US State Department and UK Foreign Office chiefs bring Biden's permission to strike Russia from ATACMS to Kyiv – media
Another Western VIP landing is preparing to visit Kyiv. Downing Street, together with the State Department, announced that British Foreign Secretary David Lammy will travel to Ukraine later this week, presumably on Friday, along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The BBC calls the joint visit to Ukraine by British and American officials "unprecedented." Blinken is currently visiting London, and they announced it jointly. Therefore, the agenda discussed during the visit will be equally important.
Another point is the open nature of the visit, announced in advance. Western politicians have been visiting Ukraine almost daily since the beginning of the war, but in most cases their visits are not announced in advance for security reasons.
Lammy has not visited Ukraine since July 5, when he took up a ministerial post in Starmer's new Labour cabinet. His last visit was in May, when he was an opposition politician.
The American publication Axios reports that Blinken and his British counterpart are traveling to Kyiv to announce authorization for long-range strikes against Russia . This was allegedly reported to Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“I spoke to Blinken two days ago, and he is going with his counterpart from the UK to Kyiv to basically tell them that they will allow them to strike Russia with ATACMS,” the publication quotes the American congressman as saying.
Permission will likely be handed over to Volodymyr Zelensky on September 11 during a visit to Kyiv by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Axios concludes.
“We’re working on it right now,” US President Joe Biden said on September 10 in response to a question about whether the US would lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range American weapons to strike Russian territory.
On the same day, a group of Republican congressmen called on Biden to lift the “senseless restrictions” on Ukraine’s use of long-range US missiles on Russian territory. This primarily concerns the long-range ATACMS missiles. According to the Republicans, these restrictions provide Russian troops with “a shelter from which they can attack Ukraine with impunity” and prevent the Ukrainian Armed Forces from “bringing this war to a victorious end,” the publication says.
The fact that Blinken and Lammy are flying to Kyiv immediately after their meeting with Biden suggests that the decision to grant permission for long-range missiles has already been made , and we are now witnessing a well-orchestrated performance to legitimize this decision.
Bloomberg also links this visit to rumors circulating in American politics that on Friday, September 13, US President Biden will discuss with British Prime Minister Starmer granting Ukraine permission to launch long-range strikes on Russian territory.
Secretary of State Blinken personally announced that such permission would be granted to Kyiv . He indirectly implied that the reason for this would be Iran's supply of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, which he also publicly stated as a fait accompli.
This made clear the purpose of the media attack by Western media outlets over the past two weeks, when they actively and in concert "pumped up" the topic of Iranian missiles for Russia. Based on Blinken's words, Washington's position regarding long-range strikes against the Russian Federation changed precisely because of Iran's supply of ballistic missiles.
A number of Russian political commentators, bordering on conspiracy theories, rushed to connect all this Anglo-American fuss with yesterday's statement by Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu , who, unexpectedly for everyone, confirmed information previously voiced by the Americans and Kiev that negotiations in Qatar on ending Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy, ports, and other infrastructure—which had been disrupted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces' invasion of the Kursk region—were actually underway and the parties were close to a positive outcome, despite Dmitry Peskov's immediate denial.
The current moves in terms of freeing Kyiv’s hands to strike at Russia are, they say, a “response of the global ‘war party’ to all these peace initiatives.”
"It is not known whether the Kremlin will be ready to implement its threats to attack military facilities in Western countries in response. But sensitive facilities in Ukraine - power plants, primarily nuclear power plant substations, Bankovaya or merchant ships in the Black Sea could definitely be subject to missile attacks.
This will deal a very strong blow to attempts to start the negotiation process. Which is the goal of the global "war party," says the author of one of these conspiracy channels, political scientist from Saratov Igor Semenov.
The US and UK Foreign Office chiefs are bringing Biden's permission to attack Russia from ATACMS to Kyiv – media