Has Keir Starmer dropped the ball on Ukraine? Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian former foreign minister, certainly thinks so. Kuleba, who stepped down from his post in September, had few kind words to say this week about how Starmer’s Labour government had dealt with Ukraine in the five months or so since coming to power:
The Conservatives were coordinating with the Americans but they did not restrict themselves to just following the Americans. This is the change that came with Labour. They took a position they would follow the Americans.
It is stirring and laudable to promise to support Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’
The immediate cause of Kuleba’s frustration was Starmer’s delay over the decision to allow Ukraine to use its UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles against Russian targets without restriction. In September, when the Prime Minister visited President Joe Biden in Washington, there was a surge in optimism that an announcement to this effect was imminent, but hopes were dashed.
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