Ukraine's battle for long-range strike capability faces Western roadblocks

On 11 September, a meeting took place between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy. Representatives of the two Western powers announced aid packages totaling £1.9 billion, a substantial amount.

Following the meeting, Blinken stated that discussions included the use of Western weapons for Ukraine's shelling of Russian Federation territory, but there is currently no consent for this. The British directly stated that their positive decision in July to use British weapons for attacks on targets in Russia was vetoed by Washington.

This is a significant blow to Ukraine's offensive capabilities, as Storm Shadow missiles carried by Su-24 bombers could hit targets more than 500 kilometres from the launch point. The Americans, in turn, provided Ukraine with M142 HIMARS launchers and air-ballistic ATACMS missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometres, but these too are “restricted” by Western decisions.

Unofficially, it is said that the reason is the American practice of so-called “escalation management.” Essentially, the Americans and the West keep Ukraine alive but do not provide enough weapons and ammunition of sufficient quality to defeat the aggressor. This is allegedly due to fears that “crossing the line” will lead to a Russia-NATO war. The problem is that the Kremlin sets more and more “uncrossable” lines. Ukraine eventually crosses them and… nothing happens.

For this reason, some countries, including Poland, do not set any limitations for Ukraine in using the weapons they provide. Indeed, former Polish tanks are widely used in the Kursk operations, and not just tanks. The issue is that countries that have no objections to the use of their weapons on Russian territory generally do not supply Ukraine with long-range weapons, as they either do not produce them or have very few.

The blockade on the use of, among other things, Storm Shadow missiles provided by the United Kingdom, but also by France, is doubly painful. On one hand, it obviously limits the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which cannot freely use the tools they possess, and on the other, it constitutes a wastage of expensive and hard-to-obtain cruise missiles that could be used for tasks that could be accomplished with much simpler, cheaper, and more accessible means such as 225 mm rocket ammunition for HIMARS.

It cannot be ruled out that Ukraine will receive other long-range combat means in the future (one of the desired ones by Ukrainian pilots is even the oldest AGM-158 JASSM, mounted in pairs under appropriately modified F-16s), but it is impossible to recover the wasted time so far. Hence, the defenders are looking for solutions that will allow them to replace Western missiles in attacks deep inside Russia.

Of course, missile strikes on the broadly understood “logistics” would greatly help both the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ukraine as a whole. Cruise and ballistic missiles and air-ballistic missiles have warheads weighing hundreds of kilograms and can therefore be used to hit “hardened” targets such as fortified structures (including bunkers-warehouses), critical infrastructure elements, and can also be used to destroy or damage surface targets with one or more precisely placed missiles (e.g., air bases or armoured equipment depots).

A kind of a solution to Western blockages is “drone rain.” This colloquial term describes air raids using “drones,” a category into which journalists freely throw entirely different types of carriers integrated with warheads (anti-tank guided missiles with rotary-wing propulsion, improvised FPV drones, loitering munitions, flying bombs, cruise missiles with rotary-wing propulsion, etc.).

For now, “drone rain” is the only long-range strike system available to the Ukrainian army, as Ukraine itself produces drones of various classes. Although one of the Ukrainian companies present at the MSPO exhibition in Kielce boasted of being able to produce 40,000 drones monthly, this still concerns relatively primitive weaponry whose effectiveness leaves much to be desired. The Ukrainian defence industry also offers more advanced designs with better performance. One of the more interesting cases is a reconfigured small plane with remote control equipment and explosives instead of passengers.

As early as June 2024, the Ukrainian industry began mass production of long-range flying bombs, capable of flying over 1,200 kilometres. Previously delivered limited units attacked targets even in the Republic of Tatarstan. Their targets include everything beyond the “political” range of Storm Shadow or ATACMS: military airfields, logistics bases, but also objects related to the production, storage, and transportation of fuel.

Are these attacks effective? It seems they are. Even in recent days, during an attack on a large, modern ammunition depot recently built for 3.6 billion roubles, the Ukrainians reportedly destroyed up to 30,000 tonnes of ammunition. This translates to, for example, 400,000 152 mm artillery shells, enough for the Russian army to fight in Ukraine for about a month. There were also reports that valuable Iskander ballistic missiles or their equivalents imported from North Korea or Iran could have been destroyed. Considering that Russia is forced to import ammunition, this was a very significant loss. It is not difficult to imagine how much Ukrainian forces could achieve with a greater number of various types of precision long-range ammunition.

It seems that “drone rain” could be for Ukraine what four-engine bombers were for the Allies in the fight against the Third Reich. In the event of massive use of such munitions against the Russians, the Russian army would have disrupted fuel and ammunition supplies to the front. It would have to limit the use of aviation against Ukraine in the face of the threat of attacks on airfields. Losses in the fuel sector would hit the economy and eventually it would be realistic to attack some of the Russian arms manufacturing enterprises, which would limit the ability to rebuild the potential.

Moreover, a significant part of the Russian war effort would have to be directed towards air defence. In this way, the entire Russian war machine would significantly slow down, giving Ukrainians some operational freedom, and losses in aircraft, precision ammunition, and the defence industry would effectively distance the vision of a Russian attack on NATO countries.

These allies can also “contribute” to the Ukrainian effort in this matter, an example being the Warmate 50 cruise missile with piston engine propulsion from WB Group, presented during MSPO 2024. Despite its relatively small warhead (50 kg), its range of about 1,000 kilometres and its shape, which hinders detection by radar, would make the Polish device a tough opponent for Russian air defence.

How quickly we will see the effects of mass production of long-range drones in Ukraine remains to be seen. The fact is that Kyiv, still materially weaker than Moscow, must look for unconventional solutions if it wants to survive. Especially since Western allies, understandably, pursue their own goals in this war, which are not always identical to Ukraine's expectations.