Joe Biden telling Ukraine not to strike inside Russia is ridiculous, says Grant Shapps

TELLING Ukraine not to blitz targets inside Russia is “ridiculous”, Britain’s Defence Secretary says.

Grant Shapps criticised US President Joe Biden over his demands Kyiv halt strikes on Vladimir Putin’s oil refineries.

Mr Shapps told The Sun’s new World At War show on YouTube: “You can’t tell Ukraine, ‘you can’t attack the infrastructure of the country who are attacking you’.”

“I mean, that would be ridiculous.”

He admitted Britain’s stance was “punchier” than other allies, adding: “We’ve always been quite forward leaning on this.”

Ukraine has hit multiple targets deep inside Russia, including oil refineries.

Last week, a suspected Ukrainian drone strike hit the Omsk Oil Refinery in southwest Russia.

The alleged sabotage attack sparked a huge inferno that destroyed one of Putin's trains.

The barrage of attacks on the oil facilities has forced Russia to halt oil exports and even import from Belarus as a result of the attacks on its facilities.

But the US fears the strikes will ramp up global fuel prices — possibly damaging Biden’s re-election hopes.

US General Mark Milley said in May: “We asked Ukraine not to use US-supplied equipment for direct attacks into Russia.”

White House spokesman John Kirby said at the time: “We have made it very clear to the Ukrainians what our expectations are about attacking Russia – we don’t want to encourage or enable that.”

But yesterday, Latvia’s foreign minister Baiba Braze said Ukraine had received weapons shipments from other nations with no such strings attached.

Baiba Braže told Ukrainian journalists: “There are already countries that have provided those weapons without conditions to Ukraine.”

She added: “Not everything is said aloud, and better that it’s not.”

Elsewhere in his World at War interview, Mr Shapps described the devastation on Ukraine's frontlines as a "meat grinder".

Earlier this week, UK intelligence said 450,000 Russia soldiers had been killed or wounded in Ukraine - an average of 560 troops per day since he unleashed his bloodbath over two years ago.

Mr Shapps said Vladimir Putin doesn't care how many troops he sends in to be shot down - or how many Ukrainians die.

The Defence Secretary warned if Putin does win the war, the despot will not stop at Ukraine.

And a defeat for Kyiv would tell the growing axis of evil between Russia, China and Iran that the "West can be beaten".

He told The Sun's World at War show: "If Putin were to win that war, he wouldn't stop in Ukraine. He'd carry on.

"He's talked about other areas that he thinks should be part of Greater Russia, basically the old Soviet Union...

"Other autocratic leaders around the world would look at this and go: 'Well, the West can be beaten'. You just have to carry on for a couple of years and we all give in."

And in the face of what Mr Shapps called an increasingly "assertive" China, he asked: "So, what does that mean for Taiwan?"

But first and foremost, he said the UK is focused on ";making sure that Ukraine gets what it needs to win this war... [If] we stand up to bullies, the world is a better place. And that is what we are doing here."

Referencing last week's pledge to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030, Mr Shapps argued that we now live in "more dangerous times".

"It is a time of war in Europe, a major conflict in the Middle East, a much more assertive China, North Korea, [a possibly] nuclear-armed Iran creating all of those problems regionally...these are more dangerous times."

Mr Shapps also called Putin's escalating threats against the West "outrageous" and blasted the tyrant for not caring how many of his troops die in his brutal war in Ukraine.

He argued: "He doesn't care how many people he murders. He doesn't care how many people go through the meat grinder of a frontline."