On December 30, 2024, a Ukrainian missile strike targeted a Russian command post in the Kursk region, reportedly killing eight Russian servicemen and injuring 22 others.
The strike, initially believed to have been carried out by US-supplied HIMARS missiles, was later confirmed to have been a precision attack using Storm Shadow missiles, a system supplied by the United Kingdom.
The target, located in Lgov, Kursk Oblast, was part of an ongoing effort by Ukraine to disrupt Russian military operations within its borders.
Footage of the aftermath of the strike, shared by Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov, shows significant damage to the command post. While initial reports from Kursk’s acting governor Alexander Khinshtein mentioned shelling in Lgov, Russian Telegram channels later indicated that Ukraine used multiple missiles in the attack, with at least one being intercepted.
The Storm Shadow is a stand-off weapon, giving the Ukrainian Armed Forces a strategic advantage in striking Russian positions without needing to approach closely. Additionally, “the strike reportedly killed eight Russian troops and wounded 22,” as per independent media reports, further demonstrating the missile’s effectiveness.
The attack comes amid reports of increased casualties in the Kursk region, despite Russia’s efforts to bolster its defences by bringing in North Korean troops. The presence of these troops marks a significant shift in the conflict, with Russia seeking to strengthen its numbers in response to the continued pressure from Ukrainian forces.
A former senior British soldier, speaking on the condition of anonymity to the UK Defence Journal, commented on the significance of the Storm Shadow missile strike:
“British missiles are Putin’s nightmare. This is precisely the kind of action we need to see more of. The Russians are running out of options, and every well-placed strike like this chips away at their ability to command and control on the front lines. What’s clear is that the Ukrainians are taking the fight to the heart of Russia’s military infrastructure, and we’re starting to see real results.
If the UK and our allies keep pushing these systems into Ukraine’s hands, the Russians will feel the pressure. No one ever thought they would be on the defensive inside their own borders, but that’s exactly where we’ve got them now.”
Earlier in December, Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported a strike on the 810th Marine Brigade’s command post in Lgov, raising questions about the ongoing military activities in the region. The missile strike is just one example of how Western-supplied weapons, particularly the Storm Shadow, have enhanced Ukraine’s ability to target and damage Russian military infrastructure.
Storm Shadow
The Storm Shadow is a Franco-British long-range cruise missile designed for precision strikes on high-value strategic targets. Developed since 1994 by Matra and British Aerospace, and currently manufactured by MBDA, the missile is known as Storm Shadow in the UK and SCALP-EG (Système de Croisière Autonome à Longue Portée – Emploi Général) in France. Its main mission is to engage critical infrastructure such as command centres, airfields, ports, power stations, and other high-value targets.
The missile is powered by a Microturbo TRI 60-30 turbojet engine, allowing it to reach speeds of up to Mach 0.95. With a range of 550 km (342 miles), it is capable of striking targets at long distances. The Storm Shadow is equipped with a multi-stage BROACH (Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmented Charge) warhead, designed for maximum penetration. Upon approaching the target, the missile uses GPS and infrared guidance systems to accurately hit its target. The missile follows a semi-autonomous flight path, initially staying low to avoid radar detection before climbing to a higher altitude for target identification. Upon reaching the target, it uses a thermographic camera to confirm its location before diving for the strike.
Originally developed to destroy high-value infrastructure, the Storm Shadow is a fire-and-forget missile, meaning once launched, it cannot be redirected. Its pre-programmed target information is not alterable during the flight, ensuring a highly focused strike.
Additionally, the missile’s low-level flight path, guided by terrain mapping and GPS, allows it to evade enemy radar systems effectively. In situations where the missile cannot locate its target, it is programmed to divert to a crash point to prevent collateral damage. Recent upgrades have enhanced its capabilities, including the ability to relay battle damage assessment information back to the launch platform, further improving its operational effectiveness.
Cool can we ramp up production then please?
The last order from the French production line was in 2022 so not long ago. The UK production line was essentially converted to a mid life upgrade line, but the skills and knowledge are still there so no reason they could not open the taps on both a french and a UK production line. But the positives are that the UK government ( a labour one in this instance) in an usually wise and not penny pinching moment purchased a huge number of these ( possibly up to 1000) and they were before cutter Cameron.
