New threats from Moscow emerged after UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced on August 24 the decision to provide Ukraine with technology for producing Storm Shadow missiles. The following day, Kremlin advisor Andrei Fedorov warned that British military factories could face attacks from “unknown sources.”
Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, claimed that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons on Russian territory could involve any military objects and equipment belonging to the UK, both in Ukraine and beyond.
Zakharova regularly accuses the West of supporting Ukraine, asserting that the UK will “not escape responsibility” for supplying Ukraine with long-range Storm Shadow missiles and the technology to produce them. She notably ignored the fact that France also agreed to provide Ukraine with a license to manufacture these missiles—Storm Shadow/SCALP is a joint development of both countries. Her accusations and threats were exclusively directed at the UK, and she alleged that local media began referring to the SCALP missile rather than Storm Shadow, seemingly to obscure the evidence and shift responsibility onto the French.
Context
- Since the onset of the war, the UK has been supporting Ukraine with various arms supplies. The country has not disclosed how many Storm Shadow missiles have been sent to Kyiv and does not regularly make announcements about such deliveries.
- Ukrainian forces first used British missiles to strike military targets in Russia in November 2024. On August 16, British publication LBC reported, citing multiple sources in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, that Ukrainian defense forces had employed British drones for long-range strikes against Russia over the past six months, which had not happened previously. The article noted that these drones proved more effective for striking than the British Storm Shadow missiles.
- In response, Russian officials stated that the UK would “pay” for supplying drones to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that Russia has the right to regard the UK’s involvement in the war with all possible consequences.
