The Ukrainian air force has reportedly received the first SCALP air-launched cruise missile from France, according to Agence France-Presse citing sources in the French Ministry of Defense. “The first batch of missiles was delivered at the time of the announcement by French President Emmanuel Macron,” the ministry was told on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius, which involved a “large number” of missiles. Developed jointly with the UK, SCALP is an almost identical sister missile to the UK’s Storm Shadow missile, which has been in use in Ukraine since May. The missiles are revered for their stealth and ability to provide long-range strike capability to aircraft such as the Su-24M strike fighter Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union. However, Russian forces captured the Storm Shadow relatively intact last week, which is expected to help the country develop more effective countermeasures. On July 11, Russian air defenses reportedly intercepted three Storm Shadows as electronic warfare reportedly made it difficult for guided weapons to find their targets. Germany is expected to supply Ukraine with its own equivalent missile, the Taurus, in the coming months, and the United States has also provided a range of air-launched missiles to equip the country’s Soviet-built fighter jets.
On July 11, fierce fighting broke out in the Zaporozhye region of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian army suffered heavy losses. It is estimated that more than 200 personnel and more than 20 pieces of heavy armor were lost, including 5 Leopard tanks. These are likely older Leopard 1 tanks, long considered obsolete, and Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands supplied Ukraine with large numbers of these tanks, along with smaller numbers of the Leopard 2A4 and the more capable Leopard 2A6 tanks. However, even the Leopard 2A6 suffered significant combat losses elsewhere on the front, some of which have been captured on camera. Ukraine then reportedly withdrew the Leopard 2 from the front line due to a shortage of ammunition for the 120mm guns, in order to save them for a more serious offensive. The Leopard 1 was significantly inferior in all performance parameters to the newer Soviet T-64 and T-72 tanks, which formed the bulk of Ukraine’s previous offensive, although heavy losses of Soviet vehicles led to their increasing reliance on newly supplied Western tanks .