Ukraine hides fighter jets with critical long-range missiles from Russian strikes, report says
The Ukrainian Air Force changes the location of Soviet-era Su-24 fighter jets that fire Storm Shadow and SCALP long-range missiles every 24 hours so that Russian strikes do not reach them, German newspaper Bild reports.
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For several weeks, Russia has been attempting to strike Ukrainian air bases in western Ukraine, where it believes Su-24s could be based.
Those efforts do not seem to have paid off, however, as attacks with Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles, able to reach deep behind Russia’s defence lines, occur on a nearly daily basis.
Sources told Bild Ukraine redeploys the aircraft once a day to different airbases, having renovated all Soviet-era airfields and using new, secret runways on the highway.
One of them seems to have been visited by president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 6 August.
In addition, the Ukrainian Air Force has deployed several Patriot and IRIS-T air defence systems to protect the Su-24s.
The French-British Storm Shadow/SCALP EG is a long-range air-to-ground missile, designed to overcome air defence systems and destroy important fixed and stationary targets, including bunkers.
The French version of the missile, called SCALP EG, and the British Storm Shadow are broadly identical, with the only differences being in the software and aircraft used to carry the missile. The claimed range is over 250 kilometres in the export version and 560 kilometres for the French and British armies.
One of Russia’s main targets is an airbase in the Khmelnytskyi region in western Ukraine. A number of calibre and cruise missiles were fired at the facility on 5 August, but at least most of them were taken down.