The Ukrainian military is already using British-made Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets deep in Russian territory, after being authorized to do so by London, Yuri Sak, Adviser to Ukraine’s Minister of Strategic Industries, has stated.
His comments come after British Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated earlier this month that Kiev has the right to strike Russia with weapons supplied by the UK.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV posted on Tuesday, Sak was asked if Ukraine’s forces intended to use foreign weapons against targets far behind the Russia-Ukraine conflict frontline. He replied that such incidents have already taken place.
“The United Kingdom has already previously allowed Ukraine to use their long-range missiles, Storm Shadows, and we have been successfully using them,” the adviser claimed, without providing any further details about these strikes.
Moscow has previously accused Kiev of using British weapons to carry out attacks against Russian regions. In early May, shortly after Cameron’s comments, Russian Foreign Ministry official Sergey Belyaev claimed that “UK-supplied weapons are being actively used by the Ukrainian military in terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure and the civilian population of Donbass, as well as other Russian regions.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine has continued to demand that more of its foreign backers give it the green light to use Western weapons to conduct strikes deep inside Russian territories. Aside from the UK, several other countries, including Poland and Latvia, have said they have no objections to such a use of their donated missiles.
Last week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also insisted that bloc members should allow Kiev to use their contributed weapons against Russia, arguing that maintaining a ban on such usage amounted to denying Ukraine the ability to defend itself.
Moscow, however, has sternly warned against such moves, with Russian President Vladimir Putin stressing on Tuesday that long-range strikes on Russia using Western weaponry would represent a serious escalation of the conflict.
“This constant escalation can lead to serious consequences. If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the US behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons? Hard to say. Do they want global conflict?” Putin said.