By Daphne Psaledakis and Olena Harmash
KIEV (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy arrived in Kiev on Wednesday for a series of meetings with senior Ukrainian government officials at a crucial stage in the war against Russia.
Blinken said he wanted to hear directly from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and others what Kyiv’s goals in the war are and what Washington can do to help it achieve them.
Zelensky is likely to renew his appeals to his allies to allow Ukraine to launch Western missiles, including the long-range US ATACMS missiles and the British Storm Shadows missiles, deep into Russian territory to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.
Blinken and Lamy are expected to press Ukraine for more information on its strategic goals as they consider whether to give the green light, according to Western sources.
There is nervousness in Washington and some European capitals that this could provoke Russia into direct conflict with the West, while officials also realize that Ukraine needs more help if it wants to tip the balance of the war in its favor.
US President Joe Biden indicated overnight that there was room for compromise.
Biden said his administration was “working on this issue now” when asked whether the United States would lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons in its war against Russia.
Russian Lower House Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Moscow would consider the United States and its allies parties to the war if they allowed Kiev to use long-range weapons.
Blinken declined to say whether Washington would grant permission, but said multiple factors went into any decision.
“It’s not the system itself that matters,” Blinken said. “You have to ask: Can the Ukrainians use it effectively, and sometimes that requires significant training, which we have done. Do they have the capacity to maintain it?”
Battlefield pressures
On the battlefield, more than two and a half years after the invasion began, Ukrainian forces are under pressure from a better-armed and larger enemy, while trying to roll back Russian gains in the east where Moscow is concentrating its attacks.
In an attempt to regain some of the initiative and divert Russian forces, Kyiv last month sent troops into Russia’s Kursk region in a large-scale cross-border infiltration operation.
After initially making rapid progress, Ukrainian advances have stalled, and a senior Russian commander said on Wednesday that his forces had retaken about 10 settlements.
The economic damage from the Kursk offensive has amounted to at least $931 million, regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on Wednesday, adding that more than 150,000 people have been evacuated since the start of the Ukrainian offensive.
Blinken’s visit to Kyiv comes a day after he said Russia had received ballistic missiles from Iran and was likely to use them in Ukraine within weeks, warning that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran threatened broader European security.
Russia and Iran deny Blinken’s allegations.
Blinken said that the growing military cooperation between Iran and Russia poses a threat to all of Europe, adding that Washington has specifically warned Iran that providing ballistic missiles to Russia would represent a “dramatic escalation.”
The United States imposed new sanctions on Iran on Tuesday over the alleged transfer.
Thousands of civilians have been killed in the war that Russia began with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced, while many cities and villages have been reduced to piles of rubble.
Russia has stepped up its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, while Ukraine has also sent hundreds of long-range attack drones deep into Russian territory.
Later this month, Zelenskyy will travel to the United States and present a plan to Biden and his potential successors in the November presidential election that he hopes will bring the war closer to an end.