The government agreed to allow “defence company MBDA to release classified information on British components of the long-range SCALP missile in order to establish local assembly lines in Ukraine”. SCALP-EG is the French designation for Storm Shadow.
Initial production is likely to focus on final assembly rather than complete manufacture. Key components are expected to continue arriving from Britain and France.
Storm Shadow was developed jointly by Britain and France under MBDA’s leadership. The British decision supports French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to transfer production technology to Ukraine.
A French-Ukrainian letter of intent signed in February is expected to provide the legal basis for the project. Former Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov first discussed local production publicly in late June.
Ukraine’s Air Force has used Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG missiles since the spring of 2023. Britain, France and Italy supplied the weapons.
The missiles were initially used against Russian forces in occupied Ukrainian territory. Ukraine later employed them against targets inside Russia.
Storm Shadow weighs about 1,300kg and carries a 450kg penetrating warhead. It travels at around Mach 0.95 and has a range exceeding 550km.
Its guidance system combines inertial navigation, satellite data and terrain-profile matching. An infrared seeker identifies the target during the final stage of flight.
Storm Shadow was developed in the 1990s and entered combat service in 2003. Production restarted in 2025 with a modified version.
Britain is shifting future procurement towards newer missiles being developed through multinational programmes. Licensing production in Ukraine is therefore unlikely to threaten MBDA’s position in the global market.
For Ukraine, even partial production would add a domestic route to an advanced cruise-missile capability. Ukrainian manufacturers do not currently offer a comparable system.
