Starmer accused of weakening support for Ukraine

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Sir Keir Starmer is under fresh pressure to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow missiles after Volodymyr Zelensky said British support was “slowing down”.
The Ukrainian president complained that British aid to Kyiv had begun to wane as his forces continued their unprecedented incursion into Russian territory in the Kursk region.
“Unfortunately, the situation has slowed down recently,” Mr Zelensky said, referring to UK military assistance.
Sir Keir has upheld a Conservative ban on using UK-made Storm Shadows to strike targets deep inside Russia, amid concerns it could lead to escalation with nuclear-armed Moscow.
“We will discuss how to fix this because long-range capabilities are vital for us. The whole world sees how effective Ukrainians are – how our entire nation defends its independence,” said Mr Zelensky.
It came as four former Conservative defence secretaries called on No 10 to do more to support Ukraine, with some demanding Kyiv be allowed to use Storm Shadows in the Russian offensive.
Mr Zelensky said that it was “crucial” for Britain, France and the US to “remove barriers that hinder us from weakening Russian positions”.
“Long-range capabilities are the answer to the most critical strategic questions of this war,” he added.
Any use of long-range Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia by Ukraine would require the consent of both Britain and France, which jointly developed them, as well as the United States.
The White House denied reports that the US was blocking a request by the UK for Ukraine to use the missiles.
A Biden administration official told The Telegraph that no formal request has been made for Ukraine to launch them over the Russian border, which would require the use of some US-made systems.
Ukrainian officials, including Mr Zelensky, have argued that the missiles would allow Ukraine to strike a number of key targets behind the front lines, including airfields, ammunition storage depots and Russian command posts.
Kyiv is particularly keen to prevent Russian jets firing glide-bombs at its troops as they seek to hold territory inside Kursk.
The Ukrainian incursion, which began on Aug 6, is the first foreign invasion of Russian soil since the Second World War.
Mykhailo Podolyak, one of Mr Zelensky’s advisers, told The Telegraph on Saturday that Storm Shadow missiles would also allow Ukraine to disrupt Russian supply chains because they can penetrate underground bunkers and evade radar detection.
However, a well-placed US official said 90 per cent of Russian fighter jets had been moved to airbases beyond the 155-mile range of Storm Shadows, and that long-range Ukrainian drones would be more effective against glide bombs.
“Russia assumed that the US or other Western countries may eventually grant them permission to use long-range missiles in Russia, and they just made the adjustments at that point,” they said.
“If this were to ever happen, it’s not going to have the military impact that Ukraine thinks it would, or that some voices out there think it would.”
On Sunday, Mr Zelensky said the purpose of the Kursk offensive was to create a “buffer zone” between Ukraine and Russia, in the first justification for the incursion he has publicly offered since it began.
“It is now our primary task in defensive operations overall to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions,” he said in his nightly address. “This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory – our operation in the Kursk region.”
He repeated his call for the UK to increase its support for Ukraine, and named the US and France as other countries who could do more.
A Pentagon spokesman said on Thursday that the US believes the use of the missiles would be an “escalation”, and provoke a response by Russia against Ukraine’s Western allies.
Mr Zelensky’s criticism of the UK comes after Sir Keir suggested at last month’s Nato summit that Ukraine would be allowed to use the missiles.
A Downing Street spokesman later said the ban using Storm Shadows inside Russia, first imposed by the previous Conservative government, would remain.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said on Sunday that there had been “no change in the UK’s position”.
However, four former Tory defence secretaries told The Telegraph Sir Keir should do more to help Ukraine, after John Healey, his Defence Secretary, said Britain’s support would be “iron clad” under Labour.
Sir Michael Fallon, who served as defence secretary under Theresa May’s government, said: “It can’t be right to let Putin hit a children’s hospital with glide bombs from miles over the border, yet bar Ukraine from defending itself with long-range missiles like Storm Shadow.”
Sir Ben Wallace, who served under Boris Johnson, said: “Time and time again those that want to do nothing have used the ‘escalation’ excuse.
“They used it before the conflict, they used it when we supplied short-range anti-tank missiles, they used it when we supplied tanks.
“The reality is it is the appeasers that use this language and all the while Ukrainians suffer. Storm Shadows have been making a real difference in Crimea, which Russia already believes to be sovereign Russian territory, without escalation.”
Sir Gavin Williamson and Grant Shapps, two other former defence secretaries, respectively said the UK should do “more, not less” to help Ukraine and “redouble” support.
“Boris Johnson set the tone for Britain leading international support for Ukraine but as the conflict has dragged on our voice has to be louder,” Sir Gavin said. “We have to give Ukraine capabilities that they need to seize the strategic advantage on the battlefield. That means longer-range weapons.”
