LONDON: British Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been urged by former defense secretaries and an ex-premier to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles inside Russian territory even without US backing, the Sunday Times reported on Saturday.
According to the Sunday Times, the call came from five former Conservative defense secretaries — Grant Shapps, Ben Wallace, Gavin Williamson, Penny Mordaunt and Liam Fox — as well as from ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
They warned Starmer that “any further delay will embolden President Putin,” the Sunday Times said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles including long-range US ATACMS and British Storm Shadows deep into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.
Starmer and US President Joe Biden held talks in Washington on Friday on whether to allow Kyiv to use the long-range missiles against targets in Russia. No decision was announced.
Some US officials are deeply skeptical that allowing the use of such missiles would make a significant difference in Kyiv’s battle against Russian invaders.
President Vladimir Putin has said the West would be directly fighting Russia if it allowed Ukraine to strike with Western-made long-range missiles.
While Russia had been striking Ukrainian civilian targets at will, Ukraine's forces have been handicapped by restrictions on use of Western-supplied weapons.
As of July 31, 2024, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had recorded 11,520 civilians killed and 23,640 injured in Ukraine since February 24, 2022, but said they believe the real number is higher.
On Saturday, Russian shelling killed at least seven people in four attacks on the south, southeast and east of Ukraine, regional Ukrainian governors said.
In the Zaporizhzhia region in southeast Ukraine, governor Ivan Fedorov said Russian shells struck an agricultural enterprise in the town of Huliaipole, killing three people.
“All the dead are employees of the enterprise,” Fedorov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Reuters could not verify details of these latest attacks in the war in Ukraine.
A missile attack in the suburbs of the Black Sea port city of Odesa killed a man and a woman born in 1958 and 1962 and injured a 65-year-old woman, Oleh Kiper, the Odesa regional governor, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
“A married couple died,” he said, adding that they were found during checks of residential and commercial buildings damaged earlier in the day and that Russian forces had used a prohibited cluster warhead.
Shelling killed a sixth person in the southern region of Kherson, governor Oleksandr Prokudin, said. “A 60-year-old man who suffered serious injuries this afternoon died in hospital,” Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
In Kharkiv region, Russia struck the village of Pisky-Radkivski with the high-speed Tornado-S multiple rocket launch system, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram.
The body of a 72-year-old woman was retrieved from the rubble, and two civilians, a man and a woman, were taken to hospital, he added.
