LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will meet U.S. President Joe Biden for talks on Friday on the next steps in supporting Ukraine, centring on whether to allow Western missiles to be used to hit targets in Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles including long-range U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadows deep into Russia to limit Moscow's ability to launch attacks.
The New York Times reported, citing European officials, that the United States looks set to approve the use by Ukraine of long range missiles against targets in Russia on the condition that the weapons were not those provided by the United States.
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the West would be directly fighting with Russia if it allowed Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western-made long-range missiles, a move he said would alter the nature and scope of the conflict.
Focus now turns to talks in Washington after a joint fact-finding trip to Kyiv by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy earlier this week during which both allies offered new support for Ukraine, but no commitment on the missile use.
On Wednesday Lammy suggested discussions could continue beyond Friday, tempering expectations of a solid announcement from Starmer's Washington visit.
In remarks made on his way to Washington, reported by British media travelling with him, Starmer said:
"We will, of course, be talking about many things in the round, but this is not a sort of a series of individual decisions that we want to arrive at. It is making sure that all the decisions we made are within the strategic context.”