The calls came as Ukraine said it had struck a second bridge in the Kursk region in its attempt to disrupt Russian supply chains, having destroyed a bridge in the neighbouring town of Glushkovo on Friday.
The Russian defence ministry said it was pushing back against Ukraine’s forces near several villages.
More than 120,000 people have fled the region since fighting began, according to Russian authorities.
In response to the incursion, Russia has ramped up pressure on Kyiv’s forces in eastern Ukraine, claiming to have captured another village near the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
A government spokesman said: “The Prime Minister has been clear that UK’s support for Ukraine is unwavering. That is why he committed to £3 billion a year of support to Ukraine, for as long as it takes, within his first week in office.
“Further lethal aid was also accelerated to Kyiv within hours of this Government being elected, bolstering the £12 billion of UK support already pledged, and ensuring the vital military equipment reaches Ukrainian soldiers on the front line.”
Thanks for following the Telegraph’s live blog. We’ll be back tomorrow with the latest updates on the war. 
Kyiv has said little about the scope and goals of its push into Russia with tanks and other armored vehicles, the largest attack on the country since World War II, which took the Kremlin by surprise and saw scores of villages and hundreds of prisoners fall into Ukrainian hands.
The Ukrainians drove deep into the Kursk region in several directions, facing little resistance and sowing chaos and panic as tens of thousands of civilians fled the area. Ukraine’s Commander in Chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his forces had advanced across 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) of the region, although it was not possible to independently verify what exactly Ukrainian forces effectively control.
Analysts say that although Ukraine could try to consolidate its gains inside Russia, it would be risky, given Kyiv’s limited resources, because its own supply lines extending deep into Kursk would be vulnerable.
How are Russians reacting to the dramatic Ukrainian incursion in Kursk region? A hundred miles from Moscow I gauge the mood in a small Russian town. Producer @LizaShuvalova @BBCNews pic.twitter.com/g2Bgjbsi3r
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday that Ukraine had stationed more than 120,000 troops at its border with Belarus and Minsk had deployed nearly a third of its armed forces along the entire border, the Belta state news agency reported.
He did not say exactly how many troops were deployed. Belarus’ professional army has about 48,000 troops and around 12,000 state border troops, according to the 2022 International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance.
“Seeing their aggressive policy, we have introduced there and placed in certain points – in case of war, they would be defence – our military along the entire border,” Belta cited Lukashenko as saying in an interview with Russian state television.Kyiv did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment. On Saturday Kyiv said it had seen no signs of a Belarusian troop buildup at the border.
A man and a woman were killed by Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk on Sunday, the city’s Russian-appointed mayor, Alexei Kulemzin, said.
Reuters could not independently verify his assertion and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Authorities in Russia’s Tuva republic in southern Siberia ordered the evacuation of nearly 500 schoolchildren from summer camps as emergency workers battled to contain 31 wildfires raging across forests, the regional governor said on Sunday.
Vladislav Khovalyg said on the Telegram app that the children would be transported on buses to the regional capital Kyzyl “in the next few hours”.
Authorities declared a state of emergency earlier on Sunday in forested parts of Tuva, a republic bordering Mongolia that is roughly the size of the U.S. state of Florida and has a population around 300,000.
Ukraine said Sunday it had struck a second key bridge in the Kursk region, seeking to disrupt Moscow’s supply routes as Kyiv’s unprecedented incursion on Russian soil stretched through its second week.
Russia meanwhile ramped up pressure in east Ukraine, claiming to capture another village just a few kilometres from the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
“Minus one more bridge,” Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram, publishing an aerial video of a blast tearing through a bridge near the Russian town of Zvannoye.
An ally of  Vladimir Putin has published a video of himself driving a Tesla Cybertruck with what appears to be a PKM machine gun mounted on the back. 

Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, heaped praise on Tesla chief Elon Musk and said he would send the adapted vehicle to the Ukraine conflict zone.

Kadyrov also invited Mr Musk to Chechnya, saying he would welcome him as his “dearest guest”.
Russians in Kursk city are ready to evacuate at a “moment’s notice” and already have escape plans in place should Ukrainian forces reach the city, writes Verity Bowman. 
Locals told the Telegraph they fear Ukraine will “penetrate deep into the territory of the Russian Federation” amid its ongoing invasion of the southern border regions of Kursk and Belgorod.
They spoke of being forced to continue their daily lives as usual despite fighting edging closer to the city of Kursk, just 57 miles from the border.
Read the full piece here.
Russia on Sunday denied a report that Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk region had derailed indirect talks with Kyiv on halting strikes on energy and power targets, saying there had been no talks with Kyiv about civilian infrastructure facilities.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Qatar this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both warring sides.
