In a clear response to a Russian intelligence service arson attack on a London factory, the United Kingdom has said that Ukraine can use British weapons to strike targets inside Russia.
This bears particular note in relation to the U.K.’s Storm Shadow cruise missile, a number of which Ukraine possesses. Ukraine has previously used these missiles to great effect in targeting Russian naval forces in Crimea. But assuming its aircraft can survive Russian air defenses along Ukraine’s northeastern border, Ukraine will now be able to use Storm Shadow to reach targets in and around the Russian cities of Voronezh Kursk, Bryansk, and Orol. This will allow Ukraine to hold Russian command and logistics elements at far greater risk, complicating Russian ambitions to seize Ukraine’s eastern bastion city of Kharkiv.
This is a significant shift in U.K. policy. Britain has strongly supported Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022, including (as first reported by the Washington Examiner) with robust special forces deployments. But in terms of British weapons provided to Ukraine, until now, the U.K. had restricted their use to Russian targets inside Ukraine. Two things have changed in the last few weeks, however.
First, Russian forces have made tactically significant offensive advances against Ukrainian forces. This has led to growing fears that a likely Russian offensive this summer may lead to major breakthroughs for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces. This concern underlines why France is warning that any such breakthrough might constitute grounds for a military intervention in Ukraine’s support. In that sense, the U.K. announcement is likely, in part, also designed to pressure France to allow its Storm Shadow equivalent, SCALP, to be used by Ukraine in the same manner.
Second, Russian intelligence services have launched a covert sabotage campaign against Western targets that Moscow deems to be providing support for Ukraine. Germany recently arrested two people suspected of plotting attacks on targets inside that country. And in March, a Ukrainian-owned warehouse in London was set alight by a group led by a person acting under Russian direction. Further incidents of this kind are anticipated across Europe in the coming weeks. As an extension, an unexplained fire on Friday at a major Diehl Group factory (Diehl is supplying military equipment to Ukraine) in Berlin will have to be investigated carefully.
At least from the U.K. government’s perspective, though, the key motive here is a refusal to allow Russia to set the terms of escalation in relation to the war in Ukraine. Russia wants the West to believe that its continued support for Ukraine risks a direct NATO-Russia confrontation and potentially even nuclear war. This intimidation game is a long-standing one that continues to pay dividends in dividing the West about how far to go in supporting Ukraine. Germany still refuses to provide Ukraine with its Taurus cruise missiles in the face of these threats, for example. The United States is similarly putting greater pressure on Ukraine to avoid striking targets inside Russia. Other European powers, such as Spain, want a return to appeasement.
It’s unsurprising, then, that Moscow is doubling down on its intimidation narrative in response to the U.K. announcement. Putin’s chief spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared on Friday that the U.K. decision “could potentially pose a danger to European security, to the entire European security architecture.” Playing to the Kremlin’s favorite nuclear war line, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova asked, “How irresponsible and callous do you have to be not to realize what such statements lead to, especially with regard to countries with nuclear weapons?”
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Yet what the Kremlin doesn’t seem to understand is that its war on Ukraine has already demolished the entire European security architecture. The U.K. and France recognize that just as Russian nuclear threats were effectively deterred in the Cold War, so can they be deterred today. But to allow Russia to set the terms of this conflict would be to allow Russia to dominate Europe.
And if the 19th and 20th centuries proved anything, it’s that the enabling of single-state dominance of Europe doesn’t ever lead anywhere good.
