Britain will allow the release of classified technology so that a British/French-designed cruise missile can be manufactured in Ukraine, a boost for Kyiv in its efforts to bring more firepower to bear hundreds of kilometers into Russia.
Paris and Kyiv want to set up a Ukrainian production line for the SCALP air-launched cruise missile, known as the Storm Shadow in the United Kingdom, by the end of the year. The declassification of information on British-made components of the missiles, announced Monday, is a key step towards that goal.
Made by European arms manufacturer MBDA, SCALP is a conventionally armed, long-range, deep-strike weapon, of which Ukraine has used imported versions with success against hardened targets, including in November 2024, when they were fired at targets inside Russia for the first time.
Powered by a turbojet engine, it has a maximum range of 550 kilometers (342 miles) and can carry a 400-kilogram (880 pounds) high-explosive penetrating warhead, according to the Missile Threat project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Once launched, the missile uses a combination of internal, global positioning and terrain reference navigation coupled with “infrared seeker and automatic target recognition algorithms” to achieve a high degree of accuracy in all weather conditions, according to the CSIS.
