Britain will allow sensitive technology to be released to allow British and French-designed cruise missiles to be built in Ukraine, a boost for Kiev as it brings in more firepower to withstand Russia hundreds of kilometers.
By the end of the year, Paris and Kiev want to set up a production line for the Scalp air-launched cruise missile, known in Britain as the Storm Shadow, in Ukraine. The declassification of information about British missile parts announced on Monday is a significant step towards that goal.
Manufactured by European weapons manufacturer MBDA, the SCALP is a conventionally armed, long-range, deep-impact weapon that Ukraine has used imported versions successfully against hardened targets, including firing it for the first time against targets inside Russia in November 2024.
It is powered by a turbojet engine, has a maximum range of 550 kilometers (342 miles) and can carry a 400 kilogram (880 pound) high-explosive penetrating warhead, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Threats Project.
Once launched, the missile uses internal global positioning and terrain-referenced navigation in conjunction with an “infrared seeker and automatic target recognition algorithms” to achieve high accuracy in all weather conditions, according to CSIS.
SCALP is launched from Ukrainian Su-24 or Mirage 2000 fighters and attempts to evade air defense by hugging terrain during flight.
Its use in Ukraine would be to attack buried military targets such as command bunkers, which would be more difficult for the light drones that Kiev uses to attack exposed targets such as refineries and warehouses.
The Kremlin was furious at the announcement, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying Britain was “joining the war” and “adding fuel to the fire.”
His statement came after the Russian embassy in London warned Britain last week that the “deeper its involvement” and “greater support” in Ukraine, the “higher the price it will pay”.
Britain and France have not announced how many SCALP/Stormshadow missiles they have supplied to Ukraine so far, but manufacturer MBDA restarted production lines in 2025 after a 15-year hiatus.
“The Franco-British SCALP/Stormshadow missiles supplied to Ukraine have proven their effectiveness in modern intense combat and decisive situations,” French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said at the time.
Even with Britain’s announcement, it could take years for production to scale up, but British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said London would support Kiev in the long term.
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“The people of Ukraine should have no doubts. Britain stands by you today and for as long as you need it,” Mr Burnham said in a press release on Monday announcing Britain would make its missile technology public.
“Ukraine’s security is our security,” the prime minister said, arriving in Kiev on Monday on Ukraine’s Independence Day, his first foreign trip since taking office on July 20.
During his stay, Burnham will co-chair the Coalition of the Willing, a 34-nation international alliance formed last year by Britain and France to support the war in Ukraine as U.S. aid dwindled under the Trump administration.
What SCALP cannot address is Ukraine’s lack of defensive missiles like the U.S.-designed Patriot system. Its vulnerabilities have been exposed in recent weeks, with Russia launching waves of homegrown missiles and drones in attacks that killed dozens of Ukrainians, with devastating consequences.
CNN visited Ukraine’s Patriot battery earlier this month, but it was reported that it had not fired for several weeks because it did not have an interceptor.
Ukraine has sought permission to manufacture Patriot interceptor missiles domestically, an idea that US President Donald Trump initially supported in early July but later backed away from.
The Trump administration also rejected Ukraine’s attempt to acquire the U.S.-made Tomahawk long-range cruise missile, whose stockpile was funded with tax money from the Iran war.
However, missile production in Ukraine has not stopped.
Ukrainian manufacturer Fire Point has developed the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile.
It has a range of 3,000 kilometers and can strike deep into Russia, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this month that it had been used to attack Russia’s main rocket electronics facility about 900 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
The Ukrainian leader said that flamingos made their combat debut in 2025, and that their use has increased this year, according to open source intelligence reports.
Fire Point has also developed long-range drones for use with short-range ballistic missiles.
Kiev’s use of long-range weapons makes Russia’s vast landmass, once considered a military advantage, problematic for Moscow, which has struggled to allocate limited defensive weapons to the growing number of targets within Ukraine’s range, Peter Dickinson, editor of the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine Alert blog, wrote earlier this month.
“A long line of would-be conquerors invaded Russia, only to have its forces swallowed up by the country’s vastness. Ukraine is now upending this military logic with a strategic bombing campaign aimed at exploiting Russia’s vastness and turning it from a critical strength into a fatal weakness,” Dickinson wrote.
