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By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com
Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday that it used British-provided Storm Shadow missiles to strike a chemical plant inside Russia’s Bryansk Oblast, signaling the US is again supporting Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian territory.
“A massive combined missile-and-air strike was carried out, including with air-launched Storm Shadow missiles that penetrated Russia’s air defence system,” the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a statement, according to Reuters. So far, the attack hasn’t been confirmed by Russia.
Storm Shadows are produced jointly by the UK and France and have a range of about 150 miles. Ukraine first began firing them into Russia last year, along with US-provided ATACMS missiles, which can hit targets up to 190 miles away.
In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration was not allowing Ukraine to fire ATACMS into Russia, a policy that also applied to Storm Shadows, since the Ukrainian military requires US targeting data to fire the British missiles. But another report from the outlet this month said that President Trump reversed the policy and signed off on providing Ukraine with intelligence for long-range missile strikes on Russian territory.
The Financial Times has also reported that the Trump administration has been providing intelligence for long-range drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure since July.
US-backed missile and drone attacks on Russian territory always risk a major escalation from Moscow. When President Biden first gave Ukraine the green light to fire ATACMS and Storm Shadows into Russia, Moscow responded by altering its nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
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Dave DeCamp
Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.