U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British foreign minister David Lammy arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday to engage in a series of talks with senior Ukrainian government officials.
Blinken has expressed his desire to learn directly from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and others regarding Kyiv’s war objectives and the ways in which Washington can assist in their achievement.
Zelenskiy has been pushing for Western countries to deliver longer-range missiles and lift restrictions on their use to strike targets such as military airfields located deep within Russia.
U.S. officials have expressed caution about such an action due to concerns that it could potentially initiate a direct conflict between the West and Russia. However, U.S. President Joe Biden suggested that there was potential for compromise overnight.
In response to the question of whether the US would relax sanctions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons in its conflict with Russia, Biden stated that his administration was currently figuring that out.
On Wednesday, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, warned that if the United States and its allies granted Kyiv access to long-range weapons, Moscow would view them as participants in the conflict.