Another 1,000 missiles would do nicely.
Send half of those to Ukraine. Rain the bastards down on the orcs!
I can’t see us making any new major orders with the stormshadow replacement due in 2027. I would like to see us keep the existing stock however for the long term and perhaps develop a rapid dragon style launch mechanism for them in order to give the UK a large strategic missile capability. Even better if we also add in something like the Andril Barracuda as a low cost cruise missile. A C17 firing up to 36 mixed Stormshadows barracudas woukd be quite the capability and we could do this for a very low cost.
We don’t have enough c17 to convert one away from its primary mission. They would need to buy a airframe for such a mission, maybe an additional a400m order could do the job.
Depends, if your fighting a UK vs Russia only campaign then it’s all at sea and in the air and we would have plenty of transport aircraft doing not a lot. If your fighting a NATO/JEF land campaign in the Baltic or Scandinavia against Russia then maybe not. It opens up a lot of options though for a very small price.
I would suggest though that having the ability to launch 100+ cruise missiles in one go is a vital capability the UK now needs to act as a deterrent against similar attacks from Russia. Typhoon and storm shadow / SSN TLAM are all amazing but there would be a limited number we could get into the air at one time.
C17/A400M carrying Rapid Dragon pallets with storm shadow and barracuda gives us a strategic capability for a few quid using existing systems.
Anything else will cost tens of billions and take a decade. Same system could also later use FC/ASW.
The US is doing exactly this with JASSM ER and Barracuda despite the fact they have over 100 strategic bombers. Clearly they see value in it, so should we.
Also no need to convert any C17’s, it just has to carry the pallets. Fly out over the Norwegian sea with a Typhoon escort and pump them out. Three C17 could deliver 100 of these weapons with a mission lasting no more than a few hours and take out Murmansk.
A couple of SSN’s stationed off the coast would sink any Russian surface vessels that fled port and a carrier strike group could mop up anything else.
That’s the kind of UK only capability we now need to be thinking about if we want effective deterrents. It’s very doable with in our current budgets and force structures.
Fair enough, then.
I hope that the FC/ASW missile is ordered in at least 1,000 missiles, then, and retain the ability to build more.
We should also retain some of our current Storm Shadows, I think. Better to have and not need than the other way around.
Blair wanted the UK to have its own version of Shock & Awe.
RN had no means to launch anything out of VLS on T42/T23/T22 that it had at the time.
So it was Storm Shadow that was chosen as the package.
This fed into the rather silly arguments about T45 and Mk41 VLS at the time as a policy decision had been made for air launch.
Initially RN was notionally given a capability as GR9 Harrier was to have carried Storm Shadow from Invincibles.
However, this look pretty silly a few years later when GR9 never got cleared for this and joint Harrier was wound down.
There are obsolete parts in Storm Shadow. Which is unsurprising in a 1990’s design. Electronics have moved fowards an awful lot since then.
So any new production would be of a variant anyway.
What is perhaps not surprising in certain circles, is how well Storm Shadow/Scalp has performed against Russia. Even when they have used GPS jamming and other high powered electronic jamming. The missile inevitably gets through and hits its target. No matter the spin Russia try to say, in regards to shoot downs. Satellite evidence normally shows a crater where once a structure once stood or a ship burning with loads of holes in it.
I am pretty certain MBDA will be fed back information from Ukraine, on how well the missile performs and the challenges it faces. Which is likely going to dictate how the two variants of FCASW is being developed. What can be certain though is that the subsonic stealthy FCASW is going to be very difficult to counter. The supersonic version is also expected to be a right handful.
This is why the west “fell behind” with hypersonic weapons. The US always trusted stealth and it works as advertised. It’d have been a waste to spend billions on hypersonic weapons- which are also much larger so your delivery platforms or ship magazines are limited.
Just like how Russians mocked the US for not having supersonic anti ship missiles that Russia did. The US knew Russian air defense is crap (Moskva got taken out by Neptune which is harpoon tier) but Russia knew the US had AEGIS so had had to constantly pour a ton of money into finding a way to defeat it.
Hypersonique is relevant. But not for all targets. For the bulk of missiles, cheap high-low or Cruise missile are the best.
