The United Kingdom has finally supplied Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles, giving Ukrainian forces a new long-range strike capability ahead of a long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces, multiple senior Western officials told CNN.
“The UK has previously stated that it will supply Ukraine with long-range weapons, this will now include a number of Storm Shadow missiles.
The British government has been clear that this is only in response to Russia's deliberate targeting of civilian national infrastructure and it is a proportionate response," a Western official told CNN.
The Storm Shadow is a long-range cruise missile with stealth capabilities, jointly developed by the United Kingdom and France, that is normally air-launched.
With a range of more than 250 kilometers, or 155 miles, it is far short of the 185-mile range capability of the U.S. Army's tactical surface-to-surface missile systems, or ATACMS, which Ukraine has long requested.
Essentially, Storm Shadow has the range to strike deep into Russian territory in Eastern Ukraine.
A Western official told CNN that the UK has received assurances from the Ukrainian government that these missiles will only be used within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not within Russia.
British officials have made frequent public statements identifying Crimea as sovereign territory of Ukraine, describing it as "illegally annexed".
UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to announce in the House of Commons that the UK is sending Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine.
The missile "is a real game changer in terms of range," a senior US military official told CNN, and gives Kiev a capability it has been asking for since the beginning of the war. As CNN reported, Ukraine's current maximum range on US-supplied weapons is about 49 miles.
The missile deployment comes as Ukrainian forces prepare to launch a counter-offensive to retake territory controlled by the Kremlin in the east and south of the country.
Ukrainian President V. Zelensky said his country still needs "a little more time" before launching a counter-offensive in order to allow a little more of the Western military aid to reach the country. "With [what we have] we can let's move forward and be successful."
Will we have the use of tactical nuclear weapons as Moscow has threatened?
Many continue to take Russian President Vladimir Putin's "warnings" about nuclear use seriously.
After this fact, the question mark is whether Russia will use nuclear weapons and how the planet would react after such a development.
Putin can use conventional nuclear bombs with an explosive power ranging from 1.3 kilotons to 100 kilotons, while the atomic bomb used by America on the city of Hiroshima had an explosive power of 15 kilotons, as strategic nuclear bombs have an explosive power of more than of 1.2 megatons.
Russia probably won't use nuclear weapons on the front line, because it doesn't make sense to trigger a nuclear conflict to control small areas (32 square kilometers per bomb, which means using many tactical bombs).
This is small gain in exchange for the enormous risks of introducing nuclear weapons and nuclear fallout, or Putin may choose to attack a Ukrainian military base or strike an urban center and cause massive casualties and potentially kill the country's political leadership.
