Foreign countries|Russian invasion
Social media speculated whether it was the British Storm Shadow missiles.
Ukrainians and Russian social media channels published footage on Friday evening in which a Ukrainian missile would have destroyed the buildings of an industrial plant in Luhansk taken over by the Russian armed forces.
Similar information was also reported by the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti, according to which two explosions have been reported in Luhansk.
The provincial city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine has been held by Russia and its local allies since 2014.
A local pro-Ukraine Telegram channel Novosti Donbass 24/7 according to at least two explosions were heard in the Luhansk city area on Friday evening.
According to the claim of several channels, the target of the Ukrainian attack would have been an industrial plant called Poly-Pack, which produced food packaging, south of the center. Russian forces have allegedly taken over the industrial plant for their own use.
HS fact checker of John Helin The published photos of the smoking buildings were taken from both sides of Tsymljanska Street in Luhansk, where Poly-Pack’s facilities are located.
Novosti According to the Donbass channel, residents of the Ukrainian-held city of Druzhkivka had seen two devices resembling an airplane or a missile fly over the city to the east before the Luhansk explosions.
Druzkivka is located south of the city of Kramatorsk, and from there it is more than a hundred kilometers to Luhansk.
Ukraine has not previously carried out attacks on Luhansk, because its ammunition has not reached there. The Himars rocket launchers could have just been able to fire at Luhansk, if they had dared to bring them right to the front line, for example, in the direction of Bahmut and Soledar.
War the following online channels speculated on Friday evening that it was the Storm Shadow cruise missiles delivered by Britain to Ukraine. The missile delivery hit the news on Thursday when a US news channel CNN told about it.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the British Parliament on Friday that the missiles are on their way to Ukraine “or have already arrived there”.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi thanked the British Prime Minister on Friday Rishi Sunakia about missiles in a phone conversation, says Sunak’s office in its press release.
“The prime minister said he was happy to fulfill his February promise to provide Ukraine with the long-range capability it needs to defend itself,” Sunak said, according to Reuters news agency.
Sunak referred to promises he made at the Munich Security Conference on February 18.
At the beginning of May, Britain made a request for tenders for air, land and sea-fired missiles through the Ukraine Fund, but such an order would hardly have been delivered within a week.
The Russian Telegram channel Rybar claimed on Thursday evening that Ukraine had already started modifying Su-24 bombers to install Storm Shadow missiles last fall. Similarly, AGM-88 Harm missiles have been installed on Soviet-era fighter models, with which Ukraine has destroyed Russian artillery radars.
Rybar has previously worked in the press department of the Russian Ministry of Defense Mikhail Zvinchuk founded by the war channel, which is also often cited by Western sources analyzing the war.
From the plane the Storm Shadow missiles intended to be fired at ground targets can reportedly be launched from both Mig-29 fighters and Su-24 bombers, which are in use by the Ukrainian Air Force.
Storm Shadow is a very similar “bunker destroyer” to the American Jassm missile used by the Finnish Air Force. There are two warheads that work in sequence and thus penetrate strong obstacles.
Missiles capable of a flight distance of 250–300 kilometers are believed to have been delivered to Ukraine. Storm Shadow is otherwise a very conventional cruise missile, but it is known to have good stealth characteristics.
Telegram and Twitter’s war channels reported on Friday evening that the remains of the US-made ADM-160B Mald decoy missile had been found in Luhansk. So Ukraine would have first misled the Russian air defenses before the actual attack, no matter how it was done.
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