Unseen photos of the \u00a3240 million Russian submarine \u201cRostov-on-Don\u201d emerged on Monday (September 18), five days after it was allegedly struck by a Storm Shadow missile.<\/p>\n
It had been undergoing repairs on a dry dock roughly 150 miles from the frontline, in the southern Crimea port of Sevastopol, next to the Ropucha-class \u201cMinsk\u201d landing ship, when the missiles fell just after 1.30am GMT.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin said later that day both vessels would be \u201cfully restored\u201d but the damage shown by these latest pictures makes such a claim look only \u201ctheoretically possible\u201d, Thord Are Iversen, a military expert on Russian naval vessels wrote on X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it will be much easier to build a new sub as a replacement than trying to fix this damage,\u201d he added. \u201cI think she\u2019s a total loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Britain\u2019s long-range Storm Shadow missiles have had a devastating effect on Russia\u2019s \u201cspecial military operation\u201d since their introduction to the battlefield.<\/p>\n
The land-attack cruise missile (LACM), which has to be launched by fighter jets, can hit targets up to 155 miles away, making it Ukraine\u2019s longest-ranged weapon to date. Previously, the US-supplied HIMARS offered a 50-mile range.<\/p>\n
Since its introduction, it has been used to strike a hotel housing Russian military commanders in Berdyansk, on Ukraine’s occupied southern coast, killing a senior Russian general in the process.<\/p>\n
It also destroyed one of only-three bridges from Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland, a feat that was so humiliating the Kremlin appeared at the time to order Russian military bloggers not to report it. Shockingly, the normally-recalcitrant blogger community obeyed them.<\/p>\n
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Don’t miss… <\/strong> It has also provided a notable contribution to the destruction of logistical nodes and artillery stores deep in the occupied territories, forcing Russia to move much of its backlog of weaponry closer to the frontline, where it is vulnerable to less-ranged but more readily-available Ukrainian fires.<\/p>\n These instances of destruction provide ample examples of the usefulness of these long-range missiles, but Moscow\u2019s multiple attempts over the past two months to strike air bases and air strips in western Ukraine, where it is suspected the Storm Shadow\u2019s are stored alongside their fighter jet couriers, amount to demonstrative evidence of their effectiveness.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no surprise that they are trying to destroy our aviation and pilots,\u201d Colonel Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for Ukraine\u2019s air force, said of the Russian strikes in August. \u201cOur pilots (armed with Storm Shadows) are causing a lot of trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n But despite these successes, there is little evidence to suggest that Storm Shadows will prove a \u201cgame changer\u201d in the war in Ukraine, according to <\/span>analysis<\/span> published by Rob Lee and Michael Kofman, two military experts who regularly visit the frontline.<\/span><\/p>\n
Storm Shadow missile blitz hammers major bridges in occupied Crimea[REPORT] <\/strong>
Russian general personally known to Putin ‘killed in missile strike on mansion'[INSIGHT ] <\/strong>
Putin puppet vows to unleash nuclear hell in Ukraine and Europe after strikes[REVEAL ] <\/strong><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/78\/590x\/secondary\/A-July-Storm-Shadow-attack-on-a-Berdyansk-hotel-killed-a-senior-Russian-military-commander-4966232.jpg?r=1695073816252\")
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