No change to US policy on long-range missiles to Ukraine expected Friday, White House says

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is not planning to announce any new policy on Ukraine and the use of long-range missiles on Friday, the White House said.

"There is no change to our view on the provision of long range strike capabilities for Ukraine to use inside of Russia," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters. "I would not expect any major announcement in that regard," from discussions between U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday, Kirby said.

Biden and Starmer will meet at the White House on Friday afternoon.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles including long-range U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadows deep into Russia.

Kirby said that the US was taking seriously Russian President Vladimir Putin's warning he would consider the West directly involved in the conflict if Ukraine fired Western-made long range missiles into Russia, but that it was not a new stance from Putin.

"This is not rhetoric that we haven't heard from him before," Kirby said. "He has obviously proven capable of aggression...so, yeah we take these comments seriously."

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Heather Timmons; editing by Susan Heavey and Deepa Babington)