US and UK feign agony over letting Kyiv launch long-range missiles on Russia

(Originally published Sept. 16 in “What in the World“) Like the plots in each Star Wars installment, the latest one on Ukraine bears a striking resemblance to all the rest…

The New York Times characterized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest threat against escalating Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied weapons against Russia as one of his most direct threats yet. Putin reportedly took time out of an event in St. Petersburg to record the statement to a state TV reporter. “This will mean that NATO countries—the United States and European countries—are at war with Russia,” the Times quoted him as saying. “And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

So, the U.S. and the U.K. held back from announcing any change in their policy on Ukraine’s use of their long-range missiles. The U.K.’s relatively new Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer, taking up the role of foil until recently played by his Tory predecessor Rishi Sunak, visited Washington Friday and met with U.S. President Joe Biden. Starmer was supposedly there to try convincing the lame-duck president to allow London to let Ukraine use British Storm Shadow cruise missiles against Russian targets. Because the Storm Shadows contain American-made components, their use is apparently subject to U.S. approval.

If past moves are any guide, though, these deliberations are merely an elaborate pantomime meant to telegraph to the public the extensive and thoughtful considerations behind a decision that has already been made secretly to avoid Ukrainian defeat and step up the pressure on Moscow—this time by letting Kyiv bombard the Russians well inside their own borders. Sunak, as regular readers will recall, played frequent cameos as the hawkish devil on Biden’s shoulder, threatening to give Ukraine access to British versions of the weapons Joe wouldn’t let it have. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pleading for Biden to lift his restriction against using long-range U.S. Atacm missiles, as well as the Storm Shadows and French Scalps. Tipping the White House’s hand none too subtly, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said while in Kyiv this weekend that the U.S. is preparing a “substantial” new round of aid for Ukraine.

While suggestions that the U.S. would accept anything less than a complete Russian withdrawal have become an election flashpoint between Democrats and Trump Republicans, Washington is clearly trying to nudge the narrative towards peace talks by demonstrating how it has exhausted every alternative short of going to war directly to liberate Ukraine.

Despite Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk, and the exchanges of missiles and drones between the two, the conflict has been slowly grinding down into a bitter, trench-style stalemate for the past year, with the only contested territory being Donetsk province. Russia appears to have completed its conquest of Luhansk and established a land bridge between Russia and the Crimea peninsula through Zaporizhia and Kherson. As Lt. Col. Kilgore warned Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now, “Someday this war’s gonna end.”

The U.S. State Dept., meanwhile, approved Romania’s purchase of 32 F-35 fighters. While the deal was reportedly worth $6.5 billion when Romania first reported its plans back in July, it’s now reportedly worth $7.2 billion—those jets also need engines, duh! So, Romania is buying those and spares, just in case. Romania becomes the third former Eastern European Soviet satellite to fly F-35s, after Czech Republic and Poland.

Romania has become a key staging point for supplying its Black Sea neighbor Ukraine with weapons against Russia’s invasion and a staunch U.S. ally against both Russia and Iran. Bucharest has pledged to give Ukraine one of its own U.S.-supplied Patriot missile batteries. Romania already has a Thaad (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) battery the U.S. installed in 2019 at a base along the Danube on the Bulgarian border. The U.S. has three bases in Romania and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization last November announced plans to open an F-16 pilot training hub there. Early last year, Romania announced plans to pay $217 million for a Naval Strike Missile Coastal Defense System.

Israel on Sunday shot down a long-range missile fired from Yemen by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The attack underscored the continuing threat posed by the Houthis, as well as their military capability.