Starmer’s statements came a day after the US and UK were reported to have made arrangements to let Ukraine use partly British-made Storm Shadow missiles to attack targets far deeper in Russian territory. Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that Putin started the war in Ukraine and can end it any time he wants. In an interview with reporters on a flight to Washington for a meeting with Biden, Starmer said Ukraine has a right to self-defence.

The appreciation that Russia began this war by violating Ukraine’s sovereignty made him realize that the latter nation could put an end to this war right now. He said the UK had given ‘training and capability’ to Ukraine to repel Russian forces and that he came to Biden because there are clearly more things to discuss ‘regarding that capability’.

Such comments came a day after The Guardian, a British daily paper, claimed that the US and the UK secretly agreed to let Ukraine use British-built partly Storm Shadow missiles to attack more prominent targets in Russia.

However, on Thursday Rus, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if Ukraine is allowed to use long-range missiles supplied by the West to attack inside Russia, it would mean that NATO countries are direct parties in the war.

The long-range precision weapons, which are available to Western countries, can be used with intelligence data provided by only NATO satellites and flight assignments recorded by only NATO military personnel, as per him.

‘This is their direct participation, and this, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict’, Putin commented on it, ‘This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting against Russia’.

“And if this is so, then, taking into consideration the altered nature of this clash, we will make proper decisions while considering the threats that will be set before us. ” On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also met with the leaders of the Baltic States in Kyiv.

During the meeting with Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa, the president’s press service reported on the details of the parties’ military and technical cooperation. ‘We suffer hybrid threats daily from Belarus; now drones are soaring over our territory,’ Siliņa said to Zelenskyy during the meeting.

The Lithuanian president informed Zelenskyy that the West has to ‘throw-away’ red lines and let Ukraine operate Western-acquired weapons against facilities in Russia. “The sooner we realise that we must refuse those red lines that we draw in our heads too often, the sooner the victory of Ukraine will come,” Nausėda said. This was also discussed during the meeting with the Estonian President Alar Karis with regard to military aid.