Biden and U.K.’s Starmer meet amid storm over Ukraine weapons
Baku, September 14, AZERTAC
President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met at the White House on Friday amid rising tensions with Russia, reaffirming their support for Ukraine but declining to publicly address urgent questions over whether Biden will pave the way for Ukraine to use Western-made weapons to strike deeper inside Russia, according to Washington Post.
“The United States is committed to standing with you to help Ukraine as it defends against Russia’s onslaught of aggression,” Biden told Starmer at the outset of their meeting. “It’s clear that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not prevail in this war. The people of Ukraine will prevail.”
Starmer said it was vital that the two allied nations work in tandem. “I think the next few weeks and months could be crucial, very, very important, that we support Ukraine in this vital war of freedom,” the prime minister said.
But the two leaders said little about the biggest questions hanging over their meeting: whether American allies such as Britain might allow Ukraine to use their weapons to attack military targets deep inside Russia. Putin this week warned sharply against such a move, raising the stakes for Biden’s decision on whether to support it and whether at some point to allow U.S.-made weapons to be used the same way.
Hours before the meeting at the White House, Putin accused six British diplomats of spying and announced it had stripped them of accreditation. Putin also threatened that if Ukraine were to fire Western missiles into Russia, he would treat it as an attack by NATO and would respond accordingly, a posture that threatened to escalate the war.
“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing other than the direct involvement of NATO states, European states, in the war in Ukraine,” Putin said in a television interview late Thursday.
Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, warned the U.N. Security Council on Friday about the use of Western weapons deep inside Russia. “The facts are that NATO will be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power,” Nebenzya said. “I think you shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences.”
From the outset of the war in February 2022, Biden has sought to balance his support for Ukraine with his desire to prevent the conflict from spiraling into a broader confrontation. With only four months left in office, Biden’s delicate decision-making on the war will increasingly play into a foreign policy legacy that is likely to revolve in large part on his handling of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
That task has meant dealing with a variety of foreign leaders. Starmer, who was elected prime minister only two months ago, arrived at the White House in a motorcade on Friday afternoon, and he and Biden entered the Oval Office for photos before meeting in the Blue Room for their extended strategy session.
Biden grew testy when a British reporter shouted a question, before the president could began speaking, about what he says in response to Putin’s threats. “I say, 'You be quiet until I speak. Okay? That’s what I say,” he said.
Biden then welcomed Starmer to the White House and thanked him for his leadership in backing Ukraine. But he largely ignored shouted questions from reporters, saying at one point in response to a question about what he thinks of Putin, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”
The official White House summary of the meeting stressed the opposition of the American and British leaders to the support that some countries are giving Russia. “They expressed deep concern about Iran and North Korea’s provision of lethal weapons to Russia and … China’s support to Russia’s defense industrial base,” the statement said.
Russia has made threats against NATO when Western nations have ramped up their support for Ukraine, but he has generally failed to follow through. Starmer told British reporters ahead of his meeting with Biden that Ukraine had a right to defend itself against an illegal Russian invasion.
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