UK to help Ukraine build Storm Shadow long-range missiles: Why it matters

As Prime Minister Andy Burnham visits Kyiv on his first foreign trip as the UK's prime minister, the United Kingdom is due to share classified weapons information with Ukraine to enable it to produce its own version of the Storm Shadow long-range.

Key points

• Additionally known as SCALP in France, these missiles have a range of concerning 560km (350 miles) and are capable of hitting targets 240km (150 miles) inside Russian territory.
• Nevertheless, the Storm Shadow/SCALP "is a highly sophisticated weapons system incorporating decades of Anglo-French research and development", Vassil informed Al Jazeera.
• This year, they were applied to attack Russia's Black Sea naval headquarters in the port city of Sevastopol in Crimea.
• Karan Vassil, a Eurasia analyst at the UK-based private intelligence firm Sibylline, remarked Ukraine has additionally been developing and testing its own ballistic missile systems.
• Burnham described Russia's war on Ukraine as four and a half years of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Burnham's trip on Monday, timed to coincide with Ukraine's 35th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union, is the latest show of backing on the part of the UK and Ukraine's other European allies at a time when backing from the United States has been erratic, analysts stated.

Burnham described Russia's war on Ukraine as "four and a half years of Russia's full-scale invasion. Aimed at crushing the independence we are here to celebrate" as he appeared alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a ceremony in Kyiv. "But today and every day, you prove that they have failed."

Burnham is additionally to co-chair a gathering of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, those nations prepared to provide backing for war-torn Ukraine.

For context, the sharing of top-secret weapons blueprints stands in contrast to US President Donald Trump's backpedalling last month on a promise to allow Ukraine to manufacture its own version of the US-made Patriot air defence interceptor. It ukraine notes it badly needs to counter Russian ballistic missile attacks.

While the US has provided Ukraine with US-made Patriot air defence batteries and munitions previously, Trump last month remarked handing over the underlying technology to Ukraine to be able to independently produce them was "a hard thing to give away".

Notably, the UK's decision to share blueprints, nevertheless, follows a similar move by France and comes as Ukraine and Russia exchange heavy air attacks and Russian President Vladimir Putin warns of intensified retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian economic infrastructure.

Ukraine has stepped up its domestic military production, crafting long-range drones and missiles that strike deep into Russian territory, but analysts remarked producing its own Storm Shadows will provide Kyiv the ability to hit Russia's strategic targets more efficiently and at an unprecedented rate. What are Storm Shadow long-range missiles?

Additionally known as SCALP in France, these missiles have a range of concerning 560km (350 miles) and are capable of hitting targets 240km (150 miles) inside Russian territory. This is not as far as Ukraine's in-house, deep-strike drones, such as the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile. It has a range of 3, 000km (1, 865 miles).

But while Ukrainian long-range missiles can hit "soft" targets inside Russia, such as Wildberries warehouses, Storm Shadow missiles give Kyiv the ability to hit "hard" targets, including heavily fortified, guarded locations that are usually protected by much tougher defences.

Their advanced navigation systems additionally mean they can be employed at night and in all weather conditions.

Last year, the Ukrainian military's General Staff remarked Storm Shadow missiles produced by the manufacturer MBDA and provided by the UK had been applied to hit Russian facilities, including a chemical plant and the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery, one of the biggest oil product suppliers in southern Russia. This year, they were applied to attack Russia's Black Sea naval headquarters in the port city of Sevastopol in Crimea.

One Storm Shadow missile is estimated to cost regarding $1m to produce, so they are deployed in more carefully calibrated attacks than the flurry of cheap drones that Ukraine already mass-produces.

How straightforward will it be for Ukraine to build its own Storm Shadow missiles?

Keir Giles, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank, remarked Ukraine is anticipated to have a good capacity for producing these more sophisticated weapon systems once it has the blueprints.

"Ukraine, under the force of fighting a war of national survival, has been developing a very agile, highly motivated and distributed defence industry, which is far ahead in terms of adaptation to current needs some of its Western European counterparts, including the UK, " he informed Al Jazeera.

Being able to produce higher quantities of this missile, more than its actual capability, is what could create the difference, he went on.

"Ukraine has had to be highly selective in the targets against which it uses its very limited stocks of the most advanced weapons systems, " Giles remarked. "Russia, meanwhile, has been exponentially increasing its production of drones and missiles, a trend that's been in place for several years now."

"So redressing that balance would be a major step forward for Ukraine, especially if it is able to reduce the number of missiles being launched at Ukraine every night by striking at the facilities that enable those launches, " the analyst continued.

Has Ukraine been able to produce any of its own long-range missiles?

Yes. Besides its mass production of cheap short-range drones and interceptors, Ukraine is capable of designing and manufacturing more sophisticated longer-range missile systems, including the Neptune and Flamingo cruise missiles.

Nevertheless, the Storm Shadow/SCALP "is a highly sophisticated weapons system incorporating decades of Anglo-French research and development", Vassil informed Al Jazeera. "Licensed production gives Ukraine access to knowledge and industrial processes that would otherwise take considerable time and resources to reproduce."

Giles, who additionally leads the Conflict Studies Research Centre, a group of experts in Eurasian security, stated Ukraine may well already have knowledge of the design of Storm Shadow missiles but using it without cooperation would be a "slap in the face to its coalition supporters".

Meanwhile, the reason Ukraine is only now getting access to the missiles' blueprints has to do with politics, he remarked. "The United States is not willing to supply the interceptors for Patriot missile systems, so there's a gap in Ukraine's air and missile defences, which Russia has been exploiting."

He continued: "European partners are taking up the task of making sure that Ukraine can prevail in the war, and a major part of that is ensuring that it can strike into Russia."

Vassil remarked British and French willingness to transfer classified missile-production knowledge sets a potentially notable precedent for future allied cooperation. "But it remains uncertain whether this will have an impact on Washington's posture regarding Patriot interceptors, " he remarked. How fast can Ukraine scale up production of Storm Shadow missiles?

France and the UK have expressed hope that they can support Ukraine set up a production line by the end of the year.

Nevertheless, estimates suggested a new batch of cruise missiles of this complexity could take concerning two years from contract award to delivery, according to Vassil. This person continued that establishing production will be a challenging endeavour and will most probable continue to depend on a complex international supply chain.

Storm Shadows additionally incorporate some sensitive US technologies, meaning some aspects of supply or transfer may still require US approval and "it remains uncertain how this will apply to Ukrainian production", he stated.

There are additionally substantial security challenges. "Missile-production facilities inside Ukraine would present valuable targets for Russia and would have to operate under the continuing threat of Russian long-range missile and drone attacks, " Vassil continued.

"Protecting production sites, dispersing manufacturing and maintaining supplies of critical components could, therefore, become almost as important as obtaining the technical information itself."

For now, UK to help Ukraine build Storm Shadow long remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.