President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading, so far unsuccessfully, with allies to allow his use of high-precision, longer-range western missiles, such as British Storm Shadows, French Scalps or US Atacms, to strike at targets inside Russia to limit Moscow’s air strike capability.
A Storm Shadow cruise missile fired from Ukraine towards an airfield 100 km inside Russia would cover the distance in six minutes – much quicker than Ukrainian drones. Ukraine has already used them to devastating effect in Russian-occupied Crimea, striking naval facilities and air defence installations. And to forestall such an eventuality on its own territory, the Russians moved bomber bases beyond the range of Storm Shadows and Atacms.
But inventories of Storm Shadows and Scalps are low, so even with permission for cross-border strikes, Kyiv would not in reality be able to deploy them in volume. On Wednesday Ukraine showed it was far from constrained by a lack of missiles: its drones destroyed a major Russian ammunition store in the Tver region, 470 km north of its border.
Kyiv maintains its demand, which has acquired a totemic importance as evidence of how seriously allies take their commitments to give Ukraine whatever help it needs. After all, Zelenskiy points out, the US is prepared to supply weapons to Israel with no conditionality, while Vladimir Putin’s campaign – he is now calling it a “war” – is an existential threat to Nato and US allies.
Putin has warned that the use of weapons supplied by the US and UK against Russian territory would constitute a qualitatively new level of engagement and escalation, an act of war. There will, he promises, be unspecified consequences.
The UK argues that Putin’s bluff should be called, but is unwilling to move out of step with the US. Washington and Berlin have previously invoked the risk of provoking the Kremlin to justify delays in sending armaments. The promised retaliation has nevertheless not followed. Putin, moreover, has also already further internationalised the conflict by taking missiles from Iran and North Korea and unspecified aid from China.
Strong domestic political considerations, the election and Ukraine-skeptic Donald Trump are, however, holding Biden back from sanctioning even UK missile use. Approval, the administration argues, citing primarily the danger of provoking Russia, would be a boon to those arguing that the US is already too engaged.
Permission for the use of western missiles against targets in Russia is not a magic bullet that would hand Ukraine a decisive advantage, nor would its refusal be a fatal blow. The difficult decision, one way or the other, is a tactical, political one, whose timing may also facilitate or hinder any openings for peace talks.