00:00Joining me on the set, our international affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert.
00:03Hello to you.
00:04Hi Will.
00:05Let's begin, first of all, with this meeting today in Washington.
00:07Joe Biden is going to be seeing Keir Starmer.
00:10Tell us about what they're talking about and why the policy might end up changing.
00:13Well, officially, it's being billed as a broad strategic discussion between two close allies.
00:19But obviously, the focus is going to be on Ukraine and what they're talking about are
00:22those missiles, and more specifically, whether or not to give permission to Ukraine to use
00:28its arsenal of Western-supplied long-range missiles to hit its targets deep inside Russia.
00:34Why is this important, Will?
00:36Because Ukraine has been arguing for months now, if not years, that its hands are essentially
00:41tied behind its back because it has all these nice, fancy weapons, including the British
00:46Storm Shadow missiles, but it's unable to use them to their full potential because they
00:51can only strike at border areas within Ukrainian territory itself.
00:57What they can't do as of today, as I speak now, is use those missiles to the full range
01:02that they have, often 250 to 300 kilometers, to hit at military targets deeper inside,
01:10rear targets deeper inside Russian territory, that right now they're unable to hit at.
01:14And this is significant because those are areas they say that there are, you know, according
01:19to some analysts, at least 200, 240 military targets that the Ukrainians could be hitting
01:25if they had the permission, targets from which Russians are launching missiles and
01:29the glide bombs that have been raining havoc and devastation across Ukraine in recent days
01:34and weeks.
01:35That's why it's important.
01:36Why is the U.S. now thinking of changing?
01:39First of all, remember, there are U.S. attackums.
01:42Those are the U.S. long-range missiles.
01:44They have the longest range of all.
01:45There are these British Storm Shadow, which are essentially the equivalent of the French
01:49Scalp missiles.
01:51As a group, all of these missiles would presumably be involved in a decision.
01:54What we're waiting for today is whether Biden will essentially initially give a green light
01:59to the use of the Storm Shadows and I guess the Scalps as well.
02:03The New York Times reporting that if a decision on the attackums comes, it would likely follow
02:07in a few weeks.
02:09But it's really a decision about using these long-range missiles.
02:12Why?
02:13Kiev's up against it on the front lines.
02:14The West is aware of that.
02:16Ukraine has made a very persuasive case, swaying American officials.
02:20A tough winter lies ahead right now.
02:23The U.S. are also very much aware that Iran, as they see it, has been supplying new and
02:28deadly ballistic missiles to Russia.
02:30That could also change the equation.
02:32And Ukraine has shown Russia, shown the U.S. and its Western allies what it could do if
02:38it is allowed to wage its own war.
02:41This Kursk incursion is a case in point of dynamic, as the West might see it, even innovative
02:46creative thinking.
02:47Even if it took everyone by surprise, that given the leeway, they can do things and they
02:51can take the war to Russia and perhaps wake up the Russian population to the reality of
02:56a war, which for most Russians is still referred to, is still thought of as a special military
03:00operation, not a war.
03:02So all of these are factors.
03:04Obviously, beyond the front line pressures, the West knows Putin has threatened escalation
03:09in the past.
03:10Red lines have been crossed from providing tanks to F-16 fighter jets.
03:15Putin has not yet escalated.
03:17So that has been bluff so far, which is an important qualification.
03:21And I think the West also, as I said before, believes there are enough meaningful targets
03:27that Ukraine could strike at within Russia, as I said, perhaps 200, 240, 245 or more.
03:33So that is significant as well.
03:34It wouldn't just be an empty lifting of restrictions.
03:37Ukraine could here and now begin to militarily strike at targets that are meaningful in the
03:42view of both Ukraine and more and more in the view of the West.
03:45And does that mean that this incursion into Russia has maybe lost some of its momentum
03:49a month into it to consider these long range weapons?
03:53When you say lost its momentum, Will, let's remember the context is a counteroffensive
03:58was always expected, right?
03:59The Russians weren't simply going to let the Ukrainian forces sit pretty on their territory.
04:03Yes, Putin was taken off guard, even if he hasn't explicitly acknowledged that.
04:08The Russian army was, to a certain extent, if not humiliated, at least sent into a slightly
04:13defensive posture.
04:14And now what they're doing is they're doing what everyone said, well, eventually they're
04:17going to start doing this.
04:18They've been nibbling away at the Western sliver of the territory.
04:21Remember, the Ukrainians are claiming to have taken about 1,200, 1,300 square kilometers,
04:26several hundred square miles of territory in the Kursk district just above the Sumy
04:30district in Ukraine.
04:32And what the Russians have been doing is recapturing territory.
04:35The Institute for the Study of War confirms that they've recaptured several villages around
04:40the village, the town of Snagost, which you can see there on the map.
04:44So those red lines are the territory that Russia has either recaptured or claims to
04:48have recaptured, the blue being what Ukraine claims to continue to hold.
04:52What I think we need to underline here is analysts say the situation remains very fluid,
04:57very uncertain.
04:58Often the positions are hard to corroborate on the ground exactly who holds what and what
05:04control means.
05:05How much do you really control?
05:06What some analysts are saying is that what Russia has recaptured is the low-hanging fruit,
05:12meaning the villages that are easiest to recapture, that Ukraine never really established a really
05:17deep foothold in.
05:19And those areas in blue that you see are much more firmly established and held by Ukraine.
05:24They're better controlled.
05:26So presumably those would be harder for Russia to recapture.
05:29Also underlined, Ukraine says it is striking back.
05:32It has launched its own counterattack against Russia's counterattack.
05:37So there's fighting and skirmishing going on.
05:39What you see on that map there is not fixed in stone.
05:42It could be reversed or, as some suggest, it could be the beginning of the expected,
05:47perhaps unraveling, of that holding of Russian territory, that Kursk incursion.
