I have been lucky. I’ve only been invaded once in my lifetime, and that was by my own Government. They sent their goons and Goebbels into my life and my home, put me under house arrest, and threatened me with life-changing fines and are still threatening me with incarceration if I mutter views contrary to theirs wherever anybody can hear or see.
Putin hasn’t tried to invade Britain – yet! So forgive me if the two minute hate hasn’t yet diverted my attention to the forever war being waged by Airstrip One on… I’ve forgotten who it is this week. Oh yes, Putin.
We’ve all been encouraged (strongly) to move on from the Covid era. All wrapped up. Done and dusted. Lessons will be learned.
Yes they will. By me. Ukraine is a sad, bloody distraction from problems closer to home, which will entail some of the previous restrictions being brought back under one guise or other the first chance that ‘they’ get. Covid was, in effect, an exercise. I’m much more worried about my lot than Putin in the near term. But then I never thought he would invade Ukraine, so what do I know? I’m not sure what drove him into this madness unless he’s not quite as strong internally as we are led to think. Galtieri invaded the Falklands because he was on shifting sands at home in Argentina and thought the best way to shore up his position was to venture abroad with his army. How did that end for him? Putin had most of what he wanted just by standing around on the border looking menacing. We will find out eventually, but in the meantime someone who was held in great esteem in his own country and had started to give Russia back a bit of self-confidence and hope appears to have spaffed the lot on an expensive, bloody and largely pointless war.
Let me declare an interest here. I’m fond of Russia and the Russians, with their sardonic brand of cynicism. It’s sort of in their DNA and probably stems from always being serfs to one kind of dictatorship or another throughout history. I’ve been going there, mostly for work, since August 1970, deep in the Soviet era. I was in my early 20s, and it was an adventure. Before we went we had a briefing from the ‘security services’ as to expectations. I was working for a state owned industry, and this was day one of a new agreement between the countries, so we were told that we would be treated as ‘agents of the state’. Followed, spied on in our rooms etc. Indeed we were. It was a game trying to trap the poor sod following you around Moscow. Nipping around corners and waiting flat against the wall as he puffed after you, followed by grins and exchanges of possible courtesies or otherwise in a few languages. I was once given a lift back to my hotel, the Ukraine Hotel as it happens, by the KGB followers. It was midnight in January and I was trying to get back after a night in the American embassy. The guys were in a car, and probably didn’t want to be accused of allowing their quarry to die of cold, so they just pulled up and said ‘get in’ in English. So I did, being mellow at the time. They drove me straight home without asking where, dropped me in front of the hotel and wished me a good night. I offed a few dollars but was turned down. The only time ever my dollars were refused in the Soviet Union.
I returned in 2009 after Putin and the Soviet breakup. I visited the old haunts, and had a coffee in Costa in the New Arbat, because it was such a contrast to my memory of the place. I also took a river cruise down from St Petersburg to Moscow. The locals were joking about the recent past by then. A bus tour in St Petersburg went past the old KGB headquarters. Putin was mentioned, as was the fact that you used to be able to see the snows of Siberia from the third floor if you invited for an interview there. I think it was metaphorical. Putin is an old Petersburg hand, as was his comrade Medvedev. They were taking it in turns to run Russia then before they managed to change the rules. The boat trip came complete with a lady professor of Russian history who lectured us on politics as well. She was available in the bar for liquid interrogation for the whole week. I had a lot of discussions with her about the changes since my Soviet days as we were of an age. Long story short, Putin was very popular then with his population, including the kids they had working on the boat during the university holidays as waiting staff and guides. There was great hope for the future under Putin.
I’m not sure it would be the same now. Everybody must know somebody who has been fed into the Ukraine meat grinder.
I digress. What are we told by our masters, by the Establishment political elites? Putin won’t stop here. He wants hegemony. He wants us under the boot, and we should all be very afraid and keep sending riches to the financial black hole that is Ukraine. What happens to the money after that is not explained. Indeed the escape velocity of money from said black hole would probably get it as far as the Cayman Islands, but no further. It could keep the Guardian’s owner’s tax money company there.
