Leaders of UK and US will now discuss plan at UN General Assembly in New York "with a wider group of individuals" as Kiev seeks approval to use Western long-range missiles deeper inside Russia.
Biden meets with Starmer at the White House in Washington,DC on September 13, 2024. / Photo: Reuters
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Joe Biden have delayed a decision to let Ukraine fire long-range Western-supplied missiles into Russia, a plan that sparked dire threats from Moscow of a war with NATO.
Starmer told reporters at the White House on Friday that he had a "wide-ranging discussion about strategy" with Biden but that it "wasn't a meeting about a particular capability."
Before the meeting officials had said Starmer would press Biden to back his plan to send British Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine to hit deeper inside Russia as allies become increasingly concerned about the battlefield situation.
But the Labour leader indicated that he and Biden would now discuss the plan at the UN General Assembly in New York the week after next "with a wider group of individuals."
As they met with their teams across a long table in the White House, backed by US and British flags, Biden played down a warning by Russian President Vladimir Putin that allowing Ukraine to fire the weapons would mean the West was "at war" with Russia.
"I don't think much about Vladimir Putin," Biden told reporters when asked about the comments. Biden added, Putin will not prevail in the war with Ukraine.
Ukraine and many of its supporters in the US and Europe want Biden to let Kiev use the weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russia, and there are signs Biden might shift US policy.
Two US officials familiar with discussions about the weapons said ahead of the talks that they believe Starmer will seek Biden's approval to allow Ukraine to use British Storm Shadow missiles for expanded strikes in Russia.
Biden's approval is needed because Storm Shadow components are made in the US.
Ukraine also wants more long-range weaponry from Washington, including the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS.
Russian warning
Putin has threatened that Ukraine's use of long-range weapons would put NATO at war with Moscow.
Putin said on Thursday that allowing long-range strikes "would mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries, are at war with Russia."
His remarks were in line with the narrative the Kremlin has promoted since early in the war, accusing NATO countries of de-facto participation in the conflict and threatening a response.
Starmer said on Thursday on his way to the US that Britain does not seek conflict with Russia.
Russia in Review, Sept. 6-13, 2024
5 Things to Know
The U.S., U.K. and France have continued to debate this week whether to allow Ukraine to use some Western-supplied long-range missiles for long-range strikes at targets inside Russia, such as U.K.-built Storm Shadows and their French-made equivalents, Scalps, that rely on U.S. equipment for navigation, thus, giving Washington the right of veto for their use. The Biden administration is reportedly poised to approve Storm Shadows and Scalps for such use (though not on Sept. 13), but it remains divided on whether to allow use of U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) for the same purpose. The U.S. State Department is open to Kyiv’s request for use of ATACMS, while the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are skeptical, according to FT. But even the use of Storm Shadows and Scalps inside Russia would mean NATO countries are at war with Russia, according to Vladimir Putin’s Sept. 12 remarks, which were echoed by his spokesman Dmitry Peskov and his U.N. envoy Vasily Nebenzia. The fear in the White House is that hardliners in the Kremlin could insist this retaliation takes the form of attacking transit points for missiles on their way to Ukraine, such as an airbase in Poland in what would lead to invoking of NATO’s Article 5, meaning the alliance would be at war with Russia, according to the BBC.
Asked on Friday about Russia’s threats, John Kirby, the White House spokesman, said that Mr. Putin “has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last now going on three years. So yeah, we take, we take these comments seriously.” “But,” he added, “it is not something that we haven’t heard before.” (NYT, 09.13.24)
Lord Kim Darroch, Britain’s former national security adviser, said western allies should think carefully about Putin’s warnings of a war between Moscow and NATO. “We really don’t want to escalate this,” he told FT.
Matthew Savill of RUSI believes lifting restrictions on use of Western-made long-range missiles by Ukraine would pose a dilemma for Russia as to where to position its precious air defenses. Ultimately however, such use is unlikely to turn the tide, according to Savill. If Savill’s estimate is accurate, then as was the case with prior steps in the ladder of arming Ukraine, the use of Storm Shadows and Scalps would be a morale booster for the Ukrainian leadership and would also generate some benefits on the battlefield, but wouldn’t be a game changer.*1
William Burns of CIA and Richard Moore of MI6 said it would be wrong to take Putin’s threats of nuclear escalation lightly but that the West should not be unnecessarily intimidated, according to FT.
