Attack on Luhansk – first use of “Storm Shadows” missiles?

Dark smoke rose above a large factory building in the city of Luhansk on Friday evening. Apparently there was an air raid in the city, which had been occupied by Russia for months, and a building belonging to the chemical company Polipack was completely burned out. It could be considered by the Russians Workshop used to repair military equipment.

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A total of two impacts were reported, according to the “Moscow Times” an oil storage facility was also hit. The explosive thing is that the city of Luhansk is more than 90 kilometers away from the front line – and therefore actually inaccessible for the Ukrainians. Because the normal Himars rockets only have a range of about 75 kilometers.

“It’s actually possible”

But on Thursday, Great Britain officially announced that it would deliver longer-range cruise missiles to Ukraine: the “Storm Shadows”. You can still reach destinations that are 250 kilometers away. Is this the first time Ukraine has used these new cruise missiles in its attack on the Russian-held city of Luhansk?

“In this case, it is actually possible that Ukraine used ‘Storm Shadows’ for the first time,” Colonel Markus Reisner from the Austrian Armed Forces told the editorial network Germany (RND). “But we first have to wait for the pictures of the debris to be able to say for sure.” Russian military bloggers suspected a first test run of the new cruise missile. “In the near future, the armed forces of Ukraine will try to carry out similar attacks on other facilities, such as Russian military airfields,” said one prominent military blogger.

Another unanswered question is how the “Storm Shadows” were fired. “‘Storm Shadows’ require a carrier aircraft, like the Su-24, which has to be adapted for the cruise missiles,” says Reisner. Because they are actually designed for Western fighter jets, such as the Tornado and the Eurofighter, but not for Soviet-designed fighter aircraft. In the past, however, the Ukrainians have proven that they can adapt their device to the requirements of Western weapons technology. Tests were already carried out in Poland last year to adapt the “Storm Shadows” to the Su-24.

During the attack on Luhansk, an ADM-160B decoy missile was apparently also used as a decoy to attract the attention of anti-aircraft defenses. Colonel Reisner considers it possible that a Ukrainian Mig-29 fighter jet first distracted the enemy air defenses before the Mig-24 attacked with the “Storm Shadow”.

Occupation authorities in Luhansk also said on Saturday that a British Star Shadow and a US ADM-160B missile were said to have been used in the attack. The information cannot be independently verified.

In the past, weapons have repeatedly been used in Ukraine even before their delivery was officially announced. This could therefore also be the case in this case. Reisner points to the debris from the AGM-88 air-to-surface missile that surfaced in Ukraine before the US confirmed delivery of those missiles. With long-range missiles, the Ukrainian military was probably successful last year attacked the Russian air base at Saky in Crimea.

The “Storm Shadows” were already used in Iraq in the third Gulf War in 2003 and are not easy to detect for air defense because they fly very low. The Ukrainian government had been asking its western partners for long-range ammunition for months, but had always received refusals. Now London has decided to deliver the cruise missiles, also because it can deliver them in larger numbers.

The long-range cruise missiles can give Ukraine some advantages. It is now capable of precision strikes targeting military bases, command centers and ammunition depots of the Russian army located far behind the front lines. Their explosive charges can also penetrate the armor of underground facilities.