Ukraine will strike deep into Russia with long-range missiles of its own production Palyanytsya. This was reported by the Associated Press with reference to Ukrainian officials. Kyiv does not need permission from the West to shell Russian territory with these weapons.
“Ukraine is preparing its own responses. Weapons of its own production,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said, commenting on another massive Russian missile attack on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure on August 26.
On August 24, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported the successful launch of a new long-range drone missile called Palyanytsya. The next day on social network X, he published a video showing what the missile looked like.
“For two and a half years of full-scale war, Russia has fired about 10,000 missiles of various types and more than 33,000 guided bombs at Ukraine. The attacks on our cities can be stopped by strikes on the carriers of these weapons – Russian airplanes on military airfields,” Zelenskyy wrote in the publication. The head of state noted that the day before the first successful combat use of Palyanytsya, developed by his own forces to “destroy the offensive potential of the enemy.” The President also promised that the drone missiles will become more, as “there have become more of our long-range strike drones, the results of which we see almost daily.”
The video published by Zelenskyy shows that the range of use of Palyanytsya is up to 700 kilometers. The video showed a map with various Russian airfields within the missile’s strike zone, including the Savasleika airbase in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Currently, the AFU can strike at least 20 Russian airfields with the Palyanitsa.
The AFU has Western-made long-range missiles in its arsenal, but the range of their use deep inside Russia is limited, which prevents the Ukrainian military from destroying key facilities of the Russian army, including airfields.
On 12 August, against the backdrop of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive in Kursk Region, Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed to obtain Western permission to use long-range weapons for strikes on Russian territory. Relevant requests were sent, in particular, to Washington and London, but there was no positive response.
On August 25, The Guardian quoted senior Ukrainian officials as saying that Ukraine wants permission from the UK to use Storm Shadow long-range missiles to strike Moscow and St. Petersburg, as this could force the Kremlin to negotiate a cessation of hostilities.