For nuclear strike, or conventional hvt, hypersonique is relevant, since it make all air défense thinner. For antishipping, i guess it is a mix of speed, low flight pattern and manouverability, since the target is also an air defense base. The chinese project with a missile going torpédo in the final phase of the attack seem very promising as well, at least on paper.
Russia’s hypersonic missiles are only good for large, static targets – mostly children’s hospitals.
You can be sure MBDA is delighted with the results. The missile is working as expected, production is on the rise, (some say that quantity is no longer an issue). We have the land based version in crash program with Poland, Spain, Italy and Germany, expected to be qualified in a few quarters. The missile is selling like hot cakes and the future missile is in development between France and UK. Another success story for all in missile development. It is joining Aster, Mistral, Exocet, Meteor, Mica as very successfull ammunitions. For Drone, nobody can talk, so we wont. In the making, AASM long range (300km+), new nuclear missile and new anti ship missile. Everything we do with UK and Italy is world class. Germany seem to be more serious. I think the fun is in front of us 🙂 So glad to see these coopération working fine.
To be honest I’m always a bit concerned in regards to German involvement. France, Britain and Italy tend to fall out over workshare but if they end up building something together they are pragmatic about end use.. AKA France, Italy and the UK are not shy about selling or using their hardware.. Germany on the other hand is both very scared of acting in a way that may create an enemy and also has less than pragmatic moralistic anti war views. I suspect of France had stayed in the Eurofighter program it would have had a serious fall out with Germany over who Germany was willing to sell to.
Because they had différent interest than all of us. The German foreign policy was cooked in the office of BMW, Volkswagen or Mercedes. So in order to keep open US market, they sabotage any European armement program. This it what made them distinct from all other European countries. Now, the US blackmail will be so intense that the tope may break or strangle German foreign policy to the breaking point. We will see. Italy, UK and France don’t face this issue. Hence the goodwill in cooperation.
In most incidents I agree however we talking about a land based cruise missile with a range of over 1000 miles. It’s no a weapon we can legally export and it’s not one we probably should export as it’s a dangerous technology.
There is no current production of storm shadow in any country. If your thinking of Scalp naval its based on the missile but has differences and wouldnt be any use to Ukraine as cant be air launched. Production of scalp/storm shadow stopped years ago and the 2 facilities now just upgrade and update. It couldnt be restarted, the skills are probably their but the parts are obsolete.
The article in the press talks about military production generally of missiles and simalar for Europe and Ukraine.
The last order for storm shadow was in 2022, it’s a missile that had a very very long production run due to external orders and its quite possible the French line is essentially still in place.
Also the Euro cruise missile was a signed letter of intent 6 months ago, it will take them years to get a flyable missile even if based on scalp naval as expected. Knowning Germany it usually takes a year to agree the work share!!
Russian air-defences have proven to be very good at downing innocent airlines on several occasions, against Storm Shadows they are not so good.
Russia relies on GPS also, both militarily and civilians, so it’s hard for them to totally turn it off, even though they have demonstrated they have the ability to do so on scale. I assume that was the orginal plan but they realised with the tests they did that it would cause more harm than good.
I’m curious if lessons will be learned from this and nations develop solutions to this challenge.
Yes, you will see more ground attack missiles having a supplementary navigation systems to work in parallel with GPS. Which can then be used in an GPS denied area. Inertial navigation systems (INS) have a flaw, in that it can’t really compensate for drift? Hence why it’s tied in to GPS, as the GPS corrects the drift. A INS only system will drift off from a position/target by several miles. It depends really on the time and distance between the start point and the following waypoints and target. The further you go the worse it gets.
Storm Shadow/Scalp also uses a terrain reference system. However, this relies on very accurate maps. Which at present are produced via US satellite information. So the US expects a fee, but can also use its ITAR rules to switch off the access to the mapping.
I did hear talk of certain countries looking at reinvesting in long range radio navigation aids such as DECCA and OMEGA. Though, as the receiver requires measuring the phase change and signal strength. The system can be easily spoofed without digital encryption. Even then, as the signal strength over long distances is so small. A transmitter using the same frequency but at a higher power will cause interference with the receiver. So it’s probably a non starter.
