Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that Ukraine should be allowed to strike within Russian territory, as his American and British counterparts meet in Washington to discuss whether to lift restrictions on long-range weapons supplied to Kyiv.
Ukraine has been pushing for months for permission to use the weapons, including U.S.-supplied ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles, to hit targets deeper inside Russia to prevent Russian strikes that have battered Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. NATO members have been reluctant, not wanting to escalate or expand the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin this week repeated his often-used threat that lifting the long-range weapons restrictions would draw NATO into a direct war with Moscow.
Asked about Putin’s warning Friday, Trudeau said ending or continuing the war in Ukraine is Putin’s decision alone to make.
“Canada fully supports Ukraine using long-range weaponry to prevent and interdict Russia’s continued ability to degrade Ukrainian civilians (and) infrastructure, and mostly to kill innocent civilians in their unjust war,” Trudeau told reporters at a news conference in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que.
“It was (Putin’s) choice … to start this conflict, and it could be his choice to end it tomorrow.”
Trudeau spoke ahead of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House Friday afternoon, where the topic of long-range weapons for Ukraine was expected to be discussed.
Two U.S. officials familiar with discussions about the weapons told the Associated Press they believe Starmer will seek Biden’s approval to allow Ukraine to use British Storm Shadow missiles for expanded strikes in Russia. Biden’s approval is needed because Storm Shadow components are made in the U.S.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share the status of private conversations, said they believed Biden would be amenable.
The New York Times, citing European officials, reported the Biden administration appeared set to approve Ukraine using long-range missiles against Russian targets on the condition that the weapons were not those provided by the U.S.
The White House said there were no plans to announce a change in policy Friday.
“There is no change to our view on the provision of long-range strike capabilities for Ukraine to use inside of Russia,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. “I would not expect any major announcement in that regard.”
Biden has hinted that a change could be afoot, however. In an exchange with reporters on Wednesday about whether he was ready to ease the restrictions, he responded, “We’re working that out now.”
Starmer would not confirm a request on the Storm Shadow missiles, but told reporters the U.K. is not looking to provoke Russia.
“Ukraine has the right to self-defence, and we’ve obviously been absolutely fully supportive of Ukraine’s right to self-defence,” he added.
The potential lifting of the restrictions comes days after the U.S. and U.K. accused Iran of supplying long-range ballistic missiles to Russia.
In May, Washington temporarily lifted the restrictions on U.S.-supplied ATACMS but only for military targets inside Russia near the northern border that were being used to attack Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.
The Institute for the Study of War, an independent Washington-based think tank, said in an analysis last month that Moscow’s forces had simply moved further back from those areas to continue striking Ukraine.
Military analysts have suggested to Global News that NATO may be uneasy about the potential for civilian deaths in Russia if long-range weapons, which aren’t always accurate in their targets, are used.
Ukraine has deployed drones to attack inside Russia and has gotten increasingly bolder, striking a series of targets in and around Moscow earlier this week in its biggest drone barrage of the war to date.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stressed the need for stronger weapons to further deter Russia, adding to pressure already being created by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into the Russian border region of Kursk more than a month ago.
Zelenskyy told a conference in Kyiv on Friday that a Russian counterattack this week in Kursk had “no serious success” and that Ukraine’s actions were having the desired effect of slowing Moscow’s advance in the east.
“The war must become more difficult for Russia — that is the only way to make them realize it must end,” he posted Friday on social media.
Ukraine recently unveiled its own long-range weapon system, the Palianytsia, that it designed and can manufacture with its growing domestic military industry. But production will take some time to ramp up to the levels needed to replace Kyiv’s reliance on western weapons.
The United Nations reported in June that it has recorded more than 11,000 civilian deaths and nearly 22,000 injuries in Ukraine since the war began, but noted those figures are likely significantly higher. The human rights agency said last week that August was the second-deadliest month for civilian deaths in Ukraine on record this year.
NATO has steadily increased the capability of the weapons it sends to Ukraine amid constant pleas for more firepower from Kyiv. Putin has threatened escalation and direct conflict with NATO in every instance, but has yet to order any retaliation on NATO territory.
“This is not rhetoric that we haven’t heard from him before,” Kirby said Friday when asked about Putin’s latest threat. “He has obviously proven capable of aggression…so, yeah we take these comments seriously.”
— with files from the Associated Press and Reuters