London:

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is meeting US President Joe Biden for talks on the next steps in supporting Ukraine, centring on whether to allow Western missiles to be used to hit targets in Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles including long-range US ATACMS and British Storm Shadows deep into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.

The New York Times reported, citing European officials, that the United States looks set to approve the use by Ukraine of long range missiles against targets in Russia on the condition that the weapons were not those provided by the United States.

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the West would be directly fighting with Russia if it allowed Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western-made long-range missiles, a move he said would alter the nature and scope of the conflict.

Focus now turns to talks in Washington after a joint fact-finding trip to Kyiv by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy earlier this week during which both allies offered new support for Ukraine, but no commitment on the missile use.

On Wednesday Lammy suggested discussions could continue beyond Friday, tempering expectations of a solid announcement from Starmer’s Washington visit.

In remarks made on his way to Washington, reported by British media travelling with him, Starmer said:

“We will, of course, be talking about many things in the round, but this is not a sort of a series of individual decisions that we want to arrive at. It is making sure that all the decisions we made are within the strategic context.”
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Paris:

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer Saturday brushed off the fascination with a viral image taken at the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony showing him as the only dignitary not wearing a protective plastic poncho during driving rain.

Starmer was pictured as the only person bare-headed as other VIPs opted to encase themselves in plastic hand-out ponchos to protect themselves from the rain that blighted Friday’s opening ceremony on the River Seine.

The image was widely shared on social media, with users seeing the picture as a classic example of a very British stiff upper lip in the face of the inclement weather all to familiar to residents of the famously drizzly country.

“It’s British! We are used to the rain,” Starmer told French channel LCI in an interview.

“But it (the rain) didn’t dampen the spirits,” he added, describing the opening ceremony as a “spectacular” and “fantastic” event that made “the whole use of the river (and) of Paris.”

Starmer, elected earlier this month in a landslide election victory for the centre-left Labour Party that ended 14 years of right-wing Conservative rule, was making his first official visit to Paris as premier.

“Nothing more British than absolutely refusing to wear one of those plastic poncho things,” wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter.

Rain has had considerable symbolism in British politics in recent weeks.

When he called the general election, Conservative former prime minister Rishi Sunak was widely mocked for delivering his address outside 10 Downing Street in pouring rain without a coat or an umbrella.

Starmer was however wearing a navy blue Team GB rain-proof jacket and in other images could also be seen using its hood to protect his hair from the rain. 

“Preparation is the key to success,” the Labour Party wrote on X as it posted one of these images.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)