Volodymyr Zelenskiy has complained that it has become increasingly difficult to use Storm Shadow missiles against Russian targets in occupied Ukraine because of a lack of supplies and reduced cooperation from the US, UK and France.
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Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed to be able to threaten targets inside Russia’s internationally recognised borders with Anglo-French Storm Shadow/Scalp cruise missiles and US Atacms ballistic missiles, repeating a demand he has made on several occasions previously.
But he then went further and suggested it was even becoming difficult in practice to strike Russian targets on occupied Ukrainian territory, which has been permitted by supplying countries for months.
Its genuinely curious to see a guy who is ostensibly head of his country’s armed forces have to go hat-in-hand to all the NATO states and ask permission to use the weapons he was granted for the purpose he’s ostensibly been set to. I’m beginning to wonder why the US paid through the nose for a British Aerospace product to sit in a Ukrainian storage locker until some Russian artillery sergeant can figure out which warehouse to shell.
It sounds like the restrictions are primarily related to supply, as in they aren’t being provided in enough quantity.
Although I’m sure there is more than a handful of red tape still when it comes to using available stocks inside of Russia.
Not to quibble, but I doubt any of these are in a range of Russian indirect fire teams.
And while I assume they are within range of Russian missiles, I’m betting they are stored underground in old Soviet military facilities until needed.
The expectation is that Zelensky gets a steady flow of new arms after the first salvo. I’m sure he’s afraid of getting cut off. But, again, why have them if you aren’t going to use them? Its not like the Russian military can get any more aggressive in Ukrainian territory. And the Ukrainians clearly aren’t shy about retributive invasions on the northern side of the front.
Russian drones and missiles have hit as far west as Lviv. And Ukrainians have sent long range artillery all the way into Moscow, abet without significant damage.
They can’t just launch strikes indiscriminately. But we’ve seen a slew of security breaches on both side of the line since the war started. If you’re just putting these weapons in a shed somewhere, they’re going to be identified eventually. Its use’m or lose’m.
My comment was a response to yours and within the context of this article, not about the wider war, or other policy implications.
This article is primarily talking about long range strike capabilities, such as Storm Shadow and ATACMS, the lack of supply currently being provided, and how that is being viewed by Ukraine.
Your top comment only addressed issues relating to approval for strikes, which the article does mention, but it’s primarily focused on the lack of actual long range guided munitions being provided.
If you’re familiar with how Ukraine stores their HIMARS and M270 MLRS platforms between fire missions, then that is why I meant by implying that munitions like Storm, Scalp, and ATACMS, are probably being stored relatively securely.
But that last one is just an assumption of my part, I could be wrong about that.
I am unaware of any artillery being fired into Moscow, are you talking about drones?