Ukraine's leaders have been insisting that Russia needs to be driven out of all Ukrainian territory before any peace talks, but a combination of two factors now compel Kyiv to “come up with a more realistic plan, at least for the next year of the war,” European diplomats told WSJ. These factors are Russian forces’ gains in the east and “Western support for Ukraine showing signs of fatigue,” WSJ reported. “Kyiv has been told that a full Ukrainian victory would require the West to provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of support,” which is unrealistic to expect, according to WSJ’s article, entitled “Ukraine Pressed to Think About a Plan B for War With Russia." U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said prior to arriving in Kyiv on Sept. 11 that his trip was in part to see “exactly how the Ukrainians see their needs in this moment, toward what objectives and what we can do to support those needs,” WSJ reported. While no details about Ukraine’s war aims were reported following Blinken’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the latter has revealed that he plans to present a “victory plan” during his visit to the U.S. later this week, according to Ukrainian media. He said the plan will not have many points and each point will depend on Biden's decision, according to RBC.ua.
The Russian army's advances in the eastern Donetsk region have moved the frontline to within 8 kilometers of the key transportation hub of Pokrovsk this week, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry. Capturing this city and the nearby city of Chasiv Yar would disrupt Ukrainian supply lines along the eastern front and give Russian forces a big strategic advantage in seizing the rest of the Donbas region, which Putin has declared part of Russia, according to WSJ,2 NYT and Newsweek. On Sept. 7, NYT reported that Russia’s drive toward Pokrovsk had stalled along one part of the frontline. However, on Sept. 12, Ukraine's OSINT group Deep State reported that the Russian forces advanced in Hrodivka, which lies about 10 kilometers to the east of Pokrovsk.
The Russian army’s offensive tactics in eastern Ukraine continue to depend on glide bombs and artillery superiority, according to The Economist. That superiority ranges from at least 3:1 up to 10:1 in some sections, according to The Economist and U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey. According to Healey, Russia is also conscripting or recruiting 400,000 additional soldiers this year. That equals almost half of the total number of troops available to Ukrainian command, according to SACEUR Christopher Cavoli.
On Sept. 10, Russian troops reportedly began to push the Ukrainian forces back from Russia’s southwestern Kursk region in a counteroffensive, according to MT. Zelenskyy acknowledged the pushback, but enigmatically claimed that “Everything is going according to the Ukrainian plan,” according to Bloomberg. On Sept. 12, the Russian defense ministry claimed its forces had retaken 10 settlements in the Kursk region, or about 63 of about 900 square kilometers of land, which Ukrainian forces controlled in that region as of earlier this week, according to FT and the U.K. Defense Department.
In their first and possibly last debate on Sept. 10, former U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris crossed swords on a number of issues, including whether a quick peace is attainable in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Trump claimed that he “will get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended… before even becoming president.” Harris countered with asserting that “I believe the reason Donald Trump says this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up,” according to MT.
Republican vice-presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance has laid out a potential Trump administration's approach to ending Russia's war in Ukraine, saying Trump's handling of the conflict could include establishing a "demilitarized zone" in Ukrainian territory now occupied by Russia, according to WP. As part of the peace plan, Vance said, Ukraine would maintain its independence in exchange for a guarantee of neutrality—meaning Ukraine wouldn't join NATO or other "allied institutions,” WP reported.
5 Things to Know
The U.S., U.K. and France have continued to debate this week whether to allow Ukraine to use some Western-supplied long-range missiles for long-range strikes at targets inside Russia, such as U.K.-built Storm Shadows and their French-made equivalents, Scalps, that rely on U.S. equipment for navigation, thus, giving Washington the right of veto for their use. The Biden administration is reportedly poised to approve Storm Shadows and Scalps for such use (though not on Sept. 13), but it remains divided on whether to allow use of U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) for the same purpose. The U.S. State Department is open to Kyiv’s request for use of ATACMS, while the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are skeptical, according to FT. But even the use of Storm Shadows and Scalps inside Russia would mean NATO countries are at war with Russia, according to Vladimir Putin’s Sept. 12 remarks, which were echoed by his spokesman Dmitry Peskov and his U.N. envoy Vasily Nebenzia. The fear in the White House is that hardliners in the Kremlin could insist this retaliation takes the form of attacking transit points for missiles on their way to Ukraine, such as an airbase in Poland in what would lead to invoking of NATO’s Article 5, meaning the alliance would be at war with Russia, according to the BBC.
