First US and UK diplomats Anthony Blinken and David Lammy held a meeting in Kiev with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as announced new aid to his country. Reflecting the event, the Western press has focused its attention mostly on the issue of long-range missile strikes deep into Russian territory, which Ukraine desperately insists on, BTA reported in a review of the Western press.
In a rare joint visit abroad, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy met Ukraine's top leaders in Kiev to discuss strengthening Ukraine's military and whether to allow it to use long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia, reports the “New York Times”. The publication notes that the meeting is taking place as the Biden administration struggles to limit aid to Russia from Iran, North Korea and China, and as the US presidential election begins to cast a shadow over the conflict.
According to the “Wall Street Journal” Blinken has signaled that the West is considering whether to allow Kiev to strike deep into Russian territory with Western weapons after Russia added Iranian ballistic missiles to its arsenal and launched a counter-offensive in the Kursk region aimed at pushing back intruders last year. month of Ukrainian forces.
President Volodymyr Zelensky wants permission to use long-range US missiles to strike deep inside Russia. Talks about it took place amid wailing air raid sirens that seemed to underscore the urgency of the matter, the Washington Post noted in its story on the subject. The Ukrainians argue that allowing them to use such weapons to strike targets on Russian soil would reduce the threat by forcing the Kremlin to pull key forces deeper into its territory, and question U.S. claims that such a move would trigger a dangerous escalation by of Putin. “This may be some kind of mystification. There is not a single rational argument from the US side in it. We have repeatedly proven that Putin cannot do anything new in response,”, a Ukrainian official told the publication, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue frankly.
Newspaper “Hill“ notes the mounting domestic pressure on Joe Biden's administration. A number of House Republicans have called on him to reverse his policy, arguing that the restrictions have hampered "Kiev's ability to defeat Russia's war of aggression and given Kremlin forces a sanctuary from which to attack Ukraine with impunity." “It is time for the administration to reverse course and remove remaining restrictions on the use of weapons provided by the United States from Ukraine against legitimate military targets in Russia,” said the letter, which was also signed by Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Michael McCaul, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
“Will allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles push Putin over the edge?“, asks an article for the “Independent“ Mark Almond, professor of modern history at the University of Oxford. According to him, it is too optimistic to believe that, in this case, Putin will not "move to a nuclear scenario", as happened after the West crossed his previous "red lines". The expert believes that the Russian president has no way to strike at the “back of Ukraine– countries like Poland and Romania” through which the country receives ammunition because they are members of NATO, but it is quite possible that he will switch to sabotaging Western infrastructure or help Iran and its allies attack American and British facilities in the Middle East.
The joint trip of Blinken and Lammy to Kiev inevitably raises expectations that Ukraine will soon receive permission to launch the Anglo-French “Storm Shadow” and the American ATAKMS missiles on Russia, notes the “Guardian“ in a comment. However, its author, Dan Sabugh, lists the risks: “Allowing Ukraine to fire Western-made weapons deep into Russia could have a dramatic political impact on the course of a dark and draining war that appears to be turning in Moscow's favor, whose forces are closing in on the strategic city Pokrovsk“.
The British newspaper “Telegraph“ believes that the West may now be ready to lift the ban on Ukraine using long-range weapons to strike targets in the Russian rear. Until now, the Pentagon was concerned that the use of Western weapons inside Russia could lead to an escalation of the conflict, but, according to the publication, the arrival in Russia of ballistic missiles from Iran has tipped the balance of opinion. In Kiev, David Lammy and Anthony Blinken gave no indication that such a decision would be made, and it is not known whether it will affect the course of the war. The strategic implications of such a decision are expected to be discussed tomorrow in Washington by US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.