UK approves Ukrainian missile strikes deep inside Russia – Guardian

Washington and London may have already decided to let Kiev use long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia and are now seeding the narrative through the media, Russian Senator Aleksey Pushkov has said.

Britain has already given the green light for the use of ‘Storm Shadow’ missiles, the Guardian reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous government sources. London, however, is not expected to announce the move publicly, the sources claimed.

“The decision to strike Russian territory is clearly being prepared,” Pushkov wrote on his Telegram channel on Wednesday. “There are too many conversations and hints about it for it to be reversed. Even if it has not been made yet, it looks like it will be a matter of days. The leak via The Guardian is not accidental. Public opinion is being prepared.”

Limitations on the use of Western-supplied weapons were originally put in place to allow the US and its allies to claim they were not directly involved in the conflict with Russia, while arming Ukraine to the tune of $200 billion. Kiev has been clamoring for the restrictions to be lifted since May, however.

According to the Guardian, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “gave the strongest hint yet” about permitting Ukraine to use long-range ATACMS missiles against Russia during his visit to Kiev on Wednesday. The decision is “understood to have already been made in private,” the British outlet claimed.

Blinken “signaled” such potential shift from Washington on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg, by bringing up Iran’s alleged delivery of missiles to Moscow.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who tagged along with Blinken to Kiev, has said the Iranian missile delivery was a “significant and dangerous escalation” that influenced the thinking in London and Washington.

“The escalator here is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. Putin has escalated with the shipment of missiles from Iran. We see a new axis of Russia, Iran and North Korea,” the Guardian quoted Lammy as saying.

Iran has denied sending any missiles to Russia, calling the accusations “psychological warfare” and particularly rich coming from countries heavily involved in arming Ukraine.

An open letter from 27 US congressmen and senators sent to President Joe Biden on Wednesday did not mention Iranian missiles at all. Instead, it claimed that Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region “changed the very nature of the war” and argued that “Ukraine is not intimidated by Putin’s tyranny, and in the defense of liberty, we should not be either.”

The US “continues to test the limits of our tolerance for hostile steps,” and is “paving the way to World War III,” Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, told reporters on Wednesday.

“It is impossible to negotiate with terrorists. They must be destroyed,” Antonov added. “As in the years of the Great Patriotic War, fascism must be eradicated. And the goals and objectives of the special military operation must be fully achieved. No one should doubt that it will be so.”

Putin has previously warned NATO members to be aware of “what they are playing with” when discussing plans to allow Kiev to strike deep inside Russian territory using weapons provided by the West. The Russian military is “taking appropriate countermeasures,” according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the use of Storm Shadow missiles inside Russian territory “playing with fire.”