France to deliver 40 new SCALP long-range missiles, bombs to Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that France is set to deliver a new round of weapons in support of Ukraine.

The delivery includes 40 long-range SCALP-EG missiles and “hundreds of bombs”.

The SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow cruise missile is a British-French weapon developed in the 1990s by Matra and British Aerospace and is now manufactured by the European missile maker MBDA.

This weapon has a strike range of up to 560 kilometers (350 miles).

During the summer of 2023, both France and the United Kingdom supplied these cruise missiles to Ukraine.

They have since been employed to target various key locations, including the Chonhar bridge that connects Crimea to Russian-held sections of the southern Kherson region, as well as the Sevastopol port, causing several warships to be damaged.

France will also deliver “hundreds” of AASM or HAMMER systems, a modular air-ground armament developed by Safran Electronics & Defense that can transform conventional bombs ranging from 250 to 1,000 kilograms (551 to 2,205 pounds) into guided projectiles with a range of up to 70 kilometers (about 43 miles).

Additionally, Macron disclosed that France is in the final stages of negotiating a security agreement with Ukraine. This decision follows a similar agreement on security cooperation signed between Ukraine and the United Kingdom on January 12, 2024.

The UK-Ukraine agreement, which spans ten years, includes comprehensive assistance for the protection and restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, active deterrence against potential military escalation or aggression by Russia, and support for Ukraine’s future integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions.

This support includes endorsing Ukraine’s reform plans and enhancing interoperability with NATO.

The Ukrainian Air Force said it intercepted 19 Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones fired by Russia overnight on January 17, 2024. Anti-aircraft defense systems were activated in several regions, including Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kirovohrad, according to Telegram messages.

According to the morning report by Volodymyr Tymochko, the regional police commander, a Russian S-300 missile strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city located in the northeast near the Russian border, resulted in one fatality and 17 injuries.