Russia has blamed Britain for a deadly missile strike launched by Ukraine on a vital munitions factory, which reportedly killed seven people.
Kyiv claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on one of Russia’s “most important military factories”, the Kremniy El plant in the border city of Bryansk. It said that British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles had been used in the assault.
Local authorities said that at least seven civilians were killed and 42 were injured in the “terrorist missile attack”.
Four years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has cost thousands of lives, Moscow accused Kyiv of “deliberately targeting civilians”.
Asked whether there would be a military response to the use of British missiles against sovereign Russian territory, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would take any British involvement into consideration, without going into specifics.
“It is obvious that the launch of these missiles was impossible without British specialists,” he told reporters. “We are aware of this, we know it well, and we naturally take it into account.
“In order to prevent such barbaric actions by the Kyiv regime from continuing, the special military operation is being conducted,” he said, referring to the term Russia uses for its invasion of Ukraine.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova alleged the strike was premeditated and directed against civilians, and challenged the UN to assess what had occurred.
Russian news agency TASS, citing a senior health official, reported that one person caught in the strike was still in “extremely serious condition”, while 29, including one child, remained in hospital on Thursday. Two people have been discharged, the report added.
Exact figures on casualties varied between reports and could not be independently verified.
There was no immediate comment from London, though Russia has repeatedly said that Ukraine needs Western expertise and Western-supplied targeting data and satellite imagery to fire advanced missiles deep into Russia.
Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French cruise missile with a maximum range of around 155 miles (250km). The French call it Scalp.
Powered by a turbo-jet engine, the 1,300kg Storm Shadow travels at speeds of more than 600mph, is just over five metres long and has a wingspan of three metres.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv had struck one of the most important military factories in Bryansk that produced electronics for Russian missiles.
Kremniy El is the second-largest microelectronics manufacturer in Russia. The company exports most of its products to the Russian department of defence.
Ukraine’s general staff said the manufacturer was a “critically important link in the chain of production of Russian ‘high-precision’ weapons”.
The struck plant specialises in semiconductors and integrated microchips that “serve as the ‘brains’ and ‘nervous system’ of modern weapons”, it said in a statement.
In December, Ukraine said it had used British Storm Shadows to strike the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia's Rostov region. In October, it claimed an attack on a Russian chemical plant using the missiles.
The UK first confirmed it would supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles in May 2023, for use on Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. The missiles have otherwise been used by British and French air forces in the Gulf, Iraq and Libya.
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