Starmer to Putin: 'You started the conflict'

Sir Keir Starmer has made clear he won’t be intimidated by President Putin’s warning that NATO countries would be at war with Russia if permission is given to Ukraine to fire western long-range missiles into Russian territory.Asked about Putin’s threat, the UK PM responded: “Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict straight away…They started this conflict and Ukraine’s got a right to self-defence.”When pressed on when and whether he and President Biden would agree to President Zelenskyy’s request for permission to fire Storm Shadow missiles into Russia, Starmer repeated the phrase several times that “Russia started this conflict”, and that it was acting illegally - while insisting that the UK does not “seek any conflict with Russia”.

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Starmer’s language was that of standing up to a bully.He signaled however that permission would not be given on Friday, during his White House meeting with President Biden, for Ukraine to deploy western missiles to knock out air and missile bases in Russian territory.Starmer described such a decision on broadening the licence for the use of Storm Shadow missiles as a “tactical” one, and insisted his discussions with Biden would be focused wholly on strategy.

He added however that a new strategic framework to be agreed with the White House would then determine the definitive response to Zelenskyy on Storm Shadow.Starmer’s remarks were made in a “huddle” or conversation with British journalists on his official airplane en route to Washington on Thursday night.It is widely expected the US and UK governments will in the coming weeks allow Ukraine more discretion in its deployment of long range missiles because of their concern and anger that Russia has taken delivery of medium range missiles from Iran.Statements this week by the British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken - who visited Kyiv together - just stopped short of giving Zelenskyy the missile flexibility he craves.

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