It’s taken three years for Putin to get a few miles inside a run-down country like Ukraine, but the Establishment still pushes the idea that Putin can roll over the rest of Europe like Guderian before he ran out of petrol. Forgive me if a pinch of Siberian salt is taken with that.
Compare and contrast, as they say, with what is happening in our corner of what is laughingly known as ‘the free world’.
That bastion of the democracy, the EU, currently in conniptions over being told its fortune by J.D. Vance, has a ghastly record of interfering in the lives of the ordinary people it rules. EU elites have interfered in election results in Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Italy, Austria, Romania, the Netherlands and more. They have disallowed results electing ‘populist’ parties. They have caused elections to be held again until the right result happens. They have fined or threatened to withhold funds to Romania, who produced the wrong government, and told Austria that it would be thrown out of the EU if the FPO election result wasn’t ‘contained’. The examples are legion. Hungary was made a pariah for democratically voting the wrong way.
And yet it’s Putin we are being told to fear. The likes of Tobias Ellwood keep us in fear on the radio. He’s right about miserable military spending, but wrong about the enemy. But then he is part of the 77th Brigade who demonised dissent during Covid and went after individuals who dared to oppose the establishment. If I’m wrong about him, then you would think he’d have done something about his Wiki entry:
Ellwood served in the Royal Green Jackets and reached the rank of captain. He transferred to the Army Reserve and has gone on to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel in the 77th Brigade.
Mind you, this is what Wiki says about this august organ and its founder:
The Daily Sceptic is a blog created by British commentator Toby Young. It has published misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and engaged in climate change denial.
The 77th and Tobias E haven’t gone away. Nor has the Blob. Nor has the EU. We are being inched towards reabsorption by a Government who would rather be able to shrug and pass decision-making onto a higher level, ever further away from the demos. The useless EU and its apparatchiks would love to do the same shrug and pass difficult decisions onto a still higher body, ever further away from the electorate. It’s coming. And it’s coming a lot faster than Putin is coming. Ask J.D. Vance.
James Leary is the pseudonym of a retired passenger jet pilot.
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Being originally from Eastern Europe, let me tell you what would happen if Putin invaded Britain.
Within days the entire woke elite would become staunch fans of Putin.
All the political careerists would suddenly discover a deep love for Vlad.
The police who currently knock on the doors of people for twitter comments, would love keep knocking on doors with renewed enthusiasm, this time for anti-Putin comments.
The Guardian would publish articles vocally extolling the virtues of Putinism and condemning anti-Russian sentiments.
It would really be a mostly smooth transition for the parasites who rule us; secretly they already envy Putin.
Is there something to say for one of us retirees going on Wikipedia each day and correcting any false information. I mean, Toby is a Lord
now!
“The 77th and Tobias E haven’t gone away. Nor has the Blob. Nor has the EU.”
The Daily Sceptic isn’t going away either (I hope), nor is Lord Young (ditto), the Team or the commenters.
Nor reality too. Time will tell whose reality is closer to Reality.
Yes he is.
How do we know this?
His men have committed cold blooded murder of a number of people including a British citizen on British soil, using enough Novichok to kill thousands.
He has even told us that he is our enemy:
‘Russia will have no allies in the denazification of Ukraine. Since this is a purely Russian business. And also because not just the Bandera version of Nazi Ukraine will be eradicated, but including, and above all, Western totalitarianism…’
“Peter the Great waged the great northern war for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned [what was Russia’s]…..it is also our lot to return [what is Russia’s] and strengthen [the country]. And if we proceed from the fact that these basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in solving the tasks that we face.”
Why is he engaged in adventurist expansionism?
