Has Ukraine revealed jet armed with Storm Shadow missile?
The first known photo of a Ukrainian jet armed with a Storm Shadow appears to have been revealed by the Ukrainian government.
In a Twitter post shared by Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, relating to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace's most recent visit to Kyiv, there is an image of Su-24 Fencer aircraft armed with a Storm Shadow signed by Mr Wallace, surrounded by a backdrop of British and Ukrainian flags.
Mr Wallace signed the photograph of the SU-24 with the words: "To all the brave 'few' who risk all for the glory of Ukraine," and signed off with his signature.
This month, the UK's Defence Secretary confirmed that Ukrainian forces had used UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles against Russian targets, but Mr Wallace declined to give further details about the use of the long-range cruise missile.
It has not yet been confirmed if this is, in fact, a Su-24 Fencer aircraft carrying the Storm Shadow, but the Su-24 has been known as one of only two jets that were supposedly able to carry the missile.
Forces News spoke to Air Marshal (Retired) Greg Bagwell, Former Deputy Commander of Operations, prior to any imagery being revealed, and he found it "interesting" the lack of images of the aircraft carrying the missile.
"It's interesting that no-one has shown any photographs and everyone's been quite coy about who is operating it," he said.
He added: "If you know enough you can figure it out... it will be one of the existing Ukrainian types."
Mr Bagwell said: "It (Storm Shadow) is big, it really is a good three or four metres long and it weighs a few tonnes.
"So we're talking a fairly substantial missile here, Tornado could carry two, in theory, could carry four, but it wouldn't carry them far, but if you can get one or two on then you've got some really serious punch that you are taking airborne."
However, the former air marshal highlighted that "the beauty of it is that it, kind of, doesn't matter which aircraft type you put it on in terms of its vulnerability".
"Because of the range the missile allows you to fire it, far enough back from either Russian aircraft or Russian air defence systems.
"So you can do it with relative immunity, get airborne, get to a safe firing point, fire it into the target area you're firing to, the weapon then takes care of everything else.
"The aircraft effectively fires and forgets."
He added: "The aeroplane is only a very minor part of the firing chain".
"It's called an air-launch cruise missile because it then becomes, if you like, not unlike a suicide drone, you could argue, but it's an air-launched one in this case, and it's a lot bigger and has a lot more punch."
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