Joe Barnes
in Washington
27 September 2024 9:00pm
Joe Biden is preventing Ukraine from firing British Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside Russia over fears of retaliatory attacks on Western military bases.
The US president has resisted pressure from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Sir Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, to relax restrictions on Kyiv’s use of Western long-range weapons.
US intelligence believes that Vladimir Putin would likely respond to such strikes by ordering attacks on US and European military bases, The New York Times reported. He could also step up sabotage efforts on Western soil.
One intelligence assessment seen by the president said the rewards of allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia were comparatively slim as it is unclear how many more missiles the West can provide.
Sir Keir suggested he would press Mr Biden to grant permission for Storm Shadow strikes when the pair met at the UN General Assembly earlier this week.
The Prime Minister believes that the US and the UK should move as a coalition on the issue.
It is understood that the pair have not yet held an official meeting on the issue.
The US president could still change his mind and lift the constraints on targeting Russia and has yet to come to a final decision, The New York Times said.
Plan to end war
Mr Zelensky laid out his “victory plan” to end the war with Russia on Thursday when he met Mr Biden at the White House.
A key element of the plan is long-range strikes against Russia, targeting its supply lines, air force, and fuel and ammunition storage sites.
A White House spokesman said on Friday there was not “anything new to announce at this time” regarding missiles after their meeting.
However, in his nightly video address on Friday, Mr Zelensky said the issue of “long-range capabilities” was being “considered” by the Americans.
Ukraine has already received American Atacms, British-made Storm Shadow and French-supplied Scalp EG missiles.
All three types have been used by Kyiv to strike Russian military targets inside Crimea, the peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Mr Zelensky has repeatedly lobbied for permission to use the weapons in cross-border attacks into Russia.
A Western official said it was in “Ukraine’s interest to apply as much pressure as possible” on its allies to sanction the strikes.
The Telegraph has previously reported that Ukrainian officials have presented a map of potential targets that could be hit with Western missiles to their allies.
Sir Keir has privately signalled he is supportive of the move, while Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, has given his public backing.
However, Mr Biden has an effective veto over the process because the Anglo-French missile system relies on a classified targeting system developed by the US.
His administration has so far spurned making a decision because of fears it could spark a wider war between Russia and the West.
Putin recently adapted Russia’s nuclear doctrine to consider any strike supported by a nuclear power as a “joint attack”, in a perceived threat to Ukraine and its Western backers.
Under the reform, Moscow could respond with nuclear weapons to an attack with Western-supplied conventional missiles — such as Storm Shadows — fired at its territory by Ukraine.
Moscow would also likely step up arson attacks against facilities supporting Ukraine and expand its shadow operations into more overt attacks on European and US military bases, The New York Times reported.
US and European officials say Russia’s Gru military intelligence agency has been behind a string of acts of sabotage in Europe since the start of the war.
Putin has so far avoided carrying out more blatant operations to avoid sparking a wider conflict with the West.
As well as its concerns about the limits on deliveries of more long-range missiles to Ukraine, US intelligence also believes that Russia has moved its most valuable equipment out of the 190-mile range of both Storm Shadow and Atacms.
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