Again, he has told us; demographic imperialism:
‘And, if you believe the forecasts and the estimates are based on actual work, the real work of people who understand this, who have devoted their whole lives to this, in 15 years, there may be 22 million fewer Russians. I ask you to think about this figure: a seventh of the country’s population. If the current trend continues, the nation’s survival will be in jeopardy’
Not our problem? Too far away?
Our forward defence strategy has always been designed to keep it that way.
Russia works on a different timescale to democracies. This struggle with Ukraine has been going on for centuries.
Russia is only making slow progress? Of course they are. They have been since the mid nineteenth century.
So, two options now
Head in the sand and see our freedom of action in domestic and foreign policy removed by a European superstate of 250 million encamped on the EU’s borders. Consider how that is already happening as a consequence of pressure from a superpower across the Atlantic and then consider which is preferable.
Or a radical reform and digitisation of the public sector to free up 5% of GDP for defence.
The choice is yours……
If I were you, Monro, I’d focus on enemies closer to home.
Seconded
Trust me, the British Government is far more of a threat than Putin will ever be.
Another seconded
More nonsense from Monro which is still an anagram of Moron.
Here are 3 articles describing why there is conflict in Ukraine and why it wasn’t the fault of Putin who is no threat to anyone.
They are from Joe Lauria a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London.
The US Needed Russia to Invade Ukraine.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/24/the-us-needed-russia-to-invade-ukraine/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=57b2c88e-4f77-4f01-86e9-ce4d6ede0b31
Yes, Ukraine Started the War.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/23/yes-ukraine-started-the-war/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=82f6d672-89d3-49b1-9d6d-a3f1a503b311
Why Putin Entered the War.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/24/why-putin-entered-the-war/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=82f6d672-89d3-49b1-9d6d-a3f1a503b311
To be fair, it WAS the fault of Putin, he chose to invade and got it wrong expecting a quick result.
BUT, it didn’t happen in a vacuum and could and should have been avoided.
I am undecided as to whether it was a genuine mistake by western powers that be, or a shockingly cynical piece of 3D chess.
As their stupidity is matched only by their cupidity, I suspect the former and then deep state/MIC opportunism to keep it going.
If you read CGW’s referred articles above I think you’d disagree with the likes of UVL, Johnson, the Democfats in the USA and all the other warmongering cretins who have done nothing but poke the Bear for decades.
Russia are the innocent party in all this as explained in this timeline of events by Joe Lauria, a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London.
“Without historical context, which is buried by corporate media, it’s impossible to understand Ukraine. Historians will tell the story, but journalists are cut short for trying to tell it now.” 25/02/2025
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/25/ukraine-timeline-tells-the-tale/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=beaffdd7-e3d2-4e35-bac1-01618fd34e43
I love the beginning of the Consortium News report:
The way to prevent the Ukraine war from being understood is to suppress its history. A cartoon version has the conflict beginning on Feb. 24, 2022 when Vladimir Putin woke up that morning and decided to invade Ukraine. There was no other cause, according to this version, other than unprovoked, Russian aggression against an innocent country.
Essentially everybody I know is convinced the “cartoon version” is true: Putin woke up that morning and decided to invade Ukraine; furthermore, they believe tomorrow he will invade the rest of Europe.
The power of mainstream media is stunning.
Quite agree.
The lack of “scepticism” even among the readers of The Daily Sceptic is also stunning.
Look at the panicked activity of European leaders just as a consequence of one or two speeches from the other side of the Atlantic.
How much greater, then, would be the panicked response to a triggering of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
‘…..“passportization” is one of the key processes Russia uses to quietly take over sovereign territory. “They used it in Abkhazia as well as in South Ossetia and Eastern Ukraine,” the officer said. “They hand out Russian passports to local people in order to extend their interests in the regions. When needed, they can use their compatriots’ rights as a justification to intervene with force.”
But the military response from Europe? That would be zero. Europe, as we have seen, with the exception of Poland (and their armoured divisions will stay in Poland) is, to all intents and purposes, defenceless. The actual response would be one of ingratiation, just as that has been the response to President Trump’s verbal hand grenades. Observe Hungary, Austria, Serbia, elements in the Czech republic, Slovakia, East Germany already. That is the way the wind is blowing.
