Not the USA's call. Stormshadow is made by Britain and France.

Don't they both rely on US mapping data?

Everything relies on US mapping data.

I'd have thought Ukraine would do well to start drone-dropping large quantities of vodka immediately before a big push. Surely that's the most effective anti-personnel weapon of all against Orcs?

Re Stormshadow, isn't the political sticking point that it contains US technology and components, and regardless of UK wishes Uncle Sam has veto on the deployment of those?

An excellent strategy which may well be more effective than Stormshadow!

Russian missiles contain US components. What does the USA have to say about those?

MBDA had the same issue with Scalp-EG where the US blocked a sale to Egypt (presumably in case they fired them off at Israel). MBDA had to source replacement items to get rid of the ITAR restrictions which included a technology acquisition activity.

And therein lies the hypocricy of US denial...
If only the decision was releated to logic and reason rather than weaselly craven and short-term self-interest, diplomacy and power politics.

But, as Kipling would have said, "it ain't".

I'll post it again...




Winnie! Hey! You can bomb the crap out of all the Nazis you find in London and the Home counties but just don't even think about using those weapons we gave you across the channel...

The insanity of this current US policy is simply beyond comprehension. Do they actually want to slowly strangle Ukraine and so risk Ruzzia to win?

Why???

Washington played the same games with it`s own troops in Vietnam..one hand tied behind their back...

Not a bad effort for a state with no navy, which arguably also now described Russia.

Gotta be a great opportunity to add some mayhem with the odd bottle version from Ukraine with C4 rather than H2O

Drop the odd bottle with poison or emetics in it. Once word gets round who will trust anything dropped?

(In the Dhofar campaign the SAS would carefully dig up any rebel ammunition caches they found and “Salt’ the rounds with ones with charges designed to blow up in the users face. The end result being the rebels wouldn’t trust any buried caches and relied just on the ones they could physically carry, In doing so the SAS effectively took out the entire rebel logistics train)

https://archive.ph/4mZzP

Go it alone and let Ukraine fire missiles, Keir Starmer told

After talks in Washington reached a stalemate, five former defence secretaries said Britain shouldn’t wait for US backing

Five former defence secretaries and an ex-prime minister have urged Sir Keir Starmer to allow Ukraine to use its long-range Storm Shadow missiles to strike inside Russia — even without US backing.

Grant Shapps, Ben Wallace, Gavin Williamson, Penny Mordaunt, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson warned the PM that any further delay would embolden Vladimir Putin.

Wallace said that failure to move now would make Britain “appeasers” of the Kremlin, while Williamson called it a “dereliction of duty” and Boris Johnson added: “There is no conceivable case for delay.”

Starmer flew to Washington for talks with President Biden on Friday to discuss pleas from President Zelensky for permission to use the British-made missiles. However, the meeting broke up without any agreement.

Pressure has been growing on the UK and the US to allow the use of Storm Shadow missiles after it was claimed last week that Russia had received new deadly ballistic missiles from Iran for use in Ukraine. Senior security sources believe Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for the missiles.

The row over whether western missiles can be used to strike targets across Ukraine’s border follows similar delays over decisions on supplying tanks and fighter jets.

Leading the chorus of voices calling on Britain to act unilaterally, Shapps said: “Rather than waiting for formal approval from the US, Sir Keir needs to provide President Zelensky with what’s desperately needed today. That’s how we assumed our global leadership position in supporting Ukraine. We acted. Others followed. And it’s the kind of leadership that’s required again for Ukraine today.”

Wallace added: “Britain is in danger of falling behind into the pack of ditherers, appeasers and delayers, when the only real way to stand up to a bully such as Putin is to be strong, united and determined to see it through.”….

Insiders say the White House talks, which lasted 90 minutes, were “very open” about “the choices ahead of us”. But it can be revealed that Biden and his team signalled that they want to go into a “holding pattern” until Zelensky has presented his “victory plan” — before giving their approval for attacks inside Russia.

This surprised British officials who had listened closely to hints from Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, that America was edging towards authorising Storm Shadow, an Anglo-French weapon which relies on American GPS guidance systems…..

Sources in London say there is a split in Biden’s team between Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the doveish US national security adviser, who held “Sherpa” talks before the White House meeting with Tim Barrow, his opposite number. “The problem is Sullivan, not Blinken,” a British defence source said. “All the way through it has been Sullivan.”

