The use of Western long-range missile systems to strike targets inside Russia is not the only component of Kyiv’s “victory plan,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says.
“I don’t think the victory plan will be about a sole issue like long-range missiles,” Starmer said on Sept. 24.
This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to present Kyiv’s plan to defeat Russia—after 2 1/2 years of war—to U.S. President Joe Biden.
Although the plan’s outline remains vague, it will likely include calls for stepped-up Western support for Ukraine’s war effort.
Many observers believe that this could include granting Kyiv’s longstanding request to use long-range missiles supplied by the West to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.
Starmer offered few other details in this regard, but said Kyiv’s plan would provide “a strategic, overarching route for Ukraine to find a way through this and succeed against Russian aggression.”
“We will always listen very carefully to what Ukraine says it needs by way of capability,” Starmer told reporters while en route to New York to attend a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
Speculation has mounted in recent days about whether Kyiv’s primary backers, particularly the United States, will let Ukraine’s military use Western weapons to carry out “deep strikes” into Russian territory.
The White House has thus far refrained from greenlighting the move.
Earlier in September, Starmer and Biden met at the White House to discuss the issue, but it was unclear whether those talks ended with a decision.
On Sept. 22, Biden told reporters that he had not reached a final decision on the matter.
This week, Starmer plans to hold a fresh round of talks with U.S. officials about whether to approve Kyiv’s request.
“We will have discussions about a whole range of issues,” Starmer told reporters while traveling to New York.
“We will listen carefully to what President Zelenskyy’s got to say. That’s what’s going to happen in the next few days.”
Within this context, Zelenskyy said he planned to hold separate meetings this week with Biden, Starmer, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Our decision depends on their will,” he was quoted as saying on Sept. 24.
Since last year, the UK and the United States have provided Kyiv with Storm Shadow missile systems and U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile Systems.
Kyiv has used both missile systems to target Russian positions in Crimea (which Moscow effectively annexed in 2014) and inside Ukraine—but not within Russia itself.
As Russian forces make gains on the eastern front, Kyiv hopes to use the long-range missile systems to strike airfields, arms depots, and other military targets inside Russian territory.
The Kremlin, for its part, has said such a move would serve to make Kyiv’s NATO-aligned Western backers de facto participants in the ongoing conflict.
Despite Moscow’s warnings, a growing handful of Kyiv’s allies—including Denmark, Finland, and Sweden—have voiced support for the move.
“I don’t think Ukraine can win with one arm on their back,” said Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who was interviewed alongside Zelenskyy.
She went on to state that Kyiv’s allies should not hold back from giving Ukraine “what is needed ... to win this war.”