Asked on Friday about Russia’s threats, John Kirby, the White House spokesman, said that Mr. Putin “has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last now going on three years. So yeah, we take, we take these comments seriously.” “But,” he added, “it is not something that we haven’t heard before.” (NYT, 09.13.24)
Lord Kim Darroch, Britain’s former national security adviser, said western allies should think carefully about Putin’s warnings of a war between Moscow and NATO. “We really don’t want to escalate this,” he told FT.
Matthew Savill of RUSI believes lifting restrictions on use of Western-made long-range missiles by Ukraine would pose a dilemma for Russia as to where to position its precious air defenses. Ultimately however, such use is unlikely to turn the tide, according to Savill. If Savill’s estimate is accurate, then as was the case with prior steps in the ladder of arming Ukraine, the use of Storm Shadows and Scalps would be a morale booster for the Ukrainian leadership and would also generate some benefits on the battlefield, but wouldn’t be a game changer.*1
William Burns of CIA and Richard Moore of MI6 said it would be wrong to take Putin’s threats of nuclear escalation lightly but that the West should not be unnecessarily intimidated, according to FT.
Ukraine's leaders have been insisting that Russia needs to be driven out of all Ukrainian territory before any peace talks, but a combination of two factors now compel Kyiv to “come up with a more realistic plan, at least for the next year of the war,” European diplomats told WSJ. These factors are Russian forces’ gains in the east and “Western support for Ukraine showing signs of fatigue,” WSJ reported. “Kyiv has been told that a full Ukrainian victory would require the West to provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of support,” which is unrealistic to expect, according to WSJ’s article, entitled “Ukraine Pressed to Think About a Plan B for War With Russia." U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said prior to arriving in Kyiv on Sept. 11 that his trip was in part to see “exactly how the Ukrainians see their needs in this moment, toward what objectives and what we can do to support those needs,” WSJ reported. While no details about Ukraine’s war aims were reported following Blinken’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the latter has revealed that he plans to present a “victory plan” during his visit to the U.S. later this week, according to Ukrainian media. He said the plan will not have many points and each point will depend on Biden's decision, according to RBC.ua.
The Russian army's advances in the eastern Donetsk region have moved the frontline to within 8 kilometers of the key transportation hub of Pokrovsk this week, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry. Capturing this city and the nearby city of Chasiv Yar would disrupt Ukrainian supply lines along the eastern front and give Russian forces a big strategic advantage in seizing the rest of the Donbas region, which Putin has declared part of Russia, according to WSJ,2 NYT and Newsweek. On Sept. 7, NYT reported that Russia’s drive toward Pokrovsk had stalled along one part of the frontline. However, on Sept. 12, Ukraine's OSINT group Deep State reported that the Russian forces advanced in Hrodivka, which lies about 10 kilometers to the east of Pokrovsk.
The Russian army’s offensive tactics in eastern Ukraine continue to depend on glide bombs and artillery superiority, according to The Economist. That superiority ranges from at least 3:1 up to 10:1 in some sections, according to The Economist and U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey. According to Healey, Russia is also conscripting or recruiting 400,000 additional soldiers this year. That equals almost half of the total number of troops available to Ukrainian command, according to SACEUR Christopher Cavoli.
On Sept. 10, Russian troops reportedly began to push the Ukrainian forces back from Russia’s southwestern Kursk region in a counteroffensive, according to MT. Zelenskyy acknowledged the pushback, but enigmatically claimed that “Everything is going according to the Ukrainian plan,” according to Bloomberg. On Sept. 12, the Russian defense ministry claimed its forces had retaken 10 settlements in the Kursk region, or about 63 of about 900 square kilometers of land, which Ukrainian forces controlled in that region as of earlier this week, according to FT and the U.K. Defense Department.
In their first and possibly last debate on Sept. 10, former U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris crossed swords on a number of issues, including whether a quick peace is attainable in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Trump claimed that he “will get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended… before even becoming president.” Harris countered with asserting that “I believe the reason Donald Trump says this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up,” according to MT.
Republican vice-presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance has laid out a potential Trump administration's approach to ending Russia's war in Ukraine, saying Trump's handling of the conflict could include establishing a "demilitarized zone" in Ukrainian territory now occupied by Russia, according to WP. As part of the peace plan, Vance said, Ukraine would maintain its independence in exchange for a guarantee of neutrality—meaning Ukraine wouldn't join NATO or other "allied institutions,” WP reported.
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