US and Britain Postpone Decision on Long-Range Strikes

Ukraine’s hopes for the US lifting restrictions on the use of American-made weapons were dashed for the time being on Friday as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Joe Biden met in Washington.

The two leaders have delayed an expected decision to let Ukraine fire Western-supplied long-range missiles into Russia, appearing to back down from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest threats of a direct war with NATO.

The UK has recently said it would like to allow Ukraine to use its Storm Shadow missiles, but since many of the components are US-made, they would need a green light from the Washington to do so.

The United States is not planning to announce any new policy on Ukraine and the use of long-range missiles on Friday, the White House said.

Speaking ahead of a meeting between Biden and Starmer, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the current policy will remain in place.

“There is no change to our view on the provision of long-range strike capabilities for Ukraine to use inside of Russia,” he said, adding that he “would not expect any major announcement in that regard.”

Starmer told reporters at the White House that he had a “wide-ranging discussion about strategy” with Biden but that it “wasn’t a meeting about a particular capability.”

Starmer had been expected to pressure Biden to back his plan to send British Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine so they could hit deeper inside Russia.

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But as the meeting with Biden neared, Starmer indicated that he and the US President would now discuss the plan at the UN General Assembly in New York later in the month “with a wider group of individuals” – presumably France, which has also supplied Kyiv with their SCALP version of Storm Shadow missiles, and other NATO allies even more squeamish about provoking Putin, such as, Germany and Italy.

As they met with their teams across a long table in the White House, Biden played down Putin’s warning 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.

But while Biden said it was “clear that Putin will not prevail in this war,” his actions since the full-scale war began in February 2024 have been frustratingly cautious from Kyiv’s point of view. 

The US President has hesitated at every major decision point, starting with shipping HIMARS artillery, then through debates on whether to send M1 Abrams tanks, F-16 fighters, and short- and long-range ATACMS.

US officials, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, have said that the missiles were not “game-changers” and would make only a limited difference to Ukraine’s campaign.

When pressed on the fact that a limited difference is still better than nothing, US officials have used the argument that Washington’s own stocks of the munitions are at risk of depletion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, keeps pushing Kyiv’s Western allies to do more.

Speaking in Kyiv, which was full of dignitaries in town for the Crimean Platform Summit, Zelensky accused the West of being “afraid” to even help Ukraine shoot down incoming missiles as it has done with Israel.

Zelensky added that he will meet Biden “this month” to present his “victory plan” on how to end the war with Russia.