offensive moves by Russian and Ukrainian forces, this cruise missile allows President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s army to strike head-on far beyond the line.
The range is more than 250 kilometers, more than any other weapon supplied to Kiev by Western countries, allowing access to areas in the east of the country now controlled by the Russians.
“Disrupting logistics and Russian command and control is crucial for the Ukrainian armed forces,” Ivan Klyszcz, a researcher at the International Center for Defense and Security (ICDS) in Estonia, told AFP.
This capability will feed into the “current approach” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which are trying to “move slowly to protect their forces and reduce their casualties as much as possible.”
With these missiles in particular, “a few fighter jets operating from safe airspace can make all the difference,” Dylan Lehrke, an analyst at private British intelligence firm Janes, told AFP in June.
AFP
“Russian forces can deny Ukrainian planes access to space over areas they control, but they have been unable to defend against in-depth attacks.”
In fact, Kiev has been demanding them for a long time, but Westerners have been very hesitant about fighter jets.
In May, the New York-based discussion group Soufan Center commented on the British announcement, noting that “the West’s refusal to supply long-range missiles was based on fears that this would allow Ukraine to strike beyond the occupied Ukrainian territories and into Russia itself.” “ significantly escalate the conflict.”
With these missiles, the Russian Navy’s Black Sea headquarters, based in Sevastopol in Crimea, is now within firing range of the Ukrainians, as are several Russian cities near the border, underlined this tip from the New Yorkers discussion group, which specializes in security issues.
But London has insisted that those missiles “should enable Ukraine to repel Russian forces stationed on Ukraine’s sovereign territory,” as British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace put it.
Paris, while again breaking “the taboo” of long range, reminds us, in the words of Ivan Klyszcz, of the fundamental limitations of strategic engagement.
The SCALP missiles would be “delivered while respecting the clarity and coherence of our doctrine, that is, allowing Ukraine to defend its territory,” Emmanuel Macron reminded on Tuesday, implicitly ruling out any use for attacks on Russia.
AFP