Ukraine’s army has for the primary time confirmed the usage of British-made Storm Shadow missiles inside Russian territory.
Senior army sources, cleared to temporary the media, known as the strike “very successful”.
The identical sources, speaking to the media on situation of anonymity, mentioned Ukraine’s army wants extra long-range missiles, together with Storm Shadow and ATACMS, and importantly, they want permission to fireplace the weapons at any goal of their selecting inside Russia.
Ukraine is presently restricted to targets within the Kursk area solely.
The briefing got here a day after the Russian army fired what Vladimir Putin known as a brand new kind of ballistic missile on the Ukrainian metropolis of Dnipro.
The sources mentioned they’re speaking to Britain and america about buying an air defence system able to intercepting extra superior kinds of missiles.
They mentioned they imagine such a system does exist, regardless of President Putin asserting that present missile defence methods will be unable to intercept their latest sorts.
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0:54
What are Storm Shadow missiles?
North Korean troops taking to battlefield
The official revealed that the 11,000 North Korean troops presently contained in the Kursk area arrived with seven generals, their very own artillery, and Grad a number of rocket launchers.
It was beforehand understood that North Korea had solely despatched infantry to Russia.
These senior army sources additionally confirmed that the North Korean troops are nonetheless coaching, though just a few might have already been built-in into Russian models.
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1:03
Putin’s warning to the West
They count on all of the troops to be on the battlefield within the coming days.
‘Russia’s purpose has all the time been Kyiv’
On this wide-ranging briefing, these senior army sources say they’re very involved a couple of noticeable improve in air assaults on Kyiv, a lot so {that a} separate air defence brigade has been created particularly to guard the capital.
The official mentioned: “Russia’s aim from the very beginning has always been Kyiv.”
The concentrating on of Ukrainian cities by Russian missiles and drones has intensified in latest weeks.
And the Ukrainian army has additionally bolstered air defences in different main cities in Ukraine, together with Sumy and Kharkiv.
:: Stuart Ramsay stories from Ukraine with Dominique van Heerden and Azad Safarov
