Explained | Why is Russia raging at France for sending SCALP missiles to Ukraine? Premium

France has sent SCALP missiles to Ukraine to boost its counteroffensive against Russian forces. Read The Hindu explainer to understand how will the weapon boost Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

The story so far: The French government’s recent decision to supply long-range cruise missiles as part of increased Western efforts to assist Ukraine in its ongoing counter-offensive against Russian forces has drawn an angry response from Russia, which termed the move an “erroneous decision fraught with consequences for the Ukrainian side.” 

Setting aside its initial reluctance to provide advanced weaponry to Ukraine over fears of escalating the conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on the sidelines of the annual NATO summit in Vilnius that the delivery of SCALP missiles was to help Ukraine defend itself and enable its forces “to have the capacity to strike deeply.”

The United Kingdom delivered the British version of SCALP, called Storm Shadow, in May this year. 

The SCALP and its variants are a series of air-launched, long-range and conventionally armed missiles capable of striking targets deep in enemy territory. The missile has a range of more than 250 kilometres (155 miles), making it the longest-range Western weapon in Kyiv’s possession so far. Defence experts claim it can hit targets up to 560 km away, depending on parameters such as its launch altitude.

Derived from the Apache project, SCALP was developed in the late 1990s and is now built by European weapons manufacturer Matra BAe Dynamics (MBDA.) The initial version was christened Système de croisière conventionnel autonome à longue portée (SCALP), which translates to long range autonomous conventional cruise system. In 1997, the French and the U.K. government placed contracts for the development and production of SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles with MBDA units in their respective countries.

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The first Storm Shadow was fired by the Royal Air Force during the U.K.’s Operation Telic in Iraq in 2003. A year later, the SCALP missile entered into service with the French Air Force and was first operated in March 2011.