Your support helps us to tell the story
On Sunday, a Russian glide bomb destroyed a high-rise building in northeastern Ukraine, killing a 94-year-old woman while injuring dozens more.
The 165kg guided-warhead, likely launched hundreds of miles away in Russia, blew out the windows of the five-storey building in Kharkiv as flames ripped through a number of floors.
The strike was the latest aerial attack carried about by Russian forces in Ukraine - in which roughly 5,000 civilians have been killed in the same way since February 2022.
For Volodymyr Zelensky, the only realistic solution to ending this death and destruction is by using Western long-range missiles to fire at military sites deep within Russia - something he has pleaded for over months.
“The only way to counter this terror is through a systemic solution – long-range capabilities to destroy Russian military aviation at its bases,” he said on Sunday.
If Washington was to give Kyiv the go-ahead to use the weapons, despite Vladimir Putin’s warning of war, what Russian targets could Ukraine hit? The Independent takes a look below.
What targets could Ukraine hit by using long-range missiles?
A public list of targets — either those requested by Ukraine or approved by the US or the UK — would not be released for operational reasons.
However, US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War last month identified “no fewer than 245 known Russian military and paramilitary sites” within the 190-mile range of US-supplied ATACMS.
If placed close to Ukraine’s front lines, the Western-supplied long-range weapons could potentially put vast swathes of Russian territory in the firing zone.
Some of those targets include:
- Lipetsk military air base, struck by drones in August
- Shatalovo air base in Smolensk Oblast
- Millerovo military airfield in Rostov Oblast
- Yeysk military airfield in Krasnodar Krai
- Logistics and command centres in Rostov-on-Don, which has been the central headquarters of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine
- The Primorsko-Akhtarsk airbase in Krasnodar Krai, regularly used by Russia to launch Shahed-type drones at Ukraine
- Novorossiysk naval base, where much of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has relocated after a series of devastating attacks by Ukraine on its primary base off of occupied Crimea
When could the West lift restrictions?
Britain has supplied Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles, which have a range of about 155 miles, but it cannot use them to fire at key targets inside Russia.
Meanwhile, the US has provided Ukraine with the longest-range version of ATACMS, a ballistic missile that can travel 190 miles.
But it has remained hesitant over allowing the firing of long-range missiles into Russia over fears Moscow could respond by deploying hypersonic nuclear weapons.
Last week, US president Joe Biden said he was “working out” how to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of the technology.
However, the decision appeared to have been delayed after Mr Putin warned Nato would be in direct confrontation with Russia if Kyiv was given the go ahead.
