LONDON (Reuters) – The outgoing head of NATO Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday he welcomed talks on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russian territory, but any decision on the issue would have to be made by individual allies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles including long-range U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadows deep into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. 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.
“I welcome these developments and these decisions but its for individual allies to make the final decisions,” Stoltenberg told LBC radio. “Allies have different policies on this.”
Some U.S. 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.
Asked about possible Russian retaliation, Stoltenberg said there were “no risk-free options in the war”.
“But I continue to believe that the biggest risk for us, for United Kingdom, for NATO, will be if President Putin wins in Ukraine,” he added.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Andrew MacAskill and Hugh Lawson)
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