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Ukraine fires UK-made missiles into Russia for first time
Storm Shadow missile attack comes day after Kyiv used US-supplied long-range weapons to strike within Russia.
Ukraine has fired UK-made Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, multiple sources have told the Guardian.
The decision to approve the strikes was made in response to the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine, which UK and US officials warned was a significant escalation of the near three-year conflict.
The Guardian reported earlier this week that the UK would soon approve Storm Shadow missiles for use inside Russia after the US president, Joe Biden, agreed to do the same for the similar American Atacms weapons.
Videos uploaded to social media and circulated by pro-Russian war bloggers indicated that up to 12 missiles struck a target believed to be a command headquarters in the village of Maryno, the first confirmed use of British weapons on Russian soil during the war. Ukrainian media reported that the site may have been used by North Korean and Russian officers.
Unconfirmed images distributed via the Telegram messaging app appeared to show fragments of the missile at a location in the Kursk region. One weapons expert, Trevor Ball, formerly of the US army, said the images circulating did show Storm Shadow fragments, though he could not verify if they were current or old pictures.
There was no official confirmation from the UK, though the defence secretary, John Healey, appeared to hint at developments as he spoke to the Commons as reports of the attack in Kursk began to circulate.
Healey said he had spoken with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, on Tuesday. “We’ve seen over recent weeks significant change in the action and in the rhetoric on Ukraine, and Ukraine’s action on the battlefield speaks for itself,” he said.
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