Andy Burnham’s decision to enable Ukraine to build its own Scalp/Storm Shadow missiles is undoubtedly the right one. As their war for national survival rumbles on, and the tactics and technology used by each side develops, the Ukrainians’ needs have changed.
At the outset, the requirement was for the urgent delivery of any weaponry which would help their armed forces stave off Russia’s invasion, such as the famous Nlaws which wrought so much ruin on Putin’s armoured columns in the Battle of Kyiv. Then the need grew for tanks, and artillery shells by the million, as both armies engaged in a slugging match across the plains and cities of Donetsk.
Now, the Ukrainians are using increasingly high-tech missiles to take the war well beyond the front line, bombarding ships in the Sea of Azov, striking at Russia’s valuable oil refineries and weapons factories, and disrupting the logistics and distribution of major Russian corporations like Wildberries. Some of that is still done using Western-supplied weapons, but much of this long-distance war is prosecuted with home-grown Ukrainian missile technology, developed in the painful years since the Russian invasion.
Now that the period of immediate crisis has past, and Ukraine has shown its capacity to innovate and manufacture its own drones and missiles, the West is shifting to support and empower that domestic Ukrainian defence industry, rather than only shipping material to the East. It makes sense – both for Ukraine, which will be liberated from nervous and overly restrictive donor rules about how weaponry may be used, and for Western governments, who would rather teach a man to fish than feed him directly.
