Ukraine Receives Missile System Disguised As “Ordinary” Shipping Container

BFBS Forces News war correspondent Simon Newton, covering all things Ukraine, reported that the UK has begun supplying surface-to-air missiles that can be launched from within modified shipping containers.

“Gravehawk has been developed from scratch in just 18 months and will be used to combat Russian aircraft, missiles and drones,” Newton wrote, adding, “It’s highly innovative, relatively cheap – and deadly.”

He said the surface-to-air missiles are mounted on a launch pad in an “ordinary ISO shipping container, meaning it can be quickly deployed on the back of a lorry, known as a Drops vehicle.”

Jimmy Rushton, a Kyiv-based foreign policy and security analyst, wrote on X, “Russia has to contend with a scenario where any shipping container in Ukraine – and there are tens of thousands – could potentially be concealing one of these systems.”

The more I think about the U.K.’s “Gravehawk” containerised air defence system the more genius I think it is.

Russia has to contend with a scenario where any shipping container in Ukraine – and there are tens of thousands – could potentially be concealing one of these systems. pic.twitter.com/UqqRIeY4Pj

— Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) February 13, 2025

Outfitting missile systems in ordinary shipping containers is not a new concept.

A paper published in the International Law Studies journal in 2021 outlined that China has been reportedly “developing long-range cruise missiles that can be fired from standard shipping containers loaded on merchant vessels.”