Ukraine’s military reportedly fired U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles into Russian territory for the first time on Wednesday, with pro-war bloggers claiming that the weapons targeted southwestern Russia’s Kursk region.
Kursk region Governor Alexei Smirnov said Russian air defense systems intercepted two Ukrainian missiles but he did not specify what type of missiles they were.
“A missile’s flight was heard over Kursk. There’s information about a Storm Shadow attack near Rylsk,” Russian war correspondent, Alexander Kots, wrote on Telegram, referring to a town 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) from northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy region.
Rylsk’s territorial defense forces claimed that 12 Storm Shadow missiles were launched at around 2:50 p.m. Bloomberg, citing an anonymous Western official, also reported that Ukraine had fired Storm Shadow missiles on targets in Russia.
There was no immediate confirmation of those reports from either the Ukrainian or Russian militaries.
The long-range missiles, capable of striking targets up to 250 kilometers (155 miles) away, were initially restricted for use within Ukrainian borders when the U.K. delivered them in May 2023.
However, London has reportedly cleared Kyiv to deploy them in Russian territory after receiving approval from Washington to use U.S. navigational data, according to The Times, citing anonymous sources in the Foreign Office and the British government.
The reported strike comes just days after the United States gave Ukraine permission to use ATACMS long-range missiles on targets in Russia. Ukraine’s military claimed it struck a Russian weapons depot in the Bryansk region with ATACMS on Tuesday.
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