We must allow Ukraine to use our weapons to hit Russia

If Ukraine falls, there’s a knife at Europe’s throat, held by a butcher and war criminal. Our eastern European allies will be in peril. The West will decline rapidly, handing ascendancy to dictators in Moscow and Beijing.

There’s only one possible moral route for the West: giving Ukraine permission to use our weapons to attack military, industrial and strategic targets inside Russia’s borders. The war must be brought home to Putin. The morale of the Russian people must be broken.

It’s extremely rare that I agree with the former Tory defence minister Grant Shapps. But sometimes terrible events make for unlikely allies. Shapps is calling on Keir Starmer to lift restrictions imposed on Ukraine when it comes to using Britain’s Storm Shadow missiles against targets inside Russia.

Read more by Neil Mackay

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There seems some sliver of hope that this cruel, stupid embargo may be about to lift. President Joe Biden hints at potential change in US policy. America has also restricted Ukraine from using its weapons to hit Russia.

Asked this week if Washington would lift restrictions, Biden said he was “working that out now”. Well, work it out fast, Mr President, the clock is ticking and Ukrainians are dying.

Britain, ever the vassal, doesn’t have the guts to give permission without following America’s lead. So, everything hangs on Biden. American Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy have travelled to Kyiv to hear Ukraine press home its plea for the right to use US-UK long-range missiles.

Some clearer hint of policy shift may emerge tomorrow when Starmer meets Biden in Washington.

Let’s be clear: Ukrainians are fighting like lions, but they don’t just have one arm tied behind their back. They’re being forced to go into a gunfight every day armed only with a knife.

Russia is firing missiles into Ukraine, and murdering civilians, from bases which Kyiv could destroy if only the West gave President Zelenskyy permission. There’s something abominable about the way we’re treating our most courageous ally.

Ukraine is the battleground for democracy in the 21st century. Ukrainians aren’t just fighting for their liberty, they are fighting for our freedoms as well. We cheerlead them, yet we withhold the capabilities they need to fully protect themselves. We tell them to keep fighting, yet forbid them to fight to their full capacity.

Putin, like Hitler, cannot be kowtowed to, and the West is kowtowing. We show we fear him by forbidding Ukraine from using our bombs inside Russia. Putin, again like Hitler, must be faced down. The spectre of nuclear escalation is his power-play. There are claims that if we give Zelenskyy the go-ahead, Putin might use nuclear weapons.

Let’s be real: that could happen. But if we allow Putin to take Ukraine, the threat of nuclear escalation will return when he targets Poland or another eastern ally. If we keep capitulating, we’ll reach a stage where we’ve nothing left to use against Putin - no threats, or force - and it’ll be game over for European democracies.

Iran and North Korea supply Russia with missiles that hit Ukraine. China sells weapons technology to produce Russian missiles targeting Ukraine. Precedent exists. If they do it, so can we.

If this were a stand-up fight between two opponents, the West would be cheering on its friend Ukraine whilst simultaneously grabbing their arm to stop them defending themselves, as Russia kicked Kyiv in the head and allowed China, North Korea, and Iran to take free punches.

Russia doesn’t just need to lose. Putin must fall, and he needs to face the justice of Nuremberg. I’m a life-long opponent of capital punishment, but if Putin went to the gallows you’d hear no plea for mercy from me.

What makes matters even more frightening is that "closing door". If, come November, Trump returns to power, then it’s all over. Trump has a fetish for Putin, or perhaps Putin has some hold on Trump we’ve yet to divine. Certainly, the Kremlin is using every arm of the Russian state to spread disinformation to influence the election, as recent US investigations revealed.

But whatever the reason for his Kremlin idolatry, Trump will either allow Putin to slaughter Ukraine, or force Zelenskyy to capitulate by starving Kyiv of weapons.

The West would deserve to fall if that happened. If we cannot see the historic imperative here, then perhaps Russia and China should put their boots on our necks.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy (left) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrive at Kyiv train station yesterday before a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky (Image: PA)

There are grovelling fools aplenty in the West who back Putin. Ukraine started it, they say. Nato started it, they say. Lies. These people are trapped in some absurd paradigm where whatever the West does is wrong, where the West’s enemies are always right. The West is often wrong. But not over Ukraine.

These peopled would defend murderers caught standing over their victims. Ukraine is a sovereign country. It’s up to the Ukrainian people what the nation does, whether that’s applying for Nato or EU membership. It’s not the fault of the Ukrainians that Putin is a homicidal dictator who wants a Warsaw Pact-style buffer zone around the borders of the barbarous nation he’s forged.

Trump this week again failed to say that he supports Ukrainian victory. He’s already told Nato allies he’d let Putin attack us. America First means Europe alone. We don’t have the fire-power required to defend ourselves against Russia. We need America.

So the next two months are vital. Ukraine should be given the authority to hammer Russia. No civilians should be targeted but every military, industrial and strategic site must be.

Even should, God forbid, Trump return to power, some hope will remain if Kyiv can wound Russia brutally enough in the next two months - by using British and American weapons. To deny Kyiv the right to defend itself, and then watch Trump waltz into Washington, is tantamount to putting a noose around Ukraine’s neck, and then our own.

Neil Mackay is the Herald’s Writer at Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs and foreign and domestic politics.