Andy Burnham’s agreement to provide Ukraine with blueprints to produce long-range missiles could make a “real impact” in the country’s war against Russia and increase the pressure on Vladimir Putin, experts have said.
Ahead of a visit to Ukraine on Monday, his first foreign trip as Prime Minister, Burnham announced that he would allow European defence firm MBDA to declassify information on UK components for the long-range Scalp missile, the French-produced version of the UK’s Storm Shadow.
Ukraine and France are looking to set up local assembly lines in Ukraine to produce the deep precision strike missiles, which use shared French and British technology.
Kyiv has for years been using the missiles, supplied by its allies in limited quantities, to strike targets in Russia, but is now expected to use its new capabilities against military targets, as well as building up its strikes on oil refineries, creating fuel shortages for Russians.
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Nigella Lawson makes Great British Bake Off debut in trailer
Fans of the Great British Bake Off got a sneak preview of Nigella Lawson making her debut as a new judge on the programme ahead of the new season releasing next month.
Caption: MIAMI BEACH, FL – FEBRUARY 26: Nigella Lawson attends a Dinner Hosted By Nigella Lawson – Part of The NYT Cooking Dinner Series during 2016 Food Network & Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival Presented By FOOD & WINE at Soho Beach House on February 26, 2016 in Miami Beach, Florida. (Photo by Rodrigo Varela/Getty Images for SOBEWFF??)
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The Bake Off lineup
Caption: LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 18: Prue Leith backstage ahead of the Vin + Omi: Dysphoriana show during London Fashion Week September 2025 at Art’otel London on September 18, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
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The TV chef, 66, was recently announced to be taking the place of Dame Prue Leith after nine series on the show.
She will join fellow judge Paul Hollywood, alongside presenters Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond.
Caption: WINDSOR, ENGLAND – APRIL 17: Paul Hollywood after being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on April 17, 2024 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Andrew Matthews – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
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Caption: LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 10: Alison Hammond attends the NTA’s 2025 at The O2 Arena on September 10, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Joe Maher/Getty Images for the NTA’s)
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Filming is complete on the series, with Lawson saying that she has “loved every minute”.
How did she get here?
Now a household name, Lawson graduated from Oxford and worked as a journalist before becoming a food writer. She won the British Book Award for author of the year in 2001 and then moved into TV.
Caption: EMBARGOED TO 2100 SUNDAY AUGUST 16
Undated handout photo issued by Channel 4 of Nigella Lawson (second right) with fellow judge Paul Hollywood (left) and hosts Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding ahead of the new series of the Channel 4 baking contest, The Great British Bake Off. Issue date: Sunday August 16, 2026. PA Photo. Photo credit should read: Channel 4/Love Productions/PA Wire
NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder.
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She began with her Channel 4 show Nigella Bites, before crossing over to ITV and then the BBC.
world news
China’s top robots compete at ‘Olympics’
Caption: A humanoid robot pair performs in a dance event during the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing on August 25, 2026. (Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP via Getty Images)
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More than 2,000 humanoid robots are participating in the second World Humanoid Robot Games which started on Saturday.
China was keen to showcase its rapid progress with the technology and one of its robots, Lightning, beat the human 100m sprint record, clocking a time of 9.32 seconds compared to Usain Bolt’s 9.58 seconds.
The games in pictures
Caption: BEIJING, CHINA – AUGUST 25: Humanoid robots compete in the 100-meter small group event on day 4 of the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games at National Speed Skating Oval on August 25, 2026 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Cui Jun/Beijing Youth Daily/VCG via Getty Images)
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Caption: BEIJING, CHINA – AUGUST 25: Humanoid robots compete in a football match on day 4 of the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games at National Speed Skating Oval on August 25, 2026 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Wang Weiwei/VCG via Getty Images)
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Caption: A humanoid robot hits a return in a table tennis match during the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing on August 25, 2026. (Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP via Getty Images)
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Trepidation from the US
China makes the majority of the world’s humanoid robots, something which the US has made clear it is wary of.
Caption: BEIJING, CHINA – AUGUST 25: Humanoid robots compete in kickboxing event on day 4 of the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games at National Speed Skating Oval on August 25, 2026 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Cui Jun/Beijing Youth Daily/VCG via Getty Images)
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Last month, the US Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots, citing national security reasons.
The Pentagon recently added Chinese robot maker Unitree to its list of companies deemed to have ties to the Chinese military.
