Ukraine's Air Force destroyed a Russian command-and-control post in temporarily occupied Luhansk Oblast on 25 May 2026, the General Staff said. British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles carried out the strike. Russia's missile alert in the occupied region went off around 16:30.
The strike
The General Staff posted the confirmation on Monday evening. The military said the operation "underscores the strategic foresight, unity of planning, and deliberate actions" of Ukraine's Air Force. The military withheld the exact location, the target's identity, the time, and the scale of damage.
The weapon
Storm Shadow is a British-French air-launched cruise missile. The UK first delivered them to Ukraine in May 2023. France's identical SCALP-EG variant followed soon after. The missiles carry a 450-kg warhead at a range of around 250 km. Joint manufacturer MBDA restarted production at its UK and French plants in 2025 after a fifteen-year pause. Output is ramping up toward a projected 50 missiles per month.
Strikes on Russian drone infrastructure
The 25 May command-post strike follows a separate operation on 14 April 2026. Ukrainian warplanes hit Russian UAV storage at the occupied Donetsk airport. The strike used SCALP cruise missiles and US-made GBU-39 glide bombs. Russia had built infrastructure at the airport to launch Shahed and Gerbera drones via remote online control. Russia uses these drones against Ukrainian tactical rear positions.
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