LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday that the U.K. will help Ukraine make its own long-range missiles by sharing classified technical information for British components.<\/p>\n
Burnham, who was in Kyiv alongside other international leaders for Ukraine\u2019s Independence Day, said defense firm MBDA will release details on U.K.-made parts for the SCALP missile to Ukraine to help the country assemble the weapons. <\/p>\n
However, experts say that won\u2019t result in operational missiles soon \u2014 or address Ukraine\u2019s most pressing needs in its war against Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what to know about the missiles and how significant the announcement is for Ukraine:<\/p>\n
What the SCALP missile is<\/p>\n
The SCALP missile is the French-produced version of the U.K.\u2019s Storm Shadow, an air-launched, high-precision missile with a range of more than 155 miles. Both use shared French and British technology.<\/p>\n
Measuring 16.7 feet, the missile is hard to detect and is designed to hit fixed or stationary targets such as hardened bunkers and key infrastructure, according to MBDA. The defense firm says the missile uses an advanced navigation system and is exceptionally accurate. <\/p>\n
Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles are in service with the British, French and Italian air forces, as well as other export countries. They have been used in conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Syria.<\/p>\n
The missiles won\u2019t be ready till next year at the earliest<\/p>\n
Ukraine is already in talks with France, which recently agreed to help set up assembly lines for the missiles in Ukraine so that Kyiv can produce its own version of the weapons. It is not known how far advanced the plans are, or when such missiles may become operational.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny impact \u2026 will in part depend on how quickly Ukrainian-assembled SCALP cruise missiles can be introduced into service,\u201d said Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.<\/p>\n
Arun Dawson, a researcher at the Freeman Air and Space Institute at King\u2019s College London, said the news won\u2019t help Ukraine through this winter and likely won\u2019t start having an effect until next year, at the earliest. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Ukraine needs is protection from Russian ballistic missile attacks,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that his country is receiving substantially fewer Patriot defense systems, even as Russian ballistic attacks are increasing. The shortfall is particularly serious because the United States and European partners are struggling to expand production. <\/p>\n
What a SCALP missile can do, Dawson said, is equip Ukraine with deep strike offensive ability. \u201cYou can use it to take out the Russian sites from which they are launching these ballistic missiles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at London\u2019s Royal United Services Institute, noted that Ukrainian development of its own ballistic and cruise missiles will complement the mass of firepower it can launch using drones, which are relatively slow and not that stealthy.<\/p>\n
A weapon like a SCALP missile \u201chas a sophisticated warhead and strikes the target at a velocity that means it can penetrate hardened structures and destroy buried targets in a way a slower drone without such a warhead is unable to do, at present,\u201d Savill said.<\/p>\n
The British announcement on Monday drew ire from Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the U.K. of \u201cfanning the flame\u201d of the war on Kyiv\u2019s side \u2014 a claim Burnham swiftly dismissed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho started the fire?\u201d Burnham asked reporters Monday.<\/p>\n
The U.K. has supplied Ukraine with missiles since 2023<\/p>\n
Britain became the first country to supply longer-range strike weapons to Ukraine in 2023 when it donated a number of Storm Shadow missiles to Kyiv. The missiles gave Ukraine capacity to strike targets in Russia well behind the front lines, as well as in Russian-occupied Crimea.<\/p>\n
The U.K. is also helping Ukraine develop low-cost strike weapons in other ways.<\/p>\n
Officials have been working with British defense companies to test a new ground-launched strike system that could hit targets more than 310 miles away while carrying a powerful 496-pound warhead. <\/p>\n
Hui writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday that the U.K. will help Ukraine make its own long-range missiles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1166880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7654],"tags":[270649,287183,4094,2000,299,10546,47348,316756,7466,1327,332,316754,316755,99650,15689,657,5320],"class_list":["post-1166879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine","tag-burnham","tag-college-london","tag-country","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-kyiv","tag-long-range-missile","tag-longer-range-strike-weapon","tag-missile","tag-monday","tag-russia","tag-scalp-missile","tag-stationary-target","tag-storm-shadow","tag-u-k","tag-ukraine","tag-weapon"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117151330942757788","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1166880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}