So Britain is back, now, to the good old days of the ‘Entente Cordiale’
Remind me: how did that go?
If we don’t do anything (and, clearly, we aren’t going to do much) this is our future:
‘The President of the Russian Federation, acting in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation and federal laws, defines the main lines of the foreign policy, directs the county’s foreign policy and, as the head of State, represents the Russian Federation in international relations.’
The Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a subdivision of Putin’s Presidential Administration was established seven years ago. The directorate’s actual task is to exert control over neighbouring countries that Russia sees as in its sphere of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.
‘The realization by the states of Europe that there is no alternative to peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial equal cooperation with Russia, an increase in the level of their foreign policy independence and a transition to a policy of good neighbourliness with the Russian Federation will have a positive effect on the security and welfare of the European region and help European states take their proper place in the Greater Eurasian Partnership and in a multipolar world.’
‘The Russian Federation intends to build relations with other Anglo-Saxon states depending on the degree of their willingness to abandon their unfriendly course toward Russia and to respect its legitimate interests.’
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/fundamental_documents/1860586/
‘Its legitimate interests’
A Russian move on the Baltic States will trigger Article 5 and then……tumbleweed……followed by the ‘building of relations’ by means of Novichok.
Keep your chest of drawers under lock and key! The underpants poisoners are abroad!
Enjoy!
Novichok – is that the same novichok that Sally Davies the then Chief Medical Officer said we could wipe away with a wet wipe as it was so dangerous?
The European leaders were only crowing a short while ago about there being more NATO.
Now they have to work out how EU member states that were designed not to be able to fight a war of industrial production and manpower – the sort of war that is being fought in Ukraine – can do so.
Starmer’s GCSE jingoism will be enough to bamboozle most of the public that he is a strong leader. No one will ask if the defence spending will enable the UK to fight such a war of industrial production and manpower and what that would mean for them.
To be able to match Macron’s offer of a French nuclear umbrella over Europe with an Anglo-French one, Starmer would have to dust off the plans for Blue Streak.
Even the Guardian is now prepared to admit that encouraging Ukraine to believe she could achieve total victory was ‘misleading’. The Ukrainians were misled, partly by European leaders, into perpetuating the sort of war that the EU was designed to prevent – a war of ancient antagonism and revenge.
If Putin is so concerned about demographic collapse in Russia, it’s a self-defeating way of dealing with it by sending tens of thousands of young men to die on a foreign battlefield.
Russian governments have never much worried about casualties.
They have lost a few hundred thousand of the ‘poor people’ from the extremities.
Moscow and the middle classes are not much affected.
On the other hand, as I have indicated, Russia has gained about seven million from Ukraine.
It was the U.S. that encouraged Ukraine, willing the mission but not the means.
The U.S. strategy was made public: to weaken Russia.
That has succeeded so that Putin now needs a pause.
He may very well not get one.
Just picking up on one point:
‘Why is he engaged in adventurist expansionism?’
Wasn’t the USSR once eye-wateringly larger?
Any Mr P. expansionism is miniscule and can hardly be deemed successful.
I am much more concerned about the state-cabal/Uniparty/Blob masquerading as government in UK
Starmer again makes reference to the Salisbury poisonings. I am reminded of Craig Murray, former British diplomat, and his complete rubbishing of the official narrative of what happened. Something did take place but d-notices, hysteria et al have prevented the real story emerging. His original take down is still on his web site and defo worth reading.
This account by Tim Norman also does an excellent job of picking large holes in the establishment narrative of the ‘deadly Novichok poisonings’. https://propagandainfocus.com/the-salisbury-novichok-trail/
“I’m much more worried about my lot than Putin in the near term. But then I never thought he would invade Ukraine, so what do I know? I’m not sure what drove him into this madness unless he’s not quite as strong internally as we are led to think.”
