Biden and U.K.’s Starmer meet amid storm over Ukraine weapons

President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met at the White House on Friday amid rising tensions with Russia, reaffirming their support for Ukraine but declining to publicly address urgent questions over whether Biden will pave the way for Ukraine to use Western-made weapons to strike deeper inside Russia.

“The United States is committed to standing with you to help Ukraine as it defends against Russia’s onslaught of aggression,” Biden told Starmer at the outset of their meeting. “It’s clear that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not prevail in this war. The people of Ukraine will prevail.”

Starmer said it was vital that the two allied nations work in tandem. “I think the next few weeks and months could be crucial, very, very important, that we support Ukraine in this vital war of freedom,” the prime minister said.

But the two leaders said little about the biggest questions hanging over their meeting: whether American allies such as Britain might allow Ukraine to use their weapons to attack military targets deep inside Russia. Putin this week warned sharply against such a move, raising the stakes for Biden’s decision on whether to support it and whether at some point to allow U.S.-made weapons to be used the same way.

Hours before the meeting at the White House, Putin accused six British diplomats of spying and announced it had stripped them of accreditation. Putin also threatened that if Ukraine were to fire Western missiles into Russia, he would treat it as an attack by NATO and would respond accordingly, a posture that threatened to escalate the war.

“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing other than the direct involvement of NATO states, European states, in the war in Ukraine,” Putin said in a television interview late Thursday.

Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, warned the U.N. Security Council on Friday about the use of Western weapons deep inside Russia. “The facts are that NATO will be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power,” Nebenzya said. “I think you shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences.”

From the outset of the war in February 2022, Biden has sought to balance his support for Ukraine with his desire to prevent the conflict from spiraling into a broader confrontation. With only four months left in office, Biden’s delicate decision-making on the war will increasingly play into a foreign policy legacy that is likely to revolve in large part on his handling of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

That task has meant dealing with a variety of foreign leaders. Starmer, who was elected prime minister only two months ago, arrived at the White House in a motorcade on Friday afternoon, and he and Biden entered the Oval Office for photos before meeting in the Blue Room for their extended strategy session.

Biden grew testy when a British reporter shouted a question, before the president could began speaking, about what he says in response to Putin’s threats. “I say, ‘You be quiet until I speak. Okay? That’s what I say,” he said.

Biden then welcomed Starmer to the White House and thanked him for his leadership in backing Ukraine. But he largely ignored shouted questions from reporters, saying at one point in response to a question about what he thinks of Putin, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”

The official White House summary of the meeting stressed the opposition of the American and British leaders to the support that some countries are giving Russia. “They expressed deep concern about Iran and North Korea’s provision of lethal weapons to Russia and … China’s support to Russia’s defense industrial base,” the statement said.

Russia has made threats against NATO when Western nations have ramped up their support for Ukraine, but he has generally failed to follow through. Starmer told British reporters ahead of his meeting with Biden that Ukraine had a right to defend itself against an illegal Russian invasion.

“We don’t seek any conflict with Russia. That’s not our intention in the slightest,” Starmer said. “But they started this conflict, and Ukraine’s got a right to self-defense.”

The British government also accused Russia of “a significant escalation” by imported ballistic weapons from Iran, saying that it was “bolstering Putin’s capability to continue his illegal war.”

Biden and Starmer were also expected to discuss tensions in the Middle East, focusing on attempts for a cease-fire deal and the release of hostages in Gaza. The British announced this month that they were suspending some arms exports to Israel, citing “a clear risk” that the arms might be used in “serious violation of international humanitarian law.’

Heading into the meeting, John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that there would be little shift from the United States on allowing Ukraine to fire long-range missiles into Russia.

“There is no change to our view on the provision of long-range strike capabilities for Ukraine to use inside Russia, and I wouldn’t expect any sort of major announcement in that regard coming out of the discussions, certainly not on our side,” he said in a briefing with reporters.

Kirby declined to comment directly on whether the U.S. would signal support for allowing the British or French to authorize use of their weapons for such long-range attacks.

“We have, and will continue to have, meaningful conversations with our allies … about what we’re all doing to support Ukraine, about what can be done, what should be done, the pros and the cons of all these moves,” Kirby said.

Regarding Putin’s warnings about NATO, he said that “it’s hard to take anything coming out of Putin’s face at his word” but added that the U.S. carefully monitors any Russian threats.

“He starts brandishing the nuclear sword, yes, we constantly monitor that kind of activity,” Kirby said. “He obviously has proven capable of aggression. He has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last now going on three years.”

The meeting at the White House occurred after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with British foreign secretary David Lammy on a recent trip to Kyiv, a joint visit in which they heard from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky has been pressing for months for Western leaders to lift restrictions against using long-range missiles to target military sites in Russia.

Biden was asked Tuesday whether the United States was ready to lift the restrictions. “We are working that out right now,” he said.

But administration officials said Friday that those reviews are still ongoing, with uncertainty over when or whether there might be any change in policy.

At the same time, some senior congressional leaders have been urging Biden to make such a shift, saying Ukraine needs a freer hand.

“In light of Putin’s increasingly horrific attacks on civilian targets, it’s time to lift restrictions on the use of long-range U.S.-provided weapons to allow Ukraine to reach high value Russian military targets,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said in a recent statement. “On the expectation that the Ukrainian government has demonstrated how these new authorities fit within its broader campaign strategy, I hope that the Biden Administration will swiftly grant these permissions to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

Karen DeYoung and Missy Ryan contributed to this report.