US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer yesterday discussed whether to let Kyiv use long-range missiles against Russia, in the two allies’ likely last meeting before an election that could upend US policy on Ukraine.
Starmer’s visit comes with Kyiv pushing London and Washington to lift the restriction and a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin that giving Ukraine the green light would mean NATO was “at war” with Russia.
UK media reported that Biden, who is wary of provoking a nuclear conflict, was ready to let Ukraine deploy UK and French missiles using US technology, but not US-made missiles themselves.
Responding to Putin’s warning, Starmer told UK media traveling with him that “Russia started this conflict. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict straight away.”
In a sign of increasing tensions, Russia’s FSB security service announced yesterday that the accreditation of six British diplomats had been withdrawn.
“As a measure of reprisals to the multiple unfriendly acts of London, the Russian foreign ministry … has withdrawn the accreditation of six employees from the political department of the British embassy in Moscow,” it said.
A statement accused them of carrying out “subversive activities and intelligence” gathering.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kyiv promised that Washington would quickly review Kyiv’s long-standing request and would “adjust, we’ll adapt as necessary” to help Ukraine defend itself.
Washington currently authorizes Ukraine to only hit Russian targets in the occupied parts of Ukraine and some in Russian border regions directly related to Moscow’s combat operations.
However, Putin, who has rattled the saber of nuclear conflict since the start of his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, warned the US and UK against such a move.
“This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict. It would mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia,” he said on Thursday.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
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