A political source did not dispute that there were differences in Washington and added: “I think it would be fair to say that Antony Blinken was leaning in that direction.” However, there are hints that even if Biden is not prepared to publicly give the green light, he is willing to approve the use of US intelligence and targeting systems to accompany the Storm Shadow, which is jointly produced by Britain, France and Italy.

Starmer, while not explicitly committed to giving the green light, has faced down an attempt by the Foreign Office to get Britain to change its stance on Ukraine and “get back in the pack”, so the UK is no longer the most forward-leaning member of the western alliance in advocating the arming of Ukraine. Yet he is still keen to have explicit US sign-off.

A source close to the prime minister said: “This is something that you would want to do with key Nato allies aligned on the issue.”…..

Alright, in this case let's give to the Ukrainians our missiles disassembled. "Sorry, we are not sending weapons, we are sending components."
He wants to play with words? We can too.

Going out on a limb here...
I think that Ukraine will be allowed to strike inside Russia from the UN meeting.
If true: If Iran (outside country), is really supplying Russia with missiles and they are being fired into Ukraine, then It's a bit bizarre why Ukraine can't fire (outside country), supplied missiles into Russia...

IMO, this delay is after the meeting at the Whitehouse, is just a move to show that the West has thought all this through and have 'even consulted' with the EU and other NATA members, before allowing it.

As I have posted before, I cannot believe that the EU/NATO countries 'next/after' if Ukraine falls are going to allow it. It just seems incredible to me, that the West/EU will allow Russia to continue.
It's going to be far far cheaper ($ and Lives), to stop Putin (and cronies), now, than in Russia's next leader having another go - maybe into Finland/Poland - in 20 years....
And Germany is going to do what in 50 years, after Finland/Poland has been freed of Nazi's..?
Stop this Nazi/Freedom rubbish now.

Can someone please enlighten me?
1) The territory's that Russia captured (Donetsk and Luhansk), was this Russia's only objective (de-nazify). And would they have just taken these places and not gone any further?
2) Was Crimea (2014), a De-Nazify, objective?
3) If Russia had taken over Kiev, would they have 'now' taken all of Ukraine over as Crimea?

Methinks the real problem here is the end game and what happens post Ukraine win. We've been here before with Iraq and Afghanistan by leaving a power vacuum and a bottomless pit to throw resources into because there was no plan for what happens after. If Russia loses it will be deja-vu without planning for that eventuality although this time one hopes there is indeed a contingency plan. Perhaps this is the real reason for the delays because we have not trashed the Russian economy enough or decoupled global-dependency enough to be certain Putin will not remain in power and able to rebuild his armies and put in place a successor for another go to attempt assimilating Ukraine in the next decade. The Yale University Timothy Snyder lecture series 'Making of Modern Ukraine' is absolutely worth the effort to get a great understanding of the history and parallels leading up to the 2022 invasion.

I can give you a very way simple way of sorting out these problems Uberteknik.
1. Give Ukraine all the systems it needs to target Russian airfields, command nodes, troop concentration areas, bridges, energy infrastructure, petro-chemical plants and refineries.
Make the border area sanitised for 100miles.
2. Give back the Kursk Region in exchange for the occupied territories including Crimea and make Sevastopol a UN protectorate with no military bases, but a FreePort.
3. Extending to 50miles inside the Ukrainian Eastern Border is the largest NATO training area ever conceived.
4. Ukrainian Membership of NATO and the EU, with a fully integrated armed forces.
5. Kaliningrad is renamed Danzig and handed to Poland.
6. A "Humanitarian Corridor" is created by NATO / European Troops from the Polish border to Lviv then onto Odesa, Kyiv.
We can deal with Moldova, reparations and Putin later.

I'm not quite sure whether you are advocating that somebody (the 'West') should establish a transition government in Russia or Ukraine. Either would be overstepping the mark somewhat. Neither bear any similarity to Syria nor Afghanistan.

One thing you can be sure of is that there will be no indecision from the US once this war is over. When the restructuring of Ukraine begins they, along with the French and the Germans, will barge to the front of the queue (line) with the $ signs shining brightly in their eyes. I hope Zelensky remembers who his real friends are.