I don’t know what the Ukrainian for ‘Well, duh’ is, but it might well have been heard in Kyiv yesterday. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, observed that Ukrainian forces resisting the Russian invaders needed to be able to strike at their enemies well behind the border.
‘Ukraine cannot put up a shield to protect themselves against the 30,000 glide bombs lobbed into the Kursk oblast. Instead, what they need – and what we would need – is the ability to strike the aircraft launching these bombs on the ground.’
When he was asked to respond, the prime minister was shockingly complacent and dismissive
Everyone could read between the lines. Knighton meant that Ukraine needs to be able to use the Storm Shadow cruise missiles the UK has supplied to attack Russian airfields and destroy enemy aircraft before they take off. Warplanes are at their most vulnerable on the ground, out of their natural habitat, and Storm Shadow has a range of more than 150 miles.
This would allow Ukraine to extend its military reach far into Russian territory. It has already carried out drone strikes hundreds of miles inside Voronezh Oblast, but Storm Shadow’s 1,000 lb warhead is in a different league. If a drone attack is jabbing back at Russia, the Storm Shadow is the equivalent of Mike Tyson delivering the blow.
The obstacle for Ukraine’s armed forces is, bluntly, us: the UK has supplied the Storm Shadow missiles with the limitation that they cannot be used freely to attack targets inside Russia. Haunted by the spurious spectre that this might ‘provoke’ Russia into ‘escalating’ the conflict, Britain and France, which jointly manufacture Storm Shadows, have insisted they can only be used for defensive purposes, broadly limiting them to targets in occupied territory.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pleading with the UK for months to be allowed to use Storm Shadows without restrictions. He made the request when he addressed Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet in July and reiterated the call in August. The prime minister seemed for a while as if he might yield to Zelensky’s request, and there was a nuance of change when he said that Storm Shadow ‘is for defensive purposes, but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes’. Starmer added that military action must still be ‘in accordance with international humanitarian law’.
That was as far as the changes went, to the mounting frustration of Zelensky and his advisers. At last week’s meeting of the European Political Community in Budapest, the president raised the issue again. He tweeted that ‘An important element of the Victory Plan is providing Ukraine with long-range weaponry and granting permission to use it against military targets on Russian territory’. Officials in Kyiv have also complained that stocks of Storm Shadows are running low and the UK has yet to replenish them.
Yesterday’s words of wisdom from the Chief of the Air Staff were not revelatory, then, but echoing a plea Ukraine has been making for months. When he was asked to respond, the prime minister was shockingly complacent and dismissive.
‘I’ve always said that we support Ukraine for as long as it takes, and we’re stood by that. I’ve also said that on a number of occasions, we need to put Ukraine in the best possible position.’
That is a barefaced denial of reality. Our Ukrainian allies have told us that they need more missiles and they need to be able to use them freely. There is manifestly more the government could do and is choosing not to do. But this is very much Starmer’s modus operandi: when faced with a difficult question, he states what he would like the truth to be, as if in some strange incantatory way that makes it true.
There is an additional obstacle in the shape of President Biden. Storm Shadow relies on American navigational data and other technology, but more broadly the president is believed to have overruled any change in the restrictions on the missiles’ use because he fears Russia would respond by attacking Nato bases in Europe.
Rumour says that Starmer and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, agreed in Paris on Monday to make new attempts to change Biden’s mind. Given that the US election has now passed, perhaps Biden will be bolder.
Zelensky cannot be more explicit. Western leaders need to understand that Ukraine could lose this war, with disastrous consequences for the country and for European security. It now beggars belief that we are holding our allies back in their fight for national survival, and it does the prime minister no credit to deny we are doing so. It will not be forgotten if the kingdom is lost, not for the want of a nail, but for the want of permission to use the tools we have given Ukraine. Enough.
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