UK’s long-range missiles could be ‘game changer’ for Ukraine in Crimea
Joel Gehrke
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A promised influx of British long-range cruise missiles is raising hope in Kyiv that Western powers will equip Ukrainian forces to reclaim Crimea, which Russia annexed at the start of the war in Ukraine.
“It’s a good sign because to liberate Crimea, we need such long-range missiles — for example, we need these missiles to destroy the Kerch Bridge leading to Crimea,” Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Chairman Alexander Merezhko told the Washington Examiner in reference to the bridge Russian President Vladimir Putin opened to connect the Russian mainland to the Ukrainian peninsula. “It’s going to be a part of liberation because we cannot liberate [it] without hitting military targets, and so forth, in Crimea.”
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The Biden administration and some Republicans have expressed unease about the idea of Ukraine trying to retake Crimea given Putin’s oft-repeated threats of nuclear escalation. That debate could be rendered moot if Ukrainian forces fail in their impending counteroffensive, but the British gift could wreak havoc on Russian defenses during the campaign.
“These cruise missiles, they give us a chance to hit Russian ammunition depots behind the front line, you know, so it might be … [a] game changer,” said Merezhko. “So it’s important to us, and it’s a good sign on the eve of [the] counteroffensive, starting [the] counteroffensive.”
Putin’s associates offered an “extremely negative” response to the donation. “This will demand an adequate response from our military, which will, naturally, from a military point of view, find corresponding solutions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The United Kingdom’s Storm Shadow cruise missiles were designed for British and French warplanes but have been modified to be fired from Ukrainian MiG-29s. Their reported range of about 155 miles provides an extensive upgrade over the American HIMARS and other artillery that Western states have provided since last summer.
“The provision of these long range weapons … will help the counteroffensive dramatically,” said former Ambassador Bill Taylor, who led the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on two different tours. “So this allows the Ukrainians to attack into — well into — Crimea. It also allows the Ukrainians to attack Russian targets well behind the lines into Donbas.”
Russian forces fought their way south from Donbas and north from Crimea to seize Ukrainian ports along the Sea of Azov coastline and forge a so-called “land bridge” between mainland Russia, the Donbas, and the Crimean Peninsula. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has tried to keep secret both the timing and direction of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, but U.S. and European observers expect that Ukrainian forces will attempt to storm through Russian lines and deprive Putin of that corridor.
“[The Storm Shadow missiles will be] very, very useful to break through towards Azov sea,” a senior European official said. “That’s crucial. I think that first phase of this is even more important, the first phase of the counterattack … because Crimea will be isolated.”
Ukrainian officials have tried to manage expectations ahead of the counteroffensive, in part out of a misgiving that a failure to achieve their aims could diminish the Western appetite to provide more aid. Standard military doctrine acknowledges that offensive operations are more difficult than defense, but Ukrainian and Western observers hope that dynamic will be offset by the difficulty that Russia will face in establishing adequate defenses along the entire line.
“Their panic is visible and consists in the fact that they do not know from which direction to expect the maximum force of the attack, and that is why they are dispersing their efforts both on the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson fronts,” Ukrainian defense forces spokeswoman Nataliya Humeniuk said Thursday.
The long-range missiles should make Ukrainian forces more effective in preventing Russian commanders from reinforcing their embattled troops after the counteroffensive begins.
“It’s a long front line for the Russians to have to defend, and so they will need to be able to move their units that are not on the front line … so the Russians need the mobility and the flexibility to be able to respond to the Ukrainians,” Taylor said. “And so if [Ukraine] can use these long-range weapons to take out fuel depots, to take out the ammo dumps, to hit Russian military headquarters — to cause them to have difficulty commanding and controlling the Russian reserves in response to this Ukrainian offensive, then that increases the chances, the odds, of a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive.”
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace declined to say how many Storm Shadows have been given to Ukraine.
“The exact number is currently enough to satisfy the Ukrainian demand for that capability,” he told the House of Commons. “We’ll keep that under review to make sure we can make the difference.”
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Merezhko, the Ukrainian lawmaker, hopes these missiles could be not only a game changer but “a good precedent” that encourages the United States and other Western powers to open their long-range arsenals.
“Of course, we can liberate these territories using the weapons which we have, but it will cost [more] in terms of our lives,” he said. “And these long-range missiles, they help to save lives of our soldiers and our civilians.”