A day after Ukraine’s first ATACMS strike inside Russia, Kyiv reportedly fires British Storm Shadow missiles, too
The Ukrainian military has attacked targets inside Russia with British long-range Storm Shadow missiles, Western officials told The Guardian and Bloomberg. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has declined to comment on the reports, though senior British officials have “hinted” that the U.S. government recently dropped previous objections to Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadows in Russia, according to The Times.
Storm Shadow missile fragments were reportedly recovered in the town of Marino in Russia’s Kursk region. Following The Telegraph’s reporting, the pro-invasion Telegram channel Dva Maiora shared photographs purportedly showing Storm Shadow debris.
On Wednesday, Kursk Governor Alexey Smirnov said the region’s air defenses downed two inbound Ukrainian missiles, though he didn’t specify the type. Dva Maioria claimed that Ukraine launched as many as a dozen Storm Shadow missiles at targets in the region.
On Tuesday, November 19, Ukraine’s military confirmed that it attacked an ammunition depot in Russia’s Bryansk region. The news outlet RBC-Ukraine later reported that ATACMS missiles were used, making it Kyiv’s first long-range strike against a target inside Russia with the U.S.-supplied weapons. The Russian Defense Ministry later confirmed that Ukraine had launched six ATACMS missiles at its facility outside Bryansk.
The U.S. media first reported on Sunday, November 17, that the Biden administration approved such attacks by Ukraine using American ATACMS missiles.
