The Daily Populous Thursday September 12nd, 2024 evening edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by farligjakt

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia, with a decision understood to have already been made in private.

Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had “from day one” been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. “We will continue to do this,” he emphasised.

Blinken said he and Lammy would report back to their “bosses” – Joe Biden and Keir Starmer – after their talks on Wednesday with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The foreign secretary suggested Iran’s dispatch of ballistic missiles to Moscow – revealed this week – had changed strategic thinking in London and Washington. It was a “significant and dangerous escalation”, he said.

He added: “The escalator here is Putin. Putin has escalated with the shipment of missiles from Iran. We see a new axis of Russia, Iran and North Korea.” Lammy urged China “not to throw in its lot” with what he called “a group of renegades”.

British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia, although it is not expected to be publicly announced on Friday when Starmer meets Biden in Washington DC.

The two leaders are planning to discuss the war in Ukraine, and how it could be ended, as part of a wide-ranging foreign policy discussion, though they will avoid an intense focus on any individual weapons system, as the aim of the conversation is strategic.

No press conference is scheduled during what is expected to be a short visit, Starmer’s second to the US as prime minister, after which there may be further conversations over the weekend to update key European allies on the discussions.

Wednesday’s joint visit to Kyiv by Blinken and Lammy to meet Zelenskiy would not be taking place had there been no positive decision regarding Storm Shadow, the sources added.

But it would be considered unnecessarily provocative to make a public announcement about long-range missiles in Kyiv. It is also likely there will still be restrictions around Ukraine’s use of the missiles, which have a range of at least 190 miles, to avoid reckless or unnecessary attacks.

Speaking in Kyiv, Lammy said he would not reveal details of private discussions that might hand Putin an advantage. He denounced the Russian leader’s “sinister” invasion of Ukraine and accused him personally of “arrogance and greed”.

“This is imperialism. This is fascism,” he said.

Ukraine has been lobbying for months for permission to hit airfields, missile launchers and command and control centres deep inside Russian territory. Speaking to the Guardian in May, Zelenskiy said Biden’s equivocation and incremental approach had cost lives. It allowed the Kremlin to “hunt” Ukrainians, he complained.

Zelenskiy urged the president to overcome his perennial worries about nuclear escalation. The US should “believe in us more”, he stressed, saying of Russia: “We have to respond. They don’t understand anything but force.”

Blinken and Lammy arrived in Kyiv on an overnight train from Poland. They had come to reiterate “ironclad support for Ukraine”, Lammy posted on X. “We must stand up to Vladimir Putin’s imperialism. Our collective security depends on it.” Russia’s attacks on civilians were “horrific, barbaric, unbelievable”, he commented.

I am in Kyiv today with @SecBlinken to reiterate our united and ironclad support for Ukraine.

We must stand up to Vladimir Putin’s imperialism.

Our collective security depends on it. pic.twitter.com/EQTMWDC1rH — David Lammy (@DavidLammy) September 11, 2024

The trip came 24 hours after Blinken confirmed in London that Tehran had shipped new deadly ballistic missiles to Russia. In Kyiv, Blinken said he was delivering a strong message that Britain and the US were committed to Ukraine’s “success” and “victory”.

Speaking at a joint press conference, Lammy described the UK’s backing for Ukraine as an enduring “hundred-year partnership”. He said the government was providing a new package of military assistance including Brimstone missiles and AS-90 self-propelled guns.

“We recognise what is at stake: not just the liberty of Ukraine but the security of Europe and the west,” Lammy declared.

There was growing anticipation in Kyiv that the US and UK would finally lift their objections to long-range strikes. “Hoping to hear a long-awaited decision to allow us to hit Russia with Atacms,” the MP Kira Rudik said. “Fingers crossed,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defence minister, remarked.

Asked if long-range weapons would make a difference, at a time when Russian troops were gaining towns and villages in the eastern Donbas region, he replied simply: “It is a big deal.”

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Ukrainian officials had previously expressed frustration that the new Labour government in the UK had not been more robust on the issue, and had waited for the White House to amend its red lines. The US state department has reportedly been open to Kyiv’s request, with the Pentagon and some in the US intelligence community sceptical.

