Keir Starmer and Joe Biden have discussed letting Ukraine fire long-range, western-supplied missiles into Russia, while stopping short of any formal announcement. Vladimir Putin has threatened it would amount to Nato joining the war. The UK prime minister told reporters at the White House that he had a “wide-ranging discussion about strategy” with the US president but that it was not just a meeting about “a particular capability”.
Before the meeting, officials had said Starmer would press Biden to back his plan to let British Storm Shadow be used to strike inside Russia. Britain’s PM indicated he and Biden would discuss the plan at the UN general assembly in New York the week after next “with a wider group of individuals”.
Biden dismissed Vladimir Putin’s sabre-rattling threats, saying he did not accept that Ukraine using Storm Shadows missiles against Russia proper would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow, reports Dan Sabbagh in Washington. “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.
Moscow’s ambassador to the UN told the security council on Friday that loosening the missile strike restrictions would mark an escalation to “direct war” between Moscow and Nato. Washington officials accused Putin of trying to scare Nato countries away from supporting Ukraine, reports Andrew Roth. In Europe, leaders played down Putin’s threats. The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said: “I would not attach excessive importance to the latest statements from President Putin. They rather show the difficult situation the Russians have on the front.”
Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s border region of Kursk had produced the desired result of slowing Moscow’s advance on another front in Ukraine’s east. The Ukrainian president said in Kyiv on Friday that Russia’s counterattack in Kursk produced no major successes – contradicting Vladimir Putin’s accounts of Russian advances on both fronts. Zelenskiy said Russia had about 40,000 troops on the Kursk front. “So far we have seen no serious [Russian] success.” Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its troops had taken back 10 villages out of 100 that Kyiv had occupied. The battlefield reports of either side were not able to be independently verified.
The Ukrainian general staff said on Friday that Russian forces had focused their assaults near the town of Kurakhove, about 33km (20 miles) south of the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had captured Dolynivka, positioned between Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, the latest in a series of localities Moscow says it has seized.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 49 Ukrainian prisoners of war had been returned from Russia, with Agence France-Presse witnessing the group being greeted at the border with Belarus. The Ukrainian president did not clarify whether it was part of an exchange with Russia, as is usually the case, but AFP journalists had earlier seen Russian prisoners of war being loaded on to a bus near the border.
Romania started training its first group of Ukrainian F-16 pilots this week, the Nato country’s defence ministry said. The first four pilots had started their “theoretical training”, a ministry spokesperson told AFP, with practical training to follow “towards the end of the year”.
Drone fragments fell on a municipal building in Kyiv’s Obolon district north of the city centre early on Saturday, said the mayor. Writing on Telegram, Vitali Klitschko said no fire broke out and emergency services were sent. He earlier said air defence units had been in action. A Reuters witness said explosions were heard. The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, urged people to remain in shelters as drones still posed a threat. The air raid alert was later lifted for the city but remained in effect for several regions of central Ukraine.
Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage. Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on Friday that it acted on documents showing part of the UK Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine. The Foreign Office, however, said the move had been made last month as part of a continuing diplomatic tit-for-tat. Sources indicated the British diplomats had left Russia weeks ago and were already being replaced.
The US has imposed new sanctions on Russia over its role to “undermine democracies”, the US secretary of state said. “The actions we’re exposing today and the actions we exposed last week do not incorporate the full scope of Russia’s efforts to undermine democracies,” Antony Blinken said. “Far from it.”
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he would meet Joe Biden “this month” to present his “victory plan” on how to end the war with Russia. The Ukrainian leader gave no details on how to end more than 30 months of fighting, saying only that his proposal would involve “a system of interconnected solutions that will give Ukraine enough power – enough to put this war on a course to peace”.
The German chancellor has said he will not send long-range missiles requested by Ukraine. Germany possesses powerful Taurus cruise missiles. Olaf Scholz said on Friday: “Germany has made a clear decision about what we will do and what we will not do. This decision will not change.”
Boris Johnson met with Zelenskiy in Kyiv and renewed calls for permission for Storm Shadow strikes on Russia aimed at “stopping the appalling Russian attacks with glide bombs and now Iranian missiles”. Zelenskiy also met with The American actor Michael Douglas and his son Dylan in Kyiv. The Ukrainian president said that they, alongside Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, discussed “the situation in our country, cooperation with partners, support for Ukraine, and the fourth Summit of Ladies and Gentlemen”.
Ukraine’s government has approved a 2025 draft budget with a strong focus on defence spending, the prime minister said. Denys Shmyhal said on Friday that the draft, to be submitted to parliament, provided for 2tn hryvnias (US$48.2bn) in revenues and 3.6tn hryvnias in expenditures. The draft also included a provision of 2.22tn hryvnias (US$53.5bn) for defence. “The priority for this budget is very clear – the country’s defence and security,” he said. “We will again direct all domestic resources to these objectives.”