Biden Says Putin Won’t Retaliate If Washington Lets the Ukraine Use Long-Range Missiles to Strike Russia

Vladimir Putin is a psychopathic mad man hellbent on world domination, simply because he enjoys causing suffering because he hates democracy and freedom.

But look, you also gotta remember that he’s a really chilled out and reasonable guy, and you can basically just go into his country and kill everyone and he will just sit back and relax.

He won’t ever do anything.

The Guardian:

Joe Biden dismissed sabre-rattling threats made by Vladimir Putin as the US president met with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House on Friday.

Biden said he did not accept that Ukraine using western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow.

At a foreign policy summit on Friday afternoon, Biden said: “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin.”

Biden and Starmer’s top foreign policy teams were meeting at the Blue Room in the White House. At the start of the meeting, James Matthews from Sky News jumped the gun by asking Biden: “What do you say to Vladimir Putin’s threat of war?”

Biden scolded him. “You be quiet, I’m going to speak, OK?” the president said, before beginning his prepared remarks.

Also present at the Blue Room meeting were Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary. Other British participants included Tim Barrow, the national security adviser, and Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray.

Starmer flew over from London on Thursday for the working meeting amid escalating tensions with the Kremlin after the UK had indicated that the US had agreed to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to bomb Russia.

After the summit, Starmer said the meeting was not about a particular decision on Storm Shadow. “Well, we’ve had a long and productive discussion on a number of problems, including Ukraine, as you’d expect, the Middle East, and the Indo Pacific, talking strategically about tactical decisions,” he said.

However, Biden indicated the topic was under discussion between the leaders and their teams. In response to a shouted question asking how soon he was prepared to let Ukraine fire missiles deeper into Russia, Biden said: “We’re going to discuss that now.”

The British Storm Shadow missiles, made by a European company, can strike targets at least 190 miles away and Ukraine wants to use them to bomb airbases, missile sites and other military targets in the Russian heartlands.

Earlier, Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage.

Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on Friday that it had acted on documents showing that part of the Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine.

Lovely narrative.

It just makes so much sense.