Andy Burnham, Aug. 24 -- Russia's armed forces began targeting Ukrainian missile factories on Monday, within hours of Britain's prime minister landing in Kyiv to announce the handover of the classified blueprints needed to build them.

the French-built variant of Britain's Storm Shadow cruise weapon, capable of striking targets more than 250 kilometres away. The announcement, timed to coincide with Ukraine's 35th Independence Day, would allow Kyiv to assemble the missiles domestically for the first time, freeing Ukraine from dependence on European supply chains.

Moscow was not waiting for assembly to begin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian forces were already "carrying out the relevant work - to identify the production sites ...