Biden and Starmer unite against Putin nuclear threat

Pressure on Joe Biden and Keir Starmer over the Ukraine war has reached boiling point as the two men met in Washington DC with nuclear war threats from Vladimir Putin and desperate demands from Volodymyr Zelensky.

The prime minister and US president have come together in the white forintensive talks on Ukraine and the Middle East in what is expected to be a decision to allow Ukraine to use long range storm shadow missiles at targets in Russia. But the meeting was overshadowed by:

Even as Biden and Starmer prepared to meet, President Zelensky ratcheted up the pressure with a direct plea via X (formerly Twitter) to the two leaders.

Zelensky also praised the past actions of Boris Johnson, who he met on Friday at a summit in Kyiv.

Zelensky said: “We are now in the third year of a full-scale war. After so much death, destruction, and countless Russian war crimes, Putin can still afford to destroy life in Ukraine as he pleases, buy and produce missiles, bombs and artillery, and issue ultimatums to the world. He expects the world to fall for his madness.

“We need air defense systems like Patriots, which are sufficient in the world and which we have long expected from our partners. Yet, when we ask for these systems, we repeatedly hear, ‘We are working on it.’ Time passes, but Russian missiles and Iranian drones continue to terrorize our skies and our people.”

Adding to the pressure on Starmer and Biden, Mr Johnson said: “It is vital that Ukraine should be able to defend itself properly by stopping the appalling Russian attacks with glide bombs and now Iranian missiles. It is obvious that they should be able to use Storm Shadow, SCALP and ATACMS as fast as possible against targets in Russia itself. “

Zelensky has just held talks