The UK is investigating, as far as I know an unjammable and self contained navigation method, using quantum entanglement called “quantum navigation”. Where you can measure what each of the entangled pairs are doing, no matter the distance apart. Which with other methods can then be used to derive velocity, bearing and lat/long information. It’s early days, but from what I’ve read. The principles have been proven and they’re investigating how to turn it in to small enough navigation systems, that could at least be fitted to ships and aircraft. Reducing its size for a missile may be a few more years away though.
When you say radio navigation, do you mean similar to the WW2 Gee or Oboe? Essentially radio beam guidance over a long distance?
That might work well with a narrow enough beam, especially if the missile uses a terminal seeker to find the target.
Certainly it works as expected.
Certainly we will have learned an awful lot from, others, using it in anger against defences.
I would also caution that the early missiles sent to UKR were not the latest version as there was an upgrade program and the ones originally sent were the oldest and earliest that were not slated for upgrade.
If production has restarted that is great news. I would suspect that they are being produced with a simpler, cheaper, warhead as BROACH is quite expensive and unnecessary for the vast majority of the targets.
I’m very happy to see URK take out C2 targets like this. Although, given the appalling quality of Russian military leadership, it is debatable if it helps or hinders them! But it probably does mean that the senior leadership won’t come close to the front lines and is stuck in a Moscow bunker with dreadful information.
Interestingly Russia has suffered a really significant number of senior officer deaths with Ukraine claiming 21 generals killed and Russia confirming 9. Apparently they need one and two star generals to be on the front line’s directing at battalion level.
My understanding is that essentially the platoon and company COs essentially do the same job as senior NCOs in western armies as there is no real Senior NCO function in Russian armies, NCOs are essentially soldiers with some specialist technical training.. this means the leadership functions you would see undertaken by junior officers in western armies are undertaken by field grade officers in Russia and the leadership roles undertaken by western senior field grade officers are often undertaken by generals in the Russian army.
Normally towards friday see UAV and missile threats and warnings for Crimea, and hope Storm Shadow hits the Kerch Bridge !
The missile is popular and doe’s the job!
We need more of them being produced
Eight Russians were killed and twenty wounded? That’s very sad. I was hoping for many more Russian casualties. We in the West need to improve our weapons.
Hopefully they included very senior and experienced professional officers. While Russian can keep trawling its prisons and provinces for cannon fodder, replacing officers is far more difficult and lengthy.
Please remember that these are peoples fathers, sons and maybe even daughters and mothers. A large proportion of them may not even want to fight but given the authoritarian regime they live under they have little choice.
Casualties in war are sadly unavoidable but the aim should always be to achieve victory with the minimum loss of life possible. An idea that the Russian leadership clearly and sadly does not subscribe to.
Sadly Russia doesn’t care at all about their own dead. Putin will sacrifice as many as it takes as long as he isn’t one of them.
This means that, unfortunately, it’s going to require even more massive casualties inflicted on Russian troops by Ukrainian forces for this war to end favourably for Ukraine – enough that people really start turning against Putin.
Unfortunately Russia could lose a million men and he won’t care.
I do wonder at the merit of confirming storm shadow attacks over HIMARS. What is the point in this? It just tips the Russians off.
It’s an expensive option at>£2m each. It will be interesting to see if Project Brakestop can deliver a much cheaper weapon with similar range and large payload.
Interesting that Brakestop defined a cost per copy of £400k.
A lot of the costs of Storm Shadow relate to the tech that was used in the guidance and the warhead. Both of these could be done a lot cheaper theses days and as I said above you don’t need BROACH for most targets so a simple HE package would be fine. Maybe you don’t need the low observability casings either? Conceivably you could just replace them with a simpler fibreglass/honeycomb outer that could be mass produced by anyone with a large enough autoclave. That is a balance of how much stealth you really need against how many weapons are actually useful against how many high end defended targets you are trying to hit….
I would *guess* that you could produce a stripped down Storm Shadow for about £800k per copy if you went into volume production for a thousand units. I don’t know what the constraints are with the micro turbo jet that is used as that could well be the rate limiting step in production capacity and changing that out would be very hard as the whole missile is built and tested around it.
UKR being at war will be happy to fire off test units at the Russians so the usual sclerotic rates of product testing & development won’t be such an issue.