A member of the public walks past the UK Ministry of Defence in central London, 18 February 2025. Photo: EPA / Andy Rain
The UK Ministry of Defence announced plans on Sunday to develop new tactical ballistic missiles to “boost Ukraine’s firepower to defend itself from Putin’s war machine”.
Codenamed Nightfall, the ministry’s initiative will be the design of missiles “to operate in high-threat battlefields with heavy electromagnetic interference” and that can carry a 200kg warhead across a range of over 500 km, it said, allowing the Armed Forces of Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.
“Nightfall missiles will be capable of being launched from a range of vehicles, firing multiple missiles in quick succession and withdrawing within minutes — allowing Ukrainian forces to hit key military targets before Russian forces can respond”, the ministry said, adding that it intends to produce 10 missiles per month at a maximum cost of £800,000 (€921,000) each.
Three industry teams will each receive £9 million (€10.36 million) to design and develop their first three missiles for test firings within 12 months, the ministry added.
The announcement followed a visit to Ukraine by UK Defence Secretary John Healey last week, during which Russia deployed its nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile for the second time, striking the western city of Lviv on Thursday in what it described as its “response” to a claimed Ukrainian drone attack on one of Vladimir Putin’s residences in December.
“We were close enough to hear the air raid sirens around Lviv on our journey to Kyiv”, Healey said. “It was a serious moment and a stark reminder of the barrage of drones and missiles hitting Ukrainians in sub-zero conditions”.
“We won’t stand for this, which is why we are determined to put leading edge weapons into the hands of Ukrainians as they fight back”, he continued.
The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range, hypersonic ballistic missile, with a range of over 5,000 km. As well as being extremely difficult for defence systems to intercept, it is believed to have a warhead that deliberately fragments during its final descent into several, independently targeted inert projectiles, causing distinctive repeated explosions moments apart, according to the BBC.
Following Thursday’s strike, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on world leaders to give a “clear reaction” and make Moscow “feel consequences every time it again focuses on killings and the destruction of infrastructure”.
