UK to Allow Ukraine to Use Storm Shadow to Strike Military Targets in Russia, US to Lift Restrictions on Long-Range Weapons

The decision to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles against targets in Russia had already been made, sources in the British government have said, The Guardian reports. However, this decision is unlikely to be publicly announced on Friday, when Starmer meets with Biden in Washington.

The parties plan to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine and ways to end it as part of a broader foreign policy discussion. 

The joint visit of Blinken and Lammy to Kyiv on Wednesday to meet with Zelenskyy would not have taken place if there had not been a positive decision on Storm Shadow, the sources added.

But a public announcement about long-range missiles in Kyiv would be considered an unnecessary provocation. 

Speaking in Kyiv, Lammy said he would not disclose details of private talks that could give Putin an advantage. He condemned the ‘sinister’ invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army and accused him personally of ‘arrogance and greed’.

At the same time, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken gave the strongest hint yet that the White House is going to lift its restrictions on Ukraine's use of long-range weapons supplied by the West against key military targets in Russia, and that such a decision has already been made privately, the newspaper notes. 

Speaking in Kyiv along with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Blinken said that the US was ready to adapt its policy ‘from day one’ as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. ‘We will continue to do so,’ he stressed.

Blinken said that he and Lammy would report to their ‘bosses’, Joe Biden and Keir Starmer, after their talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday.

As a reminder, on the eve of 11 September, the day of the opening of the fourth Crimean Platform Summit, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy arrived in Ukraine on a visit.