Suggestions that Ukrainian authorities supported by Poland were behind planning and executing the sabotage attack on Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 are groundless, the Polish president’s aide said on Sunday.
Germany’s former intelligence chief August Hanning told Die Welt this week he believed there were agreements between presidents of Poland and Ukraine to carry out the attack.
“These are completely groundless insinuations,” Mieszko Pawlak, head of the international policy bureau at the office of President Andrzej Duda said when asked about the allegations by Polsat broadcaster, PAP newswire reported.
Pawlak said Hanning was serving when Gerhard Schroeder was German chancellor and pillars of Nord Stream 1 were emerging, and “as head of intelligence definitely played a shameful and important role in the investment”.
British-supplied “robo-dogs” have been deployed on the battlefield in Ukraine, their first known use in active combat, writes Iona Cleave.
Footage released by Kurt & Company, a specialist unit within Ukraine’s 28th Mechanised Brigade, showed the dystopian-looking machines operating close to the front line in the war-shattered Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
Over 30 of the second generation Brit Alliance Dog (BAD2) have been supplied to Ukraine by UK security company Brit Alliance, it was reported this week.
Read the full piece here.
Ukraine has destroyed a key bridge in Russia’s Kursk region and struck a second one nearby, according to local reports. 
The attacks come less than two weeks into Ukraine’s stunning cross-border incursion into Russia, disrupting Russian supply routes and possibly signaling that its troops are planning to dig in.
Russia’s pro-Kremlin military bloggers have acknowledged that the destruction of the first bridge, which spanned the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo, will impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces repelling Ukraine’s incursion, although Moscow could still use pontoons and smaller bridges in the area. Ukraine’s air force chief, Lt. Mykola Oleshchuk, on Friday released a video of a Ukrainian airstrike that split the bridge in two.
Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops hit a second bridge in Russia, according to Oleshchuk and the Russian regional governor, Alexei Smirnov. 
He Lifeng, the Chinese vice premier, will co-chair the 28th session of the committee for regular meetings between Chinese and Russian heads of government, together with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko in Moscow on Aug. 19-20, Xinhua news reported on Sunday.
Just over 900 days have elapsed since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine: an unequal struggle in which the pusillanimity of the West has tipped the scales still further against Kyiv, writes Daniel Johnson.
Throughout his country’s heroic resistance, Volodymyr Zelensky has seized the initiative whenever possible. Yet neither friend nor foe foresaw the bold incursion into the heart of Russian territory with which the Ukrainian leader has turned the tables on Putin in the past fortnight.
Now that Zelensky has literally parked his tanks on Putin’s lawn, the Russian public is waking up to the fact that their president is further than ever from winning his war against Ukraine. 
Read the full piece here.
Russia said Sunday its forces had captured Svyrydonivka, another frontline village some 15 kilometres (nine miles) away from the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
In a daily briefing, the defence ministry said its army units “liberated the village of Sviridonovka” in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, using the Russian name for the village.
Debris from a destroyed Ukraine drone sparked a diesel fuel fire at an industrial warehouse in Russia’s Rostov region, the governor of the southwest Russian region said on Sunday. 
“Firefighting units were called in to put out the fire,” Vasily Golubev, the governor, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia’s air defence units destroyed five drones that Ukraine launched overnight targeting the border Kursk, Belgorod and Rostov regions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday.
Two drones were shot down over the territory of the Belgorod region, one over Kursk, and two over the Rostov region, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian forces have struck another bridge in Russia’s Kursk region as they seek to disrupt Moscow’s combat operations and supply routes, Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday.
The strike appeared to target a bridge crossing the river Seym near the village of Zvannoye, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of the Ukrainian border.
“Minus one more bridge. The Air Force aviation continues to deprive the enemy of logistical capabilities with precision air strikes,” Mykola Oleshchuk, an Air Force commander, said on Telegram.
He published an aerial video of a blast tearing through the bridge, leaving a large rupture on the road.
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian President, said on Sunday that Ukraine has stationed more than 120,000 troops at its border with Belarus and that Minsk had sent military formations along its entire border in response, Russia’s RIA state news agency said.
Mr Lukashenko, an ally of Vladimir Putin, said the Belarusian-Ukrainian border is mined “as never before” and that Ukrainian troops would incur huge losses if they tried to cross it.
We are doing everything possible to provide our warriors with the necessary weapons and reinforcements. It is crucial that our partners remove barriers that hinder us from weakening Russian positions in the way this war demands. Long-range capabilities are the answer to the most… pic.twitter.com/smoHgaDEY5
North Korea condemned Ukraine’s incursion into Russia as an unforgivable act of terror backed by Washington and the West, adding it will always stand with Russia as it seeks to protect its sovereignty, state media said on Sunday.