Recently, most of the discussions in the Western media have been about lifting missile restrictions for Ukraine. The other day, Keir Starmer and Joe Biden discussed the possibility of using long-range missiles inside russia, and similar discussions continue among key Western partners.
The Wall Street Journal notes that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Biden discussed the possibility of Ukraine using long-range European-made cruise missiles to strike targets deep inside russia. The US President and the UK Prime Minister expressed deep concern about Iran and North Korea providing lethal weapons to russia. There were no statements on whether a decision had been made to revise the restrictions on the Ukrainian Armed Forces to strike with Western weapons deep into the territory of the rashist federation.
Reuters reports that former UK defence ministers have called on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles in russia even without US support. The call came from five former defence ministers from the Conservative Party.
Reuters also writes about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's recent statement that Canada fully supports Ukraine in using long-range weapons to stop russia's continued ability to destroy Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
Bloomberg published an interesting article in which the author argues that Biden has been hesitating for months to allow Ukrainians to defend themselves by launching Western missiles deep into Russia. The US president is afraid of crossing one of the Kremlin's "red lines" and provoking an uncontrolled escalation that could end in a direct war between russia and NATO or even the use of nuclear weapons by russia. As a result, Ukrainians cannot properly defend themselves from the incessant russian shelling that terrorises and destroys cities.
Now the russian aggressor is again threatening consequences, but they are likely to take the form of helping the Iranians or their proxies to strike at US forces in the Middle East. However, russia, Iran, North Korea and China are already in collusion, and the United States must understand that in any scenario it will have to confront them all. That is why the author emphasises that Biden should allow Ukrainians to fire Western and even American munitions deep into russian territory, as long as the targets are military and not civilian objects.
I hope that our allies and all other parties will once again hear and realise the importance of Ukraine's victory and the peace plan that President Zelenskyy will present at the UN General Assembly. There is only one scenario for victory - the withdrawal of the russian aggressor's troops, the regaining of control over the border, and the restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and constitutional order.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Biden on Friday discussed allowing Ukraine to use long-range European-made cruise missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia, according to U.S. and Western officials.
Until now, Western countries supporting Ukraine have balked at allowing Kyiv to use long-range weapons, such as the British-French Storm Shadow, inside Russian territory for fear of escalating the conflict.
If the U.S. greenlit Ukraine using ATACMs to strike at airfields deep in Russia, Moscow’s reach could shorten dramatically. More planes now carrying bombs to kill Ukrainians would have to move farther away. Russia’s air force would be able to fly fewer sorties, and those that reached Ukrainian cities would take longer to get there, giving civilians vital time to seek shelter.
If Ukraine could launch long-range weapons at targets in Russia, the costs of the war would rise for Moscow. Ukraine’s ability to hit ammunition depots, fuel-storage facilities, training bases, logistics hubs and manufacturing sites that support Russia’s war machine would leave Mr. Putin short on supplies to carry out his war of aggression.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled Wednesday that the West is considering allowing Kyiv to strike deeper inside Russian territory with Western-made weaponry, as Russia adds Iranian ballistic missiles to its arsenal.
Blinken’s comments, delivered on a brief visit to Kyiv Wednesday, came also as Russia launched a counteroffensive in the Kursk border region, its first major effort to regain control of its territory that Ukrainian forces seized in a lightning attack more than a month ago.
Support for Ukraine guarantees the survival of neighbouring Moldova, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday at a conference to address concerns about broadening Russian interference in the region.
"Everything that we do to support Ukraine also means fostering stabilisation with regards to Moldova," Baerbock said. "It is clear what the greatest concern of the people here is: that if Ukraine falls, Moldova is the next country in line."
NATO could have done more to arm Ukraine to try to prevent Russia's invasion in 2022, the outgoing head of the Western military alliance said in an interview released on Saturday.
"Now we provide military stuff to a war - then we could have provided military stuff to prevent the war," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly newspaper FAS.
Stoltenberg pointed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's reluctance to provide weapons that Kyiv had asked for before Russia's full-scale invasion because of fears that tensions with Russia would escalate.
British Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been urged by former defence secretaries and an ex-premier to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles inside Russian territory even without U.S. backing, the Sunday Times reported on Saturday.
According to the Sunday Times, the call came from five former Conservative defence secretaries - Grant Shapps, Ben Wallace, Gavin Williamson, Penny Mordaunt and Liam Fox - as well as from ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Canada fully supports Ukraine using long-range weaponry to "prevent and interdict Russia's continued ability to degrade Ukrainian civilian infrastructure", Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday.
Trudeau told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to deeply destabilize the international rules-based order and added: "That's why Canada and others are unequivocal that Ukraine must win this war against Russia."
The upshot is that Biden should welcome Zelenskiy by announcing, with fanfare, that Ukraine can shoot Western, and even American, ordnance deep into Russian territory as long as the targets are military rather than civilian. (The US already allows the Ukrainians to strike enemy positions inside Russian territory near the border.) London and Paris have been pushing Biden that way, as have eminences grises from the US and UK.
And yet Biden, Zelenskiy and everybody else should be realistic about what this new tactical freedom can and can’t do. It can force the Russians to pull back their bases, making incoming attacks easier to parry. But it can’t, without accompanying ground attacks, change the trajectory of the war — just as Western artillery, tanks and fighter jets couldn’t accomplish that.
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