Global Courant 2023-05-13 17:15:54
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday Ukrainian aircraft hit two industrial sites in the Russian-occupied city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles supplied by Britain.
Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield reports.
Britain on Thursday was the first country to say it had started supplying Kiev with long-range cruise missiles that could allow it to hit Russian troops and supply dumps far behind the front lines as it prepares a major counter-offensive.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the missiles could be used on Ukrainian territory, implying he had received assurances from Kiev that they would not be used to strike targets within Russia’s internationally accepted borders.
The Russian ministry said the missiles hit a polymer production plant and a meat processing plant in Luhansk on Friday.
“Storm Shadow air-to-air missiles supplied by Britain to the Kiev regime were used for the attack, contrary to London’s statements that these weapons would not be used against civilian targets,” the ministry said.
It also said Russia had downed two Ukrainian fighter jets – a Su-24 and a MiG-29 – that had launched the missiles.
In its latest bulletin, the ministry also said Russian forces had taken control of another bloc in the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Moscow has been trying to capture for more than 10 months in an exhausting artillery battle.
“The units of the Airborne Forces provided support to the attack units and pinned the enemy on the flanks,” it read.
The ministry often uses the term “assault units” to denote Wagner’s private militia, which led the assault on Bakhmut with high casualty losses.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Kevin Liffey)