The future of humanoid robots
Experts say humanoid robots are still mostly used for performances, demonstrations and research and it will take time for mass real-world deployment.
The games are taking place in the National Speed Skating Oval built for the 2022 Winter Olympics and opened the same week as Beijing held the 2026 World Robot Conference.
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Andrew Tate rented supercars to appear ‘uberwealthy’
Legal representatives for Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan have claimed the pair deliberately portray themselves as much wealthier than they are because their “business model depends on online attention”.
Caption: British-US former professional kickboxer and controversial influencer Andrew Tate (L) and his brother Tristan Tate (R) speak to journalists after having been released from detention in Bucharest, Romania on March 12, 2024, after they appeared in a court after Romanian police detained them over UK sex offence charges. A Bucharest court on March 12 granted a request to extradite controversial influencer Andrew Tate to the UK over sex offence charges, but only after the conclusion of legal proceedings in Romania in a separate case. The Bucharest appeals court ruling “orders the execution of the warrant of arrest issued on 19 January 2024” by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, but postpones extradition “until the final resolution of the case” in Romania, which could take years. (Photo by Daniel MIHAILESCU / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP via Getty Images)
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Legal proceedings against brothers
The submissions follow British police seeking the Tate brothers’ extradition from the US as part of an investigation into alleged sexual offences, which the brothers deny.
Separately, Andrew Tate is being sued in England by four women over allegations of sexual violence.
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A closer look at the detail
The brothers’ legal representatives listed a number of items that they have shared pictures of online, but do not actually own.
Caption: LONDON, UNITED KINDOM – APRIL 17: The Bugatti Chiron Sport 110 ANS at Salon Prive London on April 17,2026 held at the Royal Chelsea Hospital in London,England. Many manufactures unveil their newest cars. (Photo by Martyn Lucy/Getty Images)
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This included a superyacht which featured in a promotional video, a $2.1m Aston Martin and five and seven million dollar Bugattis. They added that the valuation of Andrew Tate’s watch collection “is based on a third-party enthusiast publication.”
The charges against the Tates
Caption: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA – MARCH 23: Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate talk to the media outside their residence on March 23, 2025 in Bucharest, Romania. Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan had flown to the United States last month from Romania, where they have been charged with rape, having sex with a minor, human trafficking and money laundering, charges which they deny. Their bail conditions stipulated that they had to return to Romania by March 23. (Photo by Andrei Pungovschi/Getty Images)
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After the brothers’ arrests in July, the Crown Prosecution Service said it was bringing a further 38 charges against them, in addition to 21 existing charges.
Andrew Tate was charged with seven further counts of rape and three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking among other charges.
Tristan Tate, was charged with one count of sexual assault, two counts of rape and three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Brothers ‘unequivocally’ deny any wrongdoing
The pair have previously “unequivocally” denied wrongdoing, with Andrew Tate describing himself and his brother as “very innocent men”.
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Analysis
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‘Unconventional’ thinking
Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Centre on Europe and Eurasia, said the announcement reflects “unconventional” thinking by Ukraine’s allies to help the country develop its military capabilities.
He said that while much would depend on Ukraine’s production capacity, “it could have a real impact on the battlefield”.
Dr David Jordan, a defence studies lecturer at King’s College London (KCL), said that the move was “potentially very, very significant in several ways”.
Kyiv producing its own Scalp missiles would “dramatically increase the long-range strike capability that Ukraine can deliver from the air”, he said. “It’s not an invincible missile by any means, but it’s about numbers if you are saturating the defences, as the Ukrainians do.”
The Scalp missile carries a 450kg warhead
Jordan said Ukraine would typically fire drones first – which would get shot down, decoy or spoof Russia’s surface-to-air missile fences – creating a pathway that a Storm Shadow missile could follow to its target.
“In terms of numbers, you want to be building in redundancy, meaning the more missiles you have available, the better it is,” said Jordan. “So, this will give the Ukrainians the ability to strike more targets without having to worry about essentially preserving resources received from allies as much.”
Dr Mark Galeotti, a historian, lecturer and author specialising in Russian crime and security, said Burnham’s announcement – following French President Emmanuel Macron’s unveiling of the plans for local Scalp manufacturing in Ukraine earlier this summer – signalled the “changing nature” of the Russia-Ukraine war.
