A Storm Shadow missile inside the Royal Air Force museum in London. By Wikimedia user (Rept0n1x).
The United Kingdom will allow defense company MBDA to declassify information on British components used in Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles, part of an effort to help Ukraine and France establish local missile production, the British government announced on August 24.
The announcement comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrives in Kyiv for Ukraine Independence Day for his first international visit “to reiterate UK’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine.”
“The Government has agreed that defense firm MBDA can release classified information on UK components for the long-range missile, SCALP, as Ukraine and France look to establish local assembly lines in Ukraine,” a government statement reads.
In July, France announced a major defense package with Ukraine that includes authorizing licensed production and transfer of blueprints of the SCALP-EG cruise missile—the French copy of the Storm Shadow—in Ukraine, with the goal of starting as soon as possible and before the end of the current year.
The Storm Shadow, which features a low-observable design, was developed by French Matra and British Aerospace, and is now manufactured by MBDA.
The missile has a GPS-aided inertial navigation system with a terrain profile matching system. For terminal guidance, it is equipped with an imaging infrared scene-mapping area correlator system.
Ukraine began integrating the 1,300 kg cruise missile on its Soviet-era Su-24 fighter bombers when the deliveries from the UK first began in 2023. Both France and Italy supplied Kyiv with the missile later.
While Ukraine has up until now received the export version, with the maximum range downgraded from 560 to just 250 kilometers, the transfer of technology could now allow Kyiv to make use of the missile’s full range.
Ukraine’s ability to produce the Storm Shadow, even with direct support from the UK and France, is highly doubtful, let alone on such a short notice. The idea of producing the missile in the country, which is completely exposed to Russian missiles and drones, is also in itself not very logical.
That being said, this whole plan may be just a cover story to supply Ukraine with a domestic version of the Storm Shadow, allowing it to strike far deeper into Russian territory, while at the same time removing the UK and France from the position of responsibility.
The plan will not likely give Ukraine any serious advantage. While Kyiv scored some hits when it first received the Storm Shadow, Russian air defenses and electronic warfare adapted to the missile quickly, very much rendering it ineffective within a year.
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