U.S. secretary of state Blinken and his UK Government counterpart arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday morning for talks with President Zelensky which have been widely trailed to be about the deployment of long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia.
Antony Blinken and David Lammy, the new-in-job British Foreign Secretary travelled from London to Kyiv by plane and train overnight into Wednesday morning, ready for a day of meetings with senior Ukrainian politicians. The Ukrainian Prime Minister set the tone for talks, which had already been widely reported as focussing on whether the U.S. would give permission for deep strikes against targets inside Russia, when he welcomed the two men with a plea.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said this morning as he met the two Western envoys: “We hope that long-range equipment for strikes on the territory of our enemy will be reached and we will have it. And we hope for your help and support in this issue.” Ukraine’s new foreign minister Andrii Sybiha also touched on this today after his separate talks with NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg, saying he had “once again underscored” the Ukrainian position that it needs to be able to use “available weapons against legitimate military targets in Russia without restrictions”.
While the war in Ukraine has, to some extent, been a process of Western backers of Kyiv setting ‘red lines’ of what they consider to be an appropriate and non-escalating level of support and then after months of deliberating going further anyway, one area that has remained sacrosanct has been the use long-range missiles. While several advanced weapon systems including the Anglo-French Storm Shadow/Scalp and the U.S. ATACAMS with ranges of approximately 150 and 190 miles respectively have already been donated, they are restricted for use against Russian targets inside Ukraine, or at the most right on the border.
But Russia has been hammering Ukraine with long range air-launched glide bombs for months, with these sorties based from airfields deep in Russian territory and out of Ukraine’s reach. Kyiv insists being able to use these long-range missiles it already has to take out Russian airbases with the bomb-carrying aircraft still on the ground is essential for its survival.
Today’s journey for Blinken and Lammy appears to be all about whether this can be made to happen. As reported by The Telegraph, Blinken said before the trip, the point of going is to “make sure that we have our own best assessment of what’s needed”. That information would then be conveyed back to President Biden and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer when they meet on Friday.
Quite possibly a decision on long-range strikes — even with the threat that Russia may turn nuclear if its interior is threatened by Western-donated weapons — will be taken then.
Another item on the agenda for this week is the accusations by Western states that Iran has started supplying ballistic missiles to Russia. Europe says it has evidence of this, and Blinken has called the arrival of the missiles “a threat to European and global security”. Lammy called it a “further escalation” and said it would be taking action against Iran including sanctions and cancelling bilateral arrangements.
The widespread discussion that Blinken and Lammy’s travel to Kyiv today, and Biden and Starmer’s planned meeting on Friday is about whether to authorise American and British-donated missiles for long-range strikes by Ukraine against Russia has not gone unheeded by Moscow, which has decried what it calls an “escalation” that will be met with consequences.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said because — in his opinion — Ukraine is a puppet state of America and only acts as directed, any Ukrainian strike against the Russian interior would be seen as a strike by the United States. He said: “not a single step on the part of the Kyiv regime can be taken without the blessing or assistance in all its forms from the United States and other Western allies… They [the US] live in a world of dark fantasies that they create for themselves, phantoms that haunt them, one of which is the idea that a nuclear power like Russia can be defeated on the battlefield. This could end very badly for them and for all those who simply turn a blind eye to this harsh reality”.
While much excitement remains over the potential for missile strikes, Ukraine does continue to actually hit targets deep inside Russia, just with less sophisticated, lower-yield weapons. As reported yesterday a major Ukrainian drone attack struck Moscow and several other Russian cities, killing at least one civilian. Russia claims to have intercepted 144 Ukrainian drones, but that several others got through the defences, damaging buildings.