“Once upon a time, it was about the West providing actual systems,” he said. “Now, increasingly, it’s Ukraine building its own systems and the West providing technology and know-how. This is a reflection of that change.
“But, at the same time, so much depends on how long it will take before this actually turns into systems that the Ukrainians can deploy.”
An aircraft weapons display including Dual Mode Brimstone, Iris-T, and Storm Shadow/Scalp missiles at the Farnborough International Airshow (Photo: Jason Alden/Getty)
Most experts agreed that it could be at least a year to 18 months before a Ukrainian-made Scalp missile will be used on the battlefield. But Coffey pointed out that it was “likely that the war will still be continuing in some form by then”, adding that the longer-term impact could translate into real military capability.
Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank in Kyiv, predicted it could be two to three years before Ukraine could master production of the missile from scratch, but that the assembly of the weapons in the country could happen within a year.
Dr Marina Miron, a visiting researcher at KCL’s war studies department, said Ukraine would need to build up its infrastructure, technical knowledge, machinery, quality control and safety regulations.
But she said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “can certainly use all this … as a kind of PR”, after Ukraine marked its independence day on Monday. Zelensky needs a good news story: the UK announcement comes against the backdrop of ex-defence minister and would-be presidential hopeful Mykhailo Fedorov demanding the country hold elections to address what he called a “crisis of governance”.
Ukraine’s targets in Russia
Describing the missiles as a “valuable part” of Ukraine’s arsenal, Bielieskov told The i Paper: “The Storm Shadow/Scalp has been used by Ukraine since May 2023 against diverse targets [including] Black Sea Fleet ships, bridges, logistics bases, air defence assets and military industrial complex.”
He predicted that further Scalp missiles would be targeted at Russian forces’ assets and military industrial complex enterprises in the border regions.
Galeotti said that the key advantage was that “this would give the Ukrainians the capacity to actually penetrate the Russian air defences”, even after they are upgraded.
“It would be a bit of a waste to use Storm Shadows against things like oil refineries, essentially soft targets,” he said. “Storm Shadows are designed to go after high-value military targets where precision and capacity to basically penetrate defences really matters.
“I think what we are largely going to see is the Storm Shadows, or Scalps, would essentially be going after military targets, but the point is that frees up other systems, currently used against them, to go potentially after civilian targets.
A Rafale jet fighter and a Storm Shadow (Scalp) missile at the Villacoublay air base, near Paris (Photo: Christophe Ena/AFP)
“I think it’s more and better of the same, particularly because there is an expectation that the Russians are already adapting, proving much better at shooting down Ukrainian cruise missiles.”
Jordan said that while Ukraine was already targeting oil refineries with drones, “using Storm Shadows, it gives them extra capability and probably makes it more likely to get through to the target”.
He noted that these attacks were leading to ordinary Russians “queuing for hours for petrol that isn’t there”, saying that the more capacity Ukraine had to build long-range weapons, “the greater the pressure that they apply to the Russians”.
Coffey added: “I suspect a major focus will be on further isolating Crimea from the Russian Federation, as we have seen in recent months.
“I can’t imagine Russia responding in any significant new way, simply because it lacks the ability to do so … It’s not as if Russia is currently holding back capabilities that it could then use against Ukraine in retaliation.”
Creating an arms exports competitor
The move by the UK could also open the door to Ukraine becoming a global arms competitor. Galeotti noted that “the West is building up this extraordinarily large, powerful Ukrainian defence industrial complex. And after the war, that’s not going to just disappear, but they’re going to be looking for export markets”.
He said that the Ukrainians had “proven to be very innovative in their engineering”.
“It may well be that in five years’ time, we are going to see markets that are traditionally held by the British or the French or the Germans increasingly colonised by Ukrainian companies.”
Jordan agreed that we could reach the stage “where you can actually find the RAF buying missiles from the Ukrainians”.
“The Ukrainians are now major players in terms of drone warfare – probably the best at it in the world,” he said. “They integrate the attacks very effectively with missiles and aircraft.”
Coffey said Ukraine’s partners were increasingly recognising the potential of the Ukrainian defence industry. “Allowing Ukraine to produce missiles such as Scalp could, in the longer term, also benefit the UK by increasing the number of missiles available and expanding overall production capacity. The more missiles that can be produced, the greater the potential to bring down the unit cost.”
Ukraine, added Bielieskov, was now “critical” to the self-defence of the UK and Europe.