Perhaps an article from someone who “does know” why Putin entered Ukraine would be more appropriate than the amusing musings from someone who doesn’t.
I have listed all the reasons for Russia’s SMO and why it was “justified” on this blog post.
https://classicrecords1.wixsite.com/the-sceptic/post/russia-were-justified-in-their-actions-against-ukraine
Authoritarians with radical policies have taken over the mainstream political parties of western countries.
Meanwhile a majority of the population are sleepwalking and continue to vote for the same parties, thinking it’s a vote for moderate, “centrist” policies, unaware that in reality they are supporting a radical, authoritarian agenda.
We are being dragged off a cliff by the deadweight of an idiotic public, too lazy and distracted to realise what is going on.
I really do not understand why people are not fully aware of the reasons for Putin to start his Special Military Operation (i.e. war) in Ukraine.
Putin has been in power for the past 25 years. Because he cleared out the oligarchs robbing the country of huge sums of money, because he cleared up the mess left by Yeltsin, because he gave Russians back a sense of pride in the country, because he was refused the option to align with the West but continued instead to economically uplift the country, because he stood fast against our own malignant forces in the West and because the most important concern for him is his country and its people, he is highly respected and never more so since he was forced to wage war against the whole Western world in Ukraine.
That said, Scott Ritter has described the attitude of Russians to their leader as being of very high regard but, nevertheless, “People have questions”.
The Western world was clearly told in 2008 that Ukraine becoming a member of NATO would be crossing a red line. The promises given to Russia that upon German unification NATO would expand “not one inch eastward” are clearly documented here: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early.
But NATO has clearly expanded very much eastward, even to now include Finland, facing Russia with a fait accompli that enemy missiles will be placed directly on Russia’s border, only a few minutes of flight time to Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
But Ukraine joining NATO was the threat that kicked off the SMO and who can argue that it was not justified, especially considering USA’s reaction to Khrushchev and the Cuban missile crisis?
But Putin also had a second reason for his SMO, namely the fact that the Ukrainian military was bombarding eastern Ukraine for purely “ethnic cleansing” reasons, which had already resulted in the death of at least 14,000 men, women and children. Ukraine was forbidding Ukrainians, primarily ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, to speak their own language or enjoy Russian culture: this despite the fact that Zelensky’s native tongue is Russian.
This has all been documented in literally hundreds of videos made by people like Patrick Lancaster, Eva Bartlett, Graham Phillips (sanctioned by UK), Alina Lipp and others on YouTube, Odysee, Rumble, etc., including videos proving that there was no coercion to vote in the referendums held in Crimea and the four previously Ukrainian districts which recently voted to join Russia.
So, is Putin the enemy? Certainly not: our enemy are the globalists leading most European countries.
Well said. All we get from NATO, Starmer et al is “Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine” when the reality is that he was severely provoked by NATO pushing east, against their word, coupled with the CIA-assisted Ukraine coup in 2014 which ousted the anti-NATO leader, followed by years of shelling and bombing of the ethnic Russians in the Donbas which killed many thousands.
The following 10-miinute clip by Jeffrey Sacks explains how this deep state skulduggery was started by Clinton back in 1994. For the US “it was a game, they thought they would win the game” but Trump has now put a stop to it all, leaving Europe “in a tizzy”: https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1892857808246177971.
And as the other article reveals, USAID is closely connected with the CIA so I will bet they played a part. I’m wondering if USAID played a part in the deaths of three African leaders who were critical of Lockdowns in 2020.
That Nicky the PC pundit on BBC Five Live mentioned a few times “Zelensky speaks Russian, so why would he ban it”…..They never read out TXTs that contradict the official narrative on most things, but I just pointed out the Strawman fallacy.
The reason is simple – same as with “covid”, Israel and global warming.
Propaganda via the likes of the BBC, Guardian etc..
Not sure how this article got past Ian Rons.
