Putin denied that Storm Shadow missiles are doing 'critical' damage to Russia, despite them likely taking out a top general and other key targets

• Putin said Ukraine's Storm Shadow missiles have caused some damage, but nothing "critical."
• The UK-supplied missiles have reportedly killed a key Russian general and hit other strategic targets.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Storm Shadow missiles that Ukraine is getting from its allies aren't doing "critical" damage to Russia, even after they reportedly took out a senior general and hit other strategic targets far from the front lines.

Putin was asked on Thursday about France's decision to send Ukraine the missiles, which followed the UK's decision earlier this year to supply it with Storm Shadows.

But Putin dismissed the impact it would have on Russia's conflict in Ukraine.

"Yes, they cause damage, but nothing critical happens in the war zone with their use," he told Russian state TV, according to Al Jazeera.

Instead, he said, foreign-made tanks were "a priority target for our guys," Al Jazeera reported.

The UK's defense minister, Ben Wallace, last month described Storm Shadow missiles as having been accurate "almost without fault" in Ukraine.

And he said "the Storm Shadow missile has had a significant impact on the battlefield."

According to multiple Ukrainian and Russian reports, a Storm Shadow missile supplied by the UK killed a senior Russian general deep inside Russian-held territory earlier this week.

Telegram channel Berdyansk Today suggested the general died as a result of a strike on the Duna Hotel, located in Berdyansk, nearly 100 miles behind the front line.

Storm Shadow missiles have also reportedly hit a Russian supply depot and a military command center, and Russia's defense minister said Ukraine used one to strike a bridge connecting Russian-held parts of Ukraine's Kherson region to the Russia-annexed Crimea region. Ukraine has not taken direct credit for that strike.

The Storm Shadow, also known as SCALP, is plane-launched and designed to fly low to evade detection. Its range, of more than 155 miles, is considerably longer than the HIMARS the US has sent to Ukraine, which were modified to have a 50-mile range.

Defense analyst Michael Clarke, a former director of the Royal United Services Institute think tank, recently told Insider's Mia Jankowicz that the missiles give Ukraine "a real edge in terms of destroying everything behind the lines that the Russians have got."

He also said that while it's hard to confirm what weapons are behind specific strikes in Russia-occupied territory, the distances involved in some strikes point to these.

"You think to yourself: 'Well, that can only have been a Storm Shadow,'" he said.

The UK announced in May that it was sending Ukraine an undisclosed number of Storm Shadow missiles. And France's president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Tuesday that France would join it in giving the long-range missiles. A source told Reuters it would send about 50 to Ukraine.

A French military source told news agency Agence France-Presse on Thursday that the missiles had already arrived in Ukraine.