UK already permitted Kiev to use Storm Shadow, but will not admit it publicly — paper

The United Kingdom has already made a decision to give Ukraine green light for using UK-supplied Storm Shadow long-range missiles for strikes on targets located deep in the Russian territory, but will not make a public announcement on the matter, The Guardian newspaper reported, Report informs referring to TASS.

The report quotes anonymous sources as saying that "it would be considered unnecessarily provocative" in London to make a public announcement of this kind.

The newspaper also said that that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer us unlikely to publicly speak about authorizing the move in the wake of his meeting with US President Joe Biden in Washington on September 13.

The sides are expected to discuss the conflict in Ukraine and ways of settling it. At the same time, according to the publication, the discussion would revolve mostly around London and Washington’s strategic goals rather than around providing any certain types of weapons to the Kiev government.

Starmer’s visit will be brief, and he is not scheduled to hold a press conference in the US capital, the newspaper said.

Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin told a TASS correspondent in late June that UK officials deliberately maintain ambiguity on the issue of whether the Ukrainian military has been permitted to use UK missiles for strikes on the Russian territory.

On July 10, Bloomberg reported that Starmer recognized Ukraine’s right to use Storm Shadow for strikes inside Russia. However, The Daily Telegraph wrote later that the country’s military command considered these statements to be inappropriate, adding that Starmer went too far in acknowledging this publicly. The country’s top brass believes that such statements should be kept secret until they are implemented.