us officials have confirmed that Ukraine
has begun using long-range missiles
secretly shipped in recent weeks they
say the missiles were used for the first
time in a strike on a Russian Airfield
in Crimea last week the Army tactical
missile systems or attacks for short
were part of a $300 million assistance
package approved by the United States in
March the US supplied mid-range versions
of the system last September this latest
batch can strike targets up to 300
kilometers
away Mike Martin is a senior fellow in
war studies at Kings College London he
joins me now for more Mike welcome what
targets do these long range attachm
missiles now bring within the range of
the Ukrainian
military so the attack system has a
range of about 300 kilometers and with
that the ukrainians can strike all of
Ukrainian territory that the Russians
are currently occupying including Crimea
and they can also reach deep into bellus
and into Russia as
well speaking of uh territory uh
including crimeia you mentioned there uh
Ukraine has already tried to destroy
several times the kch bridge which
connects the Russian Mainland with the
Russian occupied Crimean Peninsula and
is also an important Supply Route uh for
Russian troops do you expect the
ukrainians to try and Target this bridge
again with the
attacking I I certainly expect the
ukrainians to Target the Kirch Bridge
again whether they'll do so with the
attachs or not uh is open for debate um
the Russians know that the ukrainians
are are very interested in going for the
kurur bridge the ukrainians themselves a
couple of months ago said that they it's
just a matter of time before they
destroy that bridge but if I were the
ukrainians I would be probably be
looking at three or four different
attack vectors at the same time so maybe
an attack
maybe a Storm Shadow a cruise missile
and maybe something from the sea one of
these drones these sea drones that
Ukraine has been using quite
successfully but there is no doubt that
they will this summer be going after the
kch bridge again how important is the
destruction of the kch bridge for the
ukrainians I think there's two ways of
looking at this so the bridge connects
Crimea to Russia proper and it was built
after the 2014 uh you know that
incursion by Russia that takeover of
Crimea by Russia and so it's a huge
logistical pipeline for Russian forces
in Crimea and also in the south of of
occupied Ukraine so from a logistical
point of view it's a big hit for Ukraine
but actually it has huge symbolic value
so the Kirch bridge is personally
connected to Vladimir Putin he opened it
he he rode the first train car he was
the the driver of the first train that
went across the bridge and so striking
the bridge collapsing it is a huge
symbolic blow to Russia as well and and
psychology and symbolism have a big part
to play in War I mean is that is that is
that really such an important thing at
the moment given how expensive uh these
missiles are and then there is a limited
supply of them and you also had the
Kremlin saying earlier today that these
missiles would not impact the outcome of
the conflict
well look I think on your second point
there we can discount most things that
the Kremlin says about the conflict in
Ukraine but even if we just put to one
side that symbolism point to knock out
one of the two major logistical supply
routes to Russian forces in Crimea and
in the south of Ukraine that's huge
that's absolutely huge and that means
that uh the the Russians have to put all
of their Logistics through the other
Rail Link in the south of Ukraine coming
through the dbass and coming across that
land Corridor uh between Kon in the west
and the dbass in the East that makes it
much easier for the ukrainians to then
attack that logistical Corridor so no
matter what the price of these missiles
is dropping that bridge is of huge
benefit to the ukrainians militarily
talk to me about the overall Ukrainian
game plan here I mean Ukraine has been
on the back foot when it comes to the
land War for a few months now has that
game plan changed what is
it well what's what has changed is is
this 60 billion Supply Pipeline and also
a number of European nations have also
stepped up their supplies so the the UK
is just offered another 500 million
pounds worth of supplies and so rather
than being on the Strategic defensive
the ukrainians can now certainly shift
to stabilize their front lines and then
I would be using some of these longer
Range Systems like attacks like the
Storm Shadow that the U the UK has just
uh uh donated a couple of days ago and I
would be using them to particularly hit
Crimea you've mentioned the Kirch Bridge
there's lots of Naval assets and air
Assets in Crimea and all of these uh
make it much more difficult for the
Russians to progress on their front line
so paradoxically you know the best way
of stabilizing the front lines is to hit
these things behind the front lines in
Crimea and that stops the Russians being
able to support their troops on their
own front line so I think stage one is
for the ukrainians to stabilize the
front line and then they can look at
places where they can do damage on the
Russians with this new weapons package
we'll leave it there for the time being
Mike Martin from Kings College London
thanks so much for joining us today