UK foreign minister Lammy plays down Putin threats

LONDON: UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “bluster” on Sunday over his warning that letting Ukraine use long-range weapons to strike inside Russia would put Nato “at war” with Moscow.

Tensions between Russia and the West over the conflict reached dire levels this week as US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met at the White House to discuss whether to ease rules on Kyiv´s use of western-supplied weaponry.

“I think that what Putin´s doing is throwing dust up into the air,” Lammy told the BBC.

“There´s a lot of bluster. That´s his modus operandi. He threatens about tanks, he threatens about missiles, he threatens about nuclear weapons.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking for permission to use British Storm Shadow missiles and US-made ATACMS missiles to hit targets deeper inside Russia for months.

Biden and Starmer delayed a decision on the move during their meeting on Friday.

It came after Putin warned that green-lighting use of the weapons “would mean that Nato countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia”.

“If that´s the case, then taking into account the change of nature of the conflict, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face,” he added.