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Joe Biden's delay in sanctioning the use of western weapons against targets in Russia has left the Kremlin's forces laughing at Ukraine and able to "hunt" its people, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told the Guardian.
In a wide-ranging interview in Kyiv, the Ukrainian president said that the White House's equivocation had cost lives and he urged the US president to overcome his perennial worries about possible nuclear "escalation" with Moscow.
On Thursday night it emerged that, after months of lobbying, the US had taken a small but symbolic step – and for the first time would permit some American made weapons to be used by Kyiv's military to fire inside Russia in its defence of the city of Kharkiv.
But in his Guardian interview, Zelenskiy made clear he needs to be able to use "powerful" long range weapons that can hit targets inside deep Russian territory – a red line the White House has refused to lift.
The US, he said, needed to "believe in us more".
Without this green light, Zelenskiy said other allies, such as the UK, may not allow Ukraine to use their long range weapons either. "Believe us, we have to respond. They don't understand anything but force. We are not the first and not the last target," he said of Russia.
"I think it is absolutely illogical to have [western] weapons and see the murderers, terrorists, who are killing us from the Russian side. I think sometimes they are just laughing at this situation," he said. "It's like going hunting for them. Hunting for people. They understand that we can see them, but we cannot reach them."
Zelenskiy also said:
- New US weapons had still not arrived in sufficient quantities to equip additional Ukrainian brigades in the north-east, where Russia is advancing.
- Vladimir Putin was similar to Adolf Hitler, saying: "Putin is not crazy. He's dangerous, which is much scarier."
- He had asked the former British prime minister Boris Johnson to lobby Donald Trump in the run-up to a vote in the US Congress in April to approve $61bn in aid to Ukraine, which hard-right Republicans had opposed.
- The UK Labour leader, Keir Starmer, whom he met in Kyiv last year, was a "good guy". He added, after a pause: "Rishi [Sunak] is also a good guy."
Speaking inside his presidential headquarters, Zelenskiy made clear he wanted to use long-range weapons such as the UK-made Storm Shadow missiles.
He said that, despite reports to the contrary, the UK has not given "100% permission" to do so. Thursday's shift is unlikely to change the position either.
In reality, Downing Street waits on the Americans, Zelenskiy suggested. "We raised this issue twice. We did not get confirmation from him [David Cameron, the foreign secretary]," he explained.
"No one is accusing anyone," he said. "We are where we are. We are fighting, and we are at war, and not at the beginning. That's why we need to find a way out of the situation every day."
Zelenskiy noted that western countries at peace had "different priorities" and, understandably, did not share Ukraine's sense of existential urgency. This meant that "dialogue" rather than action could be frustrating.
"For us, time is our life," he said. "If you don't go down in a minute [to a bomb shelter] you can be dead. Therefore the attitude to time is completely different."
That explains things then, UK said they gave permission for Ukraine to use their weapons on Russian soil but they left out the part where Storm Shadow specifically isn't allowed, the UK is annoyingly waiting for America to lift the restriction on ATACMS first, I really don't see the difference, it's all Russia. Frustrating. Appreciate the unbanning but it needs to be all the way, not one foot in the door. There's only like one airbase within range of the current restrictions.
