The weapons will give Ukraine the “best chance” to defend itself, Britain’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Thursday, the BBC reported.
The Storm Shadow is a plane-fired cruise missile with a range of over 250 km, according to its manufacturer MBDA.
The US-supplied HIMARS missiles used by Ukraine have a range of around 80 km, the BBC reported.
The transfer means Britain has become the first ally to start providing Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles for which Kyiv has been asking for months, according to the Reuters news agency.
The Storm Shadow will allow Ukraine to strike Russian troops and supply dumps deep behind the frontlines, Reuters reported.
The UK’s Wallace said the weapons would enable Kyiv’s forces “to push back Russian forces based on Ukrainian sovereign territory," as quoted by the BBC.
This implied he had received assurances from Ukraine they would not be used to strike targets inside Russia, according to Reuters.
Wallace said the Storm Shadow missiles were "going into" or already in Ukrainian hands, news outlets reported.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Moscow would take an "appropriate" military response to any British-supplied Storm Shadow weapons used by Ukrainian forces, the BBC reported.
Ukraine is expected to unleash a counteroffensive against Russia soon after six months of keeping its forces on the defensive, according to military experts.
‘War may continue into 2024’: Ukrainian analyst
Meanwhile, Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Musiyenko has said that Kyiv's allies understand that a counteroffensive "may not result in the complete eviction of Russian troops and the definitive defeat of Russia in all occupied areas."
"We have to be ready for the war to continue into next year - or it could end this year," Musiyenko told Ukrainian NV Radio on Thursday, as quoted by Reuters.
He added: "It all depends on how the battles develop. We can't guarantee how the counteroffensive will develop."
Chinese official to visit Ukraine, Poland, Russia next week: reports
China’s foreign ministry has announced that its special representative for Eurasian affairs will visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia next week as part of “an effort to promote peace talks,” Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.
Last month, China’s President Xi Jinping pledged in a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that he would send a delegation to the region to help facilitate peace talks, according to The Guardian.
Friday is day 443 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, BBC, Reuters, The Guardian