There will be no press conference after Biden and Starmer meet today, and no announcement of any change to how Storm Shadow missiles can be used. “It’s being billed as a broad strategic discussion,” Dan Sabbagh said, shortly before joining a flight to Washington with Starmer and foreign secretary David Lammy. “It’s likely that the first explicit sign we’ll have of any change is a loud ‘bang’.”
The reticence about the change that now appears close to being signed off is one piece of evidence for how sensitive a subject this is. “Ukraine has been desperate for this to happen for a long time,” Dan said. “But the White House has been grappling with whether it’s an escalatory move. Make no mistake: what you’re talking about here is a change that could take the war to Russia in a meaningful way.”
What are Storm Shadow missiles, and why does Ukraine want them?
Storm Shadow missiles can hit targets up to 250km from their launch site – meaning that they could strike well within Russian territory. They are powerful enough to penetrate bunkers and ammunition stores and damage airfields, and they can be precisely targeted.
They were developed in an Anglo-French collaboration, and manufactured by a joint venture which also involves Italy – and using components supplied by the US. All four countries would have to sign off on any change to the conditions attached to their use, even if they are not the direct suppliers themselves. The missiles in question are expected to be supplied by Britain and France, not the US – but the New York Times reports that a decision could follow about the comparable US ATACMS missiles in the coming weeks.
Ukraine already has Storm Shadow – but it is only permitted to use the missiles within its own territory. Kyiv has been lobbying for months for that to change so that it can direct them at targets on Russian soil, arguing that it is being severely hampered in its efforts to defend itself against regular missile and glide bomb attacks launched from within Russia. While it does have drones and cruise missiles that can strike within Russia, it doesn’t have anything like enough of them to make a significant impact – and they are often intercepted.
“There is an acknowledgment in Ukraine that they aren’t going to win by slogging it out on the eastern front,” Dan said. “But they believe they have success when they are innovative, and they think they could use these weapons to make Putin think again.”
Why are the US and UK ready to give the go-ahead now?
Throughout the war, the US and its allies have sought to strike a balance between giving Ukraine the weapons it needs to defend itself – while avoiding any move that could be viewed as a provocation, and lead to direct involvement in the war. But it appears that Kyiv’s lobbying has swayed western diplomats.
“Everyone in the west is very careful about getting out of step with the Americans,” Dan said. “But while the US has been reluctant, the British have been trying to be a bridge between Washington and Kyiv.” Over the last week, he noted, the choreography between the US and UK has been striking – with defence ministers talking to Volodymyr Zelenskiy last Friday, then CIA chief Bill Burns at a joint event with MI6 chief Richard Moore on Saturday, then US secretary of state Anthony Blinken and Lammy’s trip to see Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Wednesday (pictured above).
“We don’t know definitively what the order of the discussions was, because nobody wants the Russians to know exactly what’s going on,” he added. “But it looks like everyone was waiting for Biden, and now the US is onboard, it’s essentially a done deal.”
Some of the factors in that change: the pressure Ukraine is facing on the frontline, and fears of a very difficult winter ahead; Ukraine’s surprising cross-border incursion, which has reframed thinking on the use of weapons on Russian soil and acted as a reminder that Ukraine is at its most effective when it is changing the dynamic of the conflict; and the news that Russia has been furnished with a new batch of deadly ballistic missiles by Iran.
The Ukrainian incursion “helped with the argument that they can force the Russians into talks by hitting them where it hurts,” Dan said. “But the Russians are starting to recover their position in Kursk now, and there is a need to change the focus again.” The Iranian missiles, meanwhile, may be as important as a pretext as for their battlefield impact.
“It’s a bit of both, but I would slightly lean towards saying that it’s diplomatic cover for allowing the use of Storm Shadow in Russia,” Dan said.
David Lammy was at pains to blame Putin for any change in the battlefield calculus: “The escalator here is Putin,” he said. “Putin has escalated with the shipment of missiles from Iran.” Starmer struck a similar note after Putin’s threat of direct war yesterday: “Russia can end this conflict straight away. Ukraine has the right to self-defence.”
What are the benefits and risks of allowing Storm Shadow to be used within Russia?
The message from the west, Dan said, has been that Ukraine needs to give a detailed plan of how the weapons would be used, and what the limits on their deployment would be. “They have said that if there’s a clear rationale for why it would be useful, maybe they can buy into it.”
In August, Politico reported that Ukrainian officials visiting Washington would present a list of long-range targets within Russia that could be hit. While the White House has argued that Russia has been moving key assets out of range, it now appears to have been persuaded that enough meaningful targets are available to have an impact.
The Nato allies may also have been emboldened by a pattern: when Putin’s red lines on operations within Russia have been crossed previously, he has not escalated the conflict.
On the other hand, permitting the use of Storm Shadow would mean allowing the use of western weapons deeper into Russian territory than ever before. And there is an inherent tension in how Ukraine believes the weapons can be effective: by degrading Russia’s ability to strike against targets in Ukraine, yes, but also by making the toll of the war more acute within Russia for its own sake.
“However many men Russia loses while it makes progress on the frontline, there is very little political cost to Putin,” Dan said. “So the question is what would make him pay attention.” Part of that is making ordinary Russians fearful of the impact. But doing that without causing a dangerous escalation is a narrow tightrope to walk.
“The theory would be that you lean very hard into aiming at military targets well within Russia, and hope that that ripples into how people in Moscow feel about the war,” Dan said.
“But if there’s a strike that has civilian casualties, say, that is potentially a big problem for the west. And whereas with a drone strike on a remote airbase it can be deniable that there was any western assistance, you can’t mistake a big boom from a Storm Shadow. So you would hope that they will deployed in a very careful way.”
