U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday rebuffed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin‘s threats that the West would be at war with his country should Ukraine be granted permission to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles.
Responding to reports that Ukraine is closing in on receiving permission from the U.S. and the U.K. to strike Russian targets with Western-supplied long-range weaponry, Putin warned on Thursday evening that he would see such a move as direct participation by NATO in the war.
“This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting Russia,” he said.
Kyiv has long urged its Western allies, including the U.S., to allow it to strike targets deep within Russian territory using weaponry such as the Washington-supplied ATACMS, ground-launched ballistic missiles.
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Such requests have so far been denied over fears of escalating the conflict that Putin began in February 2022.
Starmer pushed back against Putin’s threats, saying: “Russia started this conflict.”
“Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict straight away,” the British leader told reporters on Thursday before boarding his flight to Washington, ahead of expected talks with President Joe Biden on the matter.
“To reiterate, it was Russia who started this in the first place. They caused the conflict; they’re the ones who are acting unlawfully,” he added.
Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Foreign Ministry for comment by email.
Reports that Ukraine could soon be permitted to use Western-supplied weapons to strike Russian territory have emerged in recent days.
On Tuesday, Juliegrace Brufke, Axios’ Capitol Hill reporter, said she interviewed House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul about the matter on September 6.
“I talked to Blinken two days ago, and he is traveling with his counterpart from the U.K. to Kyiv to basically tell them that they will allow them [to hit Russia with ATACMS,” McCaul told Brufke, she wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Politico also reported, citing a Western official and two people familiar with discussions, that the Biden administration was finalizing a plan to expand where Ukraine’s military can strike inside Russia with long-range weapons.
The Guardian in the U.K. reported on Wednesday that government sources had signaled that a decision had been made to allow Kyiv’s military to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a press briefing on Wednesday that he believed that “all these decisions have already been made,” reported Russian state-owned news agency Tass.
“This can be assumed with a high degree of probability,” he told reporters. “At the moment, the media is simply conducting such an information campaign to formalize the decision that has already been made.
“The involvement of the U.S. and European states in the conflict around Ukraine is direct, immediate, and each new step increases the level of this involvement.”
Russia’s response to such strikes “will be appropriate,” he added.
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