Ukraine’s Armed Forces have used long-range air-launched cruise missiles Storm Shadow during shelling of Luhansk, as per a statement by the self-proclaimed Luhansk “people’s republic” mission within the Joint Centre on Control and Coordination of Issues connected to “war crimes in Ukraine”.
On 11 May, the UK supplied Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine.
Russia’s Defence Ministry also claims that Ukraine’s Armed Forces shelled Luhansk using Storm Shadow missiles. According to the Russian ministry, polymer products factory Polipack and meat-processing plant Milam were hit.
The ministry also states that the Ukrainian Su-24 bomber and the MiG-29 jet that was covering it attacked Luhansk and were later shot down by Russian jets.
Shelling took place yesterday, 12 May. It is claimed that Ukraine’s Armed Forces launched two new missiles in total as well as one missile designed to suppress air defence.
Six children were hurt in the attack, acting head of the occupation “administration” of the Luhansk region Leonid Pasechnik claims.
“The condition of five children is satisfactory. The sixth [child] has a broken foot bone. During the explosion, he fell and got injured,” he writes.
On 11 May, the UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced London’s transfer of Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine.
The missile’s range is 250 km. According to CNN, the maximum range of the missiles that were previously exported to Ukraine stands at 80 km.
“Critically, the Storm Shadow has the range to strike deep into Russian-held territory in Eastern Ukraine,” CNN previously reported.
Another anonymous source told CNN that Ukraine had vowed not to use these missiles to strike Russian territories. At the same time, CNN underlines that Western officials refer to Crimea as Ukraine’s sovereign territory.
Russian authorities condemned the transfer of missiles. “We qualify this as another extremely hostile move by London to further fill Ukraine with arms. This leads to a serious escalation of tensions in the zone of the special military operation,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin’s view of such transfers is “quite negative”.
