Britain has supplied Ukraine with Storm Shadow stealth cruise missiles giving Volodymyr Zelensky’s government the capability to carry out long-range strikes against Russian forces. The missiles with a range of 155 miles, will give a vital boost to Ukrainian forces when they launch their much publicised spring offensive. They have a shorter reach than the 185-mileof the American Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, which President Zelensky has asked for repeatedly, but they will enable Ukrainian forces to carry out strikes not just in occupied territories, but inside Russia. Leaked Pentagon papers revealed, based on electronic eavesdropping, that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, complained in late February to the head of the country’s military, Gen Valeriy Zaluzhny, that Ukraine “does not have long-range missiles capable of reaching Russian troop deployments in Russia”. The Ukrainian government has assured Britain, the US and Nato allies that the Storm Shadow will not be used outside “Ukrainian sovereign territory”. However, Crimea, which was annexed by the Kremlin in 2013 is considered to fall within the term of “sovereign territory” by the UK. Storm Shadows, if deployed against targets in Crimea and seas around, will place Russia’s Black Sea Fleet under threat and also significantly limit the capabilities of Moscow to supply its forces around the peninsula by sea. General Ben Hodges, a former commander of the US army in Europe, said recently he believed Russia’s “Black Sea fleet would already have departed Sevastopol if Ukraine had Storm Shadow”. He held that President Zelenskiy and “would not want to lose the trust of the west” by using long-range missiles beyond agreed limits The US has been extremely cautious about providing weapons to Ukraine that could help them strike within Russian territory. Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Colin Kahl had said August that it is the US assessment Ukraine does not “currently require ATACMS to service targets that are directly relevant to the current fight.” Even with the arrival of the missiles, the offensive may be delayed. President Zelensky said on Thursday that Western military supplies, including armoured vehicles, are coming through in batches and needed to be integrated into Ukrainian forces. Going to early would lead to needless loss of lives, said the President : “With what we already have we can go forward, and, I think, be successful. But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time.” Mr Zelensky dismissed fears about losing US support if President Joe Biden, who has vowed to support Ukraine as long as it takes, is not re-elected in 2024. Ukraine, he said, still enjoyed bipartisan support in the US Congress. “Who knows where we’ll be [when the election happens]?” he said. “I believe we’ll win by then.” Donald Trump, who may well get the Republican nomination, had said in the past that he would recognise Russian ownership of Crimea, refused at a CNN town hall on Wednesday to say whether he would continue supporting Ukraine until victory was achieved. “I don’t think of winning or losing, I think in terms of getting it settled. I want everybody to stop dying” said the former President. Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

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Russian president Vladimir Putin said the plane carrying Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was blown up from the inside and fragments of hand grenades have been found in the bodies of those killed in the crash. This is the first time Mr Putin commented on the details of the plane crash that killed Prigozhin – the mercenary leader who had challenged his regime and launched a military coup by marching onto Moscow in a dramatic threat to the Kremlin not seen in decades. "Fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of those killed in the crash," Mr Putin told a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, but did not share any details on the type and number of hand grenades that could have been detonated on board. He denied an external influence or targeting of the plane from the outside. "There was no external impact on the plane – this is already an established fact," he said, rejecting assertions by unidentified US officials who said shortly after the crash that they believed it had been shot down. Mr Putin said the head of Russia’s investigative committee had reported to him a few days ago. The private Embraer jet carrying the Wagner leader and the mercenary group’s co-founder along with eight other people crashed north of Moscow on 23 August. All 10 people onboard were reported dead. Mr Putin also suggested that the remains of the passengers, including Prigozhin, should have been tested for alcohol and drugs. He said he thought investigators were wrong to have not carried out these tests on the bodies of those killed in the crash. "In my opinion, such an examination should have been carried out but it was not," he said. The searches of Wagner’s offices in St Petersburg by the FSB found 10bn roubles ($100m) in cash and 5kg (11 pounds) of cocaine, he said. The investigators of the crash have yet to report publicly on the cause. Neither Wagner nor Prigozhin’s family could be reached to comment on Mr Putin’s remarks. Prigozhin had claimed pride in casting Wagner as the world’s most war-hardened fighting force and was known to have carried out Russia’s dirty work in middle-east and Africa. The mercenary fighters waged a brutal battle – dubbed the “meat grinder” – in Bakhmut last year in winter, where they eventually handed Moscow its biggest territorial gain in many months. Just two months before his death, he had accused Mr Putin’s top military brass, defence minister Sergei Shoigu and general staff Valery Gerasimov of incompetence and warned that Russia could lose the war in Ukraine unless it raised its game. The brief mutiny against Russia’s defence establishment posed the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule since the former KGB spy came to power in 1999. According to the leaders in the West, not only did it expose the strains on Russia of the war in Ukraine, it also showed the worsening relations between the Russian president and his long-time stooge. Read More Putin’s ‘punishment battalions’ full of convicts and drunk recruits: ‘They’re just meat’ Wagner succession: Yevgeny Prigozhin’s son ‘set to be next mercenary boss’ Putin orders former Wagner commander to take charge of 'volunteer units' in Ukraine ‘Weak’ Putin killed Wagner mercenary chief Prigozhin, Zelensky says

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