British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Joe Biden on Friday delayed a decision to let Ukraine fire long-range Western-supplied missiles into Russia, a plan that sparked dire threats from Moscow of a war with NATO.
Starmer told reporters at the White House that he had a “wide-ranging discussion about strategy” with Biden, but that it “wasn’t a meeting about a particular capability.”
Before the meeting officials had said Starmer would press Biden to back his plan to send British Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine to hit deeper inside Russia as allies become increasingly concerned about the battlefield situation.
Photo: AFP
However, the Labour Party leader indicated that he and Biden would now discuss the plan at the UN General Assembly in New York later this month “with a wider group of individuals.”
As they met with their teams across a long table in the White House, backed by US and British flags, Biden played down a warning by Russian President Vladimir Putin that allowing Ukraine to fire the weapons would mean the West was “at war” with Russia.
“I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden told reporters when asked about the comments.
However, while Biden said it was “clear that Putin will not prevail in this war,” he is understood to be reluctant to grant Ukraine’s insistent demand to be able to use long-range US-made ATACMS missiles against Russian territory.
US officials believe the missiles would make a limited difference to Ukraine’s campaign and they want to ensure that Washington’s own stocks of the munitions are not depleted.
The two leaders said they also discussed the war in Gaza, with Britain having recently suspended arms deliveries to Israel over concerns that they could be used to violate international humanitarian law.
The US, Israel’s main military and diplomatic backer, has held off such a step.
The White House had earlier played down the chances of a Ukraine decision coming from Friday’s visit by Starmer, the Labour leader’s second to the White House since he took office in July.
“I wouldn’t expect any major announcement in that regard coming out of the discussions, certainly not from our side,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pushed Kyiv’s Western allies to do more.
Speaking in Kyiv, Zelenskiy accusing the West of being “afraid” to even help Ukraine shoot down incoming missiles as it has done with Israel.
Zelenskiy added that he would meet Biden “this month” to present his “victory plan” on how to end two-and-a-half years of war with Russia.
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS