Pressure on Joe Biden and Keir Starmer over the Ukraine war has reached boiling point as the two men met in Washington DC with nuclear war threats from Vladimir Putin and desperate demands from Volodymyr Zelensky.
The prime minister and US president have come together in the White House for intensive talks on Ukraine and had been expected to discuss a decision to allow the country to use long range storm shadow missiles at targets in Russia.
But with sabre rattling from Moscow it is understood the two leaders put off a final decision on the missiles. The meeting was overshadowed by:
- Putin expelling six UK diplomats from Moscow accusing them of spying.
- The Russian president also threatening that permission to use the missiles would mean Russia would be “at war with Nato” reminding Starmer and Biden that Russia is a nuclear power.
- But President Zelensky warning that delay is costing lives of Ukrainian citizens.
- Russia remained silent on international condemnation for targeting s Ukrainian cargo ship carrying wheat in the Black Sea.
- Experts warned against Starmer and Biden backing down to Russian agression
Even as Biden and Starmer prepared to meet, President Zelensky ratcheted up the pressure with a direct plea via X (formerly Twitter) to the two men.
Zelensky also put out a tweet praising the past actions of Boris Johnson when he was prime minister in an apparent attempt to nudge the two current US and UK leaders. Mr Johnson had made a trip to Ukraine today.
He said: “I met with Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy annual meeting.
“I am grateful for his attention to Ukraine and support in providing the necessary international assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Ukrainians always remember those who stand by them.”
Referring to a Russian artillery attack on his county yesterday which killed Ukrainian citizens and humanitarian workers.
The Ukrainian president said: “We are now in the third year of a full-scale war. After so much death, destruction, and countless Russian war crimes, Putin can still afford to destroy life in Ukraine as he pleases, buy and produce missiles, bombs and artillery, and issue ultimatums to the world. He expects the world to fall for his madness.
“These days, there have been important meetings with our partners and visits of representatives of the US and the UK.
Talking about the need to protect children returning to school, he said: “We need air defense systems like Patriots, which are sufficient in the world and which we have long expected from our partners.
“Yet, when we ask for these systems, we repeatedly hear, ‘We are working on it.’ Time passes, but Russian missiles and Iranian drones continue to terrorize our skies and our people.
“It’s the same with long-range capabilities. Anyone who sees at a map where Russia launches its strikes from, trains its forces, keeps its reserves, locates its military facilities, and what logistics uses clearly understands why Ukraine needs long-range capabilities.”
Adding to the pressure on Starmer and Biden, Mr Johnson said: “It is vital that Ukraine should be able to defend itself properly by stopping the appalling Russian attacks with glide bombs and now Iranian missiles. It is obvious that they should be able to use Storm Shadow, SCALP and ATACMS as fast as possible against targets in Russia itself. Every day that goes by means more pointless and tragic loss of Ukrainian lives”
Zelensky has just held talks with foreign secretary David Lammy and US secretary of state Antony Blinken in Kyiv. Both men were also set to take part in the UK/ US White House talks today.
But even as the prime minister and his team crossed the Atlantic, Putin threatened war with Nato if it agreed to the use of storm shadow missiles on targets in Russia.
This was followed by the dramatic expulsion of six British diplomats from Moscow in what appeared to be another attempt to intimidate the UK and US.
The storm shadow missiles have a range of at least 155 miles and Britain and France have given stocks to Ukraine but not yet given permission for them to be used on targets in Russia.
The permission also needs US logistical support but Zelensky sees it as essential for stopping the long range attacks by Putin’s forces on his country from across the border.
Downing Street had briefed that no major public announcement would come on the missiles and this was confired by US national security spokesman John Kirby in a briefing with US journalists ahead of the Starmer/ Biden meeting.
He said: “I would not expect there to be any announcements on this coming out of the meeting today. There’s been no change to our policy, Lara, with respect to the long-range strike capability inside Russia, and I’d leave it at that.”
Before landing in the US capital and ahead of the diplomatic expulsions, Sir Keir had struck a defiant note over Putin’s threats of war.
He told journalists on the flight over: “First, to reiterate, it was Russia who started this in the first place. They caused the conflict, they’re the ones who are acting unlawfully. And Ukraine obviously has the right to self-defence.
“That is why we have been providing training and capability. And, you know, there are obviously further discussions to be had about the nature of that capability.
“What I want to do is make sure that those discussions, tactical discussions, are set in the proper strategic context of the situation in Ukraine. And there are, equally, tactical issues in relation to the Middle East, which need to be set in a context which is strategic, not just tactical.”
While the prime minister and his foreign secretary refused to comment on the expulsions until after the mini summit with President Biden, a Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The accusations made today by the FSB against our staff are completely baseless.
“The Russian authorities revoked the diplomatic accreditation of 6 UK diplomats in Russia last month, following action taken by the UK government in response to Russian state directed activity across Europe and the UK.
“We are unapologetic about protecting our national interests.”
Meanwhile, former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord West warned against the UK and US backing down to Russian agression “after all this hype”.
“Because the message it would give to Putin is: ‘ah they do have to obey my red lines’ – and that’s a bad message,” Lord West said.
But he added: “We’re talking here about risks that are immense, just immense risks, and people have got to think very carefully, sensibly and in a calm way about these and need to think about all reactions if certain things happen. And I’m not sure always that’s the case.
“Being gung-ho about major wars between say Russia and Nato – that is not clever.”
John Foreman, who served as UK defence attaché in Moscow from 2019 to 2022: added: “We don’t have great insight to Putin’s decision making … nor reliably predict how he will actually react.
“This plus Russia’s skewed threat perceptions and the lack of diplomatic channels has raised US concerns about risk of unintended escalation. These can’t be dismissed out of hand or wished away.”
Putin critic Sir William Browder, head of the Global Magnitsky Justice campaign, dismissed Putin’s threats: “Good luck to him if he wants to go to war with Nato. He would lose that war in a matter of days.
“In my opinion all of his red line talk is complete nonsense. He doesn’t have the capacity to win against an ill-equipped, poor neighbour – he certainly doesn’t have capacity to win a war with Nato. So this is all bluster, as far as I can see.
On previous Western hesitancy to cross red lines on F-16s/tanks, he added: “We should never have hesitated on any of these military supplies, because there be a lot less dead Ukrainians if we had done this earlier.”
“It would be a disaster for Ukraine if we buckle at the last minute. What it shows is that we’re appeasing a dictator and we all know where appeasement gets you.
He told starmer and Biden: “They should allow Ukraine to strike targets inside of Russia in the same way that Russia is striking targets inside Ukraine. You can’t be fighting a war with one hand tied behind your back.”
Oleksandr Vasiuk, MP for the partly Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, warned that Moscow is now actively moving its miltary assets – frequently used to strike Ukraine – deeper into Russian territory to evade Kyiv’s forces.
“Any delay or prohibition on the use of long-range Western missiles only complicates the situation for Ukrainian forces,” said Vasiuk, adding that Ukraine is not aiming to escalate the war but to prevent further shelling of Ukrainian cities and protect civilians.
An adviser to the Ukrainian presidential administration, who preferred not to be named, told The Independent that Kyiv had long been using Ukrainian-manufactured weapons to strike military bases and oil refineries deep inside Russia, while using Western weapons to hit Ukrainian regions Putin now claims are part of Russia.
“So, according to their logic, we and the West have already crossed that ‘red line’ despite all their previous threats to retaliate against the West. They didn’t then and they will not now,” said the aide, adding that he doubted “even a demented Putin” would seriously countenance a war with Nato.