“I invited the leaders of our special services and the defence ministry to the Kremlin and set them the task of saving the life of the president of Ukraine, who would simply have been liquidated…..We finished about seven in the morning. When we were parting, I told all my colleagues, ‘We are forced to begin the work to bring Crimea back into Russia’.”
Putin 2015
‘approximately two million Crimeans who received Russian citizenship after the annexation in 2014. It also fails to mention the over 2.8 million Ukrainians who had to move to Russia since the beginning of the invasion, the more than one million people from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions who had to move to Russia over the last eight years of war
Now, the Kremlin uses forcefully displaced Ukrainians to refill the population pool with educated, predominantly Slavic, Russian-speaking new citizens. It is no coincidence that Putin repeats that Ukrainians do not exist as a separate nation — they, according to him, should be integrated into Russian citizenship but in a specially designed category as “second-class” citizens.
in Russia people stay childless because they simply cannot afford to have children.’
‘According to UN data from the beginning of the invasion, more than 2.8 million Ukrainians had to cross the Russian border, lacking almost any possibility of leaving the occupied territories to the Ukrainian side. But the Russian authorities proudly announced numbers almost twice as high at 5.3 million, among them 738,000 children’
‘Troublingly, the new manipulations of Russian citizenship reach far beyond Ukrainians alone. The amendments to the citizenship law also allow Putin to expand the categories of people eligible for simplified acquisition of citizenship, including “citizens of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Ukraine.” The inclusion of these many other countries marks out the horizons of the Kremlin’s imperialist ambitions.’
Sasha Talaver Apr 2023
The horizons, perhaps, but not the likely extent.
“Peter the Great waged the great northern war for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned [what was Russia’s]…it is also our lot to return [what is Russia’s] and strengthen [the country]. And if we proceed from the fact that these basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in solving the tasks that we face.”
Putin 2022
There will be no ‘home’ if we don’t get this right:
‘We would do well to remember that the adage about defence being the first duty of Government has been forged by events, and we ignore the lessons of history at our peril. The world remains a dangerous and unstable place, and a growing number of countries that are not necessarily friendly to the west are not only rearming at an alarming rate, but becoming more assertive. We need to spend more on defence not only to better protect our interests and support key alliances, but to deter potential aggressors and ensure that we try to avoid conflict in future.
The motion calls on the Government to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence, in line with our NATO commitment. Defence spending as a share of GDP has been falling in recent years, and it is widely believed that Britain will shortly fall below the 2% figure.
We all know that 2% is an arbitrary figure; spending should reflect desired capability. I believe that defence spending should be much more than 2%—I suggest 3% to 4%. But the 2% figure does have symbolic value. Having lectured other NATO members about its importance, we should lead by example.
In short, we need to rediscover the political will for strong defence, and that political will transcends the political divide here. Some demons may need to be vanquished first, most notably our recent misguided military interventions, which have probably distracted us from greater dangers, but banished those demons must be. That we have the political will to ring-fence the international aid budget at 0.7% of GDP suggests that such will can be found; it is simply a question of priorities.
We have in this country, I believe, a political disconnect that needs to be put right. None of the main parties seems to question that Britain has global interests and needs to remain a global power, both to protect them and to uphold our international obligations as a member of NATO and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Yet the political establishment, across the political divide, appears unwilling properly to resource these commitments.’
‘two of the most chilling interventions in recent weeks have been, first, from the chief of staff of the American army, who said that he thought that a diminished UK defence capability would serve not alongside, but as part of, an American division;’
Hansard 2015
And still we did nothing…..
In a spirit of helpfulness:
https://www.lang.ox.ac.uk/russian
The USA decided that the UK was not going to be a global power in 1956.
The UK’s armed forces, like those of European countries, have been fashioned to act as a colonial police force alongside American forces in Washington’s global interests. They weren’t much good even at that.
