Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow was a carefully considered decisionposted at 6:34 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time

18:34 GMT

Paul Adams
Diplomatic correspondent

Once again, deliberate ambiguity surrounds Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied weapons in Russia.

British Defense Secretary John Healey said Ukraine’s action “speaks for itself.”

His Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, simply declared that his country was “using all means to defend our country.”

But after Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms) missiles in Russia, it was always likely that Britain (which makes the Storm Shadow missile/ Scalp) would follow suit.

Reports are still fragmentarybut it appears that Ukraine has so far limited the use of Storm Shadow to the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops continue to hold out.

The nature of the target is unknown, but Storm Shadow is powerful enough to penetrate bunkers with pinpoint accuracy.

Given that Ukraine does not have a large number of missiles, it is likely that the target was chosen carefully.

While this appears to be the first time Storm Shadow has been fired at Russia, it is not the first time it has been used to devastating effect against Russian forces.

In September last year, it was used to destroy a Russian submarine in a dry dock at the Crimean port of Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Crimea is a Ukrainian territory annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Shortly after, another Storm Shadow missile hit fleet headquarters, killing 34 people.