Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a final attempt to scare off the West, has threatened war as Britain and the United States are poised to make a point of no return in the Ukraine war on Friday.
In a White House summit, they will discuss plans to allow Kviv to strike targets inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles.
Putin, however, warned on Thursday evening that he would regard such an agreement as tantamount to NATO directly entering the war.
“This will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries are fighting Russia,” he said.
The threat came as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was still en route to Washington ahead of Friday’s two-hour-long talks with President Joe Biden. They will discuss the possible use of British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles on Russian soil.
“Russia started this conflict,” Starmer said to journalists on board his flight. “Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict straight away.”
Military experts have argued that any guidelines agreed for the British weapons could also then pave the way for the Ukrainians to fire US-supplied ATACMS – a tactical ballistic missile system – at airfields and army bases deep inside Russia.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov suggested the meeting between Starmer and Biden was merely a formality and that a deal had already been done. He vowed that Russia’s response “will be appropriate”.
Ukraine’s American allies have long resisted giving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the green light to use their long-range ballistics against the Kremlin’s forces inside Russia, fearing Moscow could then escalate the war by retaliating against a target inside NATO, such as the critical weapons supply hub in the Polish city of Rzeszów.
However, thanks to a large shipment of Iranian missiles to Russia that British authorities believe will offer Putin a critical firepower boost, the dynamics have now shifted dramatically. This comes amid the Russian army extending its grip in eastern Ukraine with advances on the strategic city of Pokrovsk.
Friday’s summit represents the culmination of a week of intense diplomacy between Western allies.
“We’re really in the last hard yards of diplomatic negotiations now,” said a UK government official. Another said they were hopeful of a deal being confirmed at the UN General Assembly later this month, when world leaders will convene in New York.
Western officials have said that if the decision is agreed, it will not in itself change the course of the war, but are increasingly open to Ukraine’s requests that it will help them stem the flow of Russian gains on the eastern front over recent months.
“The wrangle now is over what targets Ukraine will be permitted to strike inside Russia, and how far inside — and there are worries still in Washington that filtering what can and can’t be targeted drags the U.S. into war-planning, something they are keen to avoid being seen as involved in.”
Speaking generally about the state of war on Monday, NSC spokesperson John Kirby said: “The security landscape has changed — not is changing, not will change, but actually has changed — which is why we’re doing everything we can to make sure Ukraine can defend itself”.