Britain said it will help Kyiv build Storm Shadow missiles in Ukraine. Hours later, the Kremlin announced that Russian forces are already working to find the production sites.
Ukraine marked the 35th anniversary of its independence on August 24. The leaders of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Romania, Moldova, and Luxembourg traveled to Kyiv for the occasion, as did Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, on his first official visit to Ukraine.
During the visit, Britain’s Defense Ministry announced that it would give Ukraine the technology to produce long-range Storm Shadow missiles — the same missiles as France’s SCALP — on Ukrainian soil.
A day earlier, the British government said it had authorized the defense company MBDA to share classified information about the SCALP missile’s British components, since Kyiv and Paris hope to set up local assembly lines for the missiles in Ukraine. France announced back in mid-July that it would license Kyiv to produce them.
Commentary from Meduza’s Explainers desk:
The move looks like an act of symbolic support. France had already pledged in July to license Ukraine to produce SCALP missiles — literally the same weapon as Britain’s Storm Shadow (the two were developed jointly). The key point is that missiles this complex can’t be thrown together at the kind of small, dispersed, camouflaged sites where Ukraine builds its drones. They require full-scale factories capable of manufacturing jet engines, rocket fuel, and guidance systems.
Ukraine has received licenses for complex weapons before, along with promises to build the factories to produce them. But the plants were never completed, and most were destroyed in Russian attacks. A series of strikes, for instance, destroyed a plant under construction in Kyiv that was meant to build Turkish Bayraktar strike drones under license.
Of course, some or even all of the components could be made abroad, but that would defeat the purpose of the license: Europe already builds Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles and has struggled to scale up production. Transferring the license is meant to solve that problem precisely: Europe can’t build enough missiles for Ukraine. Building plants in Europe specifically for Ukraine’s missile program also faces organizational and financial challenges. For instance, the completion of a plant in Denmark that will produce solid rocket fuel for Ukraine was recently postponed.
Producing complex licensed weapons inside Ukraine will be possible only after the war, and only if the money can be found. That applies not just to Storm Shadow/SCALP but also to interceptors for the French-Italian SAMP/T air defense system, which can shoot down Russian ballistic missiles.
Burnham released a message to the Ukrainian people on the eve of his trip to Kyiv, congratulating them on the 35th anniversary of independence:
On Ukraine’s 35th anniversary of independence, the Ukrainian people should be in no doubt: the UK is behind you today and for as long as it takes.
I am proud of the contribution our country has made to Ukraine, and I want the Ukrainian people to hear it directly from me that our support will not waver. After all, Ukraine’s security is our security.
The friendship between our two countries will long outlast Russia’s illegal war. In both the fight and in the rebuilding to come, we will stand with Ukraine and deliver opportunities for people across both our countries.
Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve. We will not back down until there is a just and lasting peace.
The Kremlin said it views London’s plans to give Kyiv the technology to produce SCALP missiles “extremely negatively.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Britain “is taking part in this war on the side of the Kyiv regime.” Russia’s armed forces, he said, “are doing the relevant work to identify missile production sites.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also addressed Ukrainians on the 35th anniversary of independence. In a 20-minute video he said, among other things, that Ukraine’s long-range strikes on targets deep inside Russia “are cutting into logistics and revenues.” Zelensky also mentioned Ukraine’s FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles, which he said “should not be a rare species, but a common bird” and “should winter in Russia.”
Putin is stuck in the past. He still sees an old-model Ukraine — the one that will keep quiet, swallow it, and endure. That Ukraine exists nowhere but in his little folders of briefing papers. Our country became something else long ago — not an observer but a player, not a victim but a fighter. […] Russia doesn’t want peace, it wants mobilization.
Separately, Zelensky addressed China, saying it “should no longer stay silent.” “When someone dresses up in a sailor suit and garrison cap and, mispronouncing some words, talks about a nuclear strike, China should cool that enthusiasm,” Zelensky said. “China should prove its ambition to be one of the world’s leaders — not only economically and technologically, but also as a civilization — by making clear that no dictators should threaten the planet with their old warheads.”
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The war through the eyes of Meduza’s readers
Meduza’s readers live in different countries and hold a range of views on the war. We publish these letters to see the war through your eyes. Our editors aim to represent every point of view, even those that don’t align with the outlet’s own position. In keeping with Meduza’s code of conduct, however, we do not publish messages containing “hate speech,” justifying the killing of civilians, or expressing direct support for a war of aggression.
Galina. I’m continually struck by accusations from Ukrainians that Russian society is what drove Russia to dictatorship. Newsflash: we’ve got gangsters in the Kremlin who have spent the last 30 years bending everyone and everything to their will through threats, murder, and bribery. Former KGB agents with secret-police methods. When these gangsters came to power and started building their web, I had just been born. As I was growing up, Putin and all his cronies were in power. As soon as I was old enough to vote, I always voted against him and against the United Russia party. Among my friends and colleagues, there isn’t a single person who supports the war. Nobody loves Putin. Everyone wishes him dead.
So what could we have changed? Specifically our generation, the ‘90s generation, and the new generation of young people? We can’t do absolutely jack. They haul us off to jail, torment us, threaten us, beat us, rape us, imprison us, kill us. This country is a shiv, as Face sang. Older generations, our parents’ generation especially, mistakenly believed Putin’s sweet promises to restore order with an iron fist and keep everyone safe, but it all turned out to be a lie. He’s cozied up with terrorists, including the inhumane Kadyrov. He’s destroyed so many innocent lives.
I hate him. But there is absolutely nothing I can do. The system will crush me, just as it has crushed many before me. So I chose to flee. It sounds shameful, but it’s the only option left. I want to live. I’ve been living abroad for many years now. And as long as my homeland remains under the yoke of devils in the flesh, I won’t go back to live there. But hope, as they say, dies last. There has always been propaganda in Russia, and there have always been dissenters too. I believe that one day this corrupt, rotten Soviet generation will disappear, and then something will finally change. I hope I live to see that day.
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Cover photo: Henry Nicholls / AP / Scanpix / LETA