In May the US allowed weapons such as Himars artillery to be used within Russia’s border regions for the first time. This followed a Kremlin offensive into the Kharkiv region and the Ukrainian city of Vovchansk.

This week senior Democrats and Republicans in Washington urged the White House to go further. In a letter, a group of senators called on Biden “to immediately end” his administration’s “limitations” on the use of long-range missiles provided by the US and its Nato allies.

I am joining my Caucus co-chairs in calling on President Biden to lift restrictions on Ukraine's use of long-range weapons. We need to remove the handcuffs and give Ukraine every advantage. pic.twitter.com/9EJ0GQ6TSt — Senator Roger Wicker (@SenatorWicker) September 10, 2024

Without this, Kyiv would “struggle to achieve victory” and suffer “death, loss and hardship” as Russia capitalised on the policy and continued to pound Ukraine, it said. “We need to remove the handcuffs and give Ukraine every advantage,” the Republican senator Roger Wicker said.

The senators argued “sophisticated” western weapons would make a difference and force Russia to defend its “rear”. They said delays by the White House in the provision of Abrams tanks, F-16s and other US weapons were “regrettable”.

Speaking in Germany last week, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said long-range strikes would not turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favour. He said that Russia had already moved its glide bombs back beyond the range of the US Atacms long-range systems.

Austin said Kyiv had developed capabilities to hit targets beyond the reach of Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles. Ukraine has used domestically produced long-range drones to strike Moscow and beyond.

Its operations have been increasingly successful. On Monday a drone attack shut three of Moscow’s airports. Another strike earlier this month damaged an oil refinery on the outskirts of the capital. There were reports on Wednesday that drones had targeted an airbase in Murmansk, in Russia’s Arctic circle, 1,100 miles (1,800km) from Ukrainian lines.

Matthew Savill, the director of military sciences at the defence thinktank Rusi in London, said Ukraine had not briefed allies in advance about its surprise incursion in August into Russia’s Kursk region. “It changed the debate about escalation and the use inside Russia of long-range weapons,” he said.

He cautioned that it would be “very, very hard to knock out” Russian airbases, which were “mostly lots of concrete” and “hundreds of kilometres” beyond the frontline. Atacms missiles with cluster bomblets would be more effective than non-cluster-armed Storm Shadows, he suggested.

In Moscow, the deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov said Russia would destroy any new Atacms deliveries, the state news agency Tass reported.

retro_hamster on September 12nd, 2024 at 11:51 UTC »

What's the range of Irans ballistic missiles? Probably more than 300km.

ColourfulMetaphors on September 11st, 2024 at 23:14 UTC »

Honestly the US position here baffles me with their arbitrary distance limits.

Russia is already throwing everything it has at Ukraine so talk of 'escalation' is moot. Ukraine already exposed the Russian red line escalation bluff through the Kursk offensive. Russian's rough ATACMS analogue of Iskanders routinely do to Ukraine what the US is preventing Ukraine from doing to Russia (that is- long range missile attacks)

I understand the US is trying to manage the situation but it seems to be more about the US and allies not accepting the nature of the Russian offensive even when they know full well the motivations and intent of the Russians.

Russia would be squashed like a bug in open conflict with Nato so it seems the only path to victory for Russia would be by keeping the west afraid and passive while they wear Ukraine down while the west prevents them from fully using the capabilities they have been provided.

I wonder what the war would look like if we hadn't had years of the west's hesitation and Ukraine were simply provided with the capabilities for an asynchronous response- F16's, Tanks, Air Defence etc. They have them now, but imagine the difference it would have made if they had been provided in 2022.

Nobody wants war so the best way to stop or prevent it would be to arm Ukraine to the teeth.

farligjakt on September 11st, 2024 at 20:13 UTC »

The range is most likely being coordinated with the range of ATACMS that Ukraine still has no approval off yet, but also due to it will not reach Moscow. Storm Shadows has a range of 560 km, enough to reach most of Moscow