Storm Shadow downed by Russians over Zaporozhye, seized by authorities
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The United Kingdom's Storm Shadow missile has been downed by Russia, giving Moscow access to the technologies the missile has and proving its might.
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Photo of the downed Strom Shadow missile in Zaporozhye, June 4, 2023 (Telegram: Ugolok_Sitha)
The Storm Shadow missile provided to Ukraine in light of the ongoing war has fallen into the hands of the Russian armed forces after they successfully intercepted one without dealing severe damage to it in Zaporozhye.
The missiles were praised for their immunity against air defense systems, as they fly extremely low to the ground, though photos appeared all over social media showing how the Russian side managed to down one over the region of Zaporozhye.
Meanwhile in Zaporozhye. pic.twitter.com/peU5kysgim
— ayden (@squatsons) July 4, 2023
The Storm Shadow travels at subsonic speeds of Mach .95 while also maneuvering to evade any missiles that might attempt to intercept it, with a GPS to its name, making it a supreme missile that has proven quite difficult to shoot down.
Tuesday saw a Russian soldier posing with a downed Storm Shadow missile in a field somewhere in Zaporozhye, with pro-Russian social media users celebrating the event and their pro-Ukrainian counterparts voicing their dissatisfaction with it.
More of the so-called Strom Shadow wonder-weapon. pic.twitter.com/cvFSek1eEv
— 🇷🇺General Surovikin 🖤💛🤍 (@_Surovikin_) July 4, 2023
The missile was previously used by Kiev's forces to shell the Lugansk People's Republic on May 12, with the representative office of the LPR in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of issues related to Ukraine's war crimes (JCCC) revealing that children were injured as a result of the attack.
The latest hit to the Western arms and equipment comes after the Russian Defense Ministry said in late June that the Russian armed forces destroyed a depot with Storm Shadow cruise missiles in Ukraine's Khmelnytskyi region.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed back then that the strikes were carried out "using Storm Shadow missiles supplied to the Kiev regime by the UK, contrary to London's assertions that these weapons would not be used against civilian targets."
Later on in the month, acting Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo said the Ukrainian armed forces attacked bridges on the administrative border between the Kherson Region and the Crimea near the village of Chonhar.
"The criminal Kiev regime committed barbaric shelling of civilian objects - bridges on the administrative border between the Kherson Region and the Crimea near Chonhar," Saldo said on Telegram.
He considered that Kiev wants to intimidate residents of the Kherson Region and sow panic among the population, affirming that it will not succeed in this plan.
According to the preliminary assessment, the Ukrainian armed forces used the United Kingdom's Storm Shadow missiles in the attack on the bridges.
It is noteworthy that the 250km-range Storm Shadow missiles were sold with the condition that they may only be used "within Ukrainian sovereign territory."