European leaders liked to think they were equal partners with Washington. Now they find that they were always subordinates, flattered so long as they were necessary, and now dismissed by the deputy of the new sheriff in town. The posse is required elsewhere.
British Armed Forces liberated Oman, the Falklands, Sierra Leone in recent memory.
The British Army and the Royal Marines deterred an attack on Kuwait in the 1960s.
We had a decent defence spend then. It gave us the leverage that we now need overseas to exploit the freedoms of Brexit.
We may be proud of our past but the days of the British Empire are long gone. And we do not need a strong military to enjoy the benefits of Brexit: we need good diplomats and entrepreneurs who are willing to establish business partnerships in all parts of the world, without imposing ridiculous conditions or restrictions (e.g. demanding adherence to Net Zero policies).
I think we are expected to spend our increased defence budget on US produced armaments too. Do we have much of an armaments industry left to compete with US?
Unfortunately yes! Britain puts the arms in armageddon, defence, weapons manufacturing is worth billions to the uk.
We’re the second biggest supplier of arms in the world!
“All wrapped up. Done and dusted. Lessons will be learned”
Yes they need an iron grip on the social media platforms this time, and that is what I believe they are planning to do with the Online “Safety” Act, and the off-communists.
As for a Russian threat, I agree it is far fetched. Unless you are talking about hypersonic & intercontinental ballistic missiles, we are surrounded by an ocean and would’ve been a dangerous job for the Germans during WW2 considering we concreated most of the landing areas and, of course, and a modern Air Force. Maybe the Russians could join the dinghy divers and infiltrate that way.
Actually I suspect “they” are already here and working for Amazon learning the lie of the land so to speak.
It is not necessary to occupy a country in order to subvert its political process.
How much autonomy did Warsaw Pact countries have before 1990?
That is where we are heading.
Because, fear not, we will not recreate the conventional deterrent that we had until the mid 1990s.
The MoD will fudge it with a handful of ruinously expensive drones….you know they will…..
Who decided this post-Second World War arrangement in Europe?
Churchill together with Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta. Churchill willingly gave part of eastern Poland to Russia as part of this peace settlement, even though Britain had gone to war to preserve Poland’s territorial integrity.
It was a British prime minister and an American president who agreed that Russia should have her sphere of influence over half of Europe, knowing what that would mean for the people of those countries. Churchill also agreed to a cruel forced population transfer of millions of people, inflicting immense suffering on tens of thousands of women and children. That’s the sort of thing that our post-war peace was founded on.
The United States agreed it. Eisenhower could have got to Berlin before the Russians.
Churchill was voted out by the electorate. Roosevelt died.
‘We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout the British Empire are not valid in a considerable number of countries, some of which are very powerful. In these States control is enforced upon the common people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments. The power of the State is exercised without restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged party and a political police. It is not our duty at this time when difficulties are so numerous to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries which we have not conquered in war. But we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law’
‘From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone – Greece with its immortal glories – is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control’
Churchill
That is happeninin now in East Ukraine. It may happen here.
Enjoy!
Peace is breaking out!
It’s so unusual after decades of the centrists’ forever wars that some have withdrawal symptoms. They need their fixes of conscription or newspaper articles describing flights of Russian aircraft that have been a regular feature since the 1960s as if they were the Battle of Britain. Journalism that should be as embarrassing to print as it should be to write.
Peace is a very long way from breaking out.
Grandstanding on the world stage is one thing. There is huge animosity between U.S. and Russian negotiators at a working level.
So good luck with peace. A triumph of hope over experience.
It will only, at best, be a pregnant pause.
With 10 Votes in Favour, 5 Abstentions, Security Council Adopts Resolution 2774 (2025) Mourning Loss of Life, as Russian Federation’s Invasion of Ukraine Enters Fourth Year: https://press.un.org/en/2025/sc16005.doc.htm.
On Monday, USA, China and Russia all voted at the UN Security Council for a resolution that called for a quick end to the war in Ukraine: USA + China + Russia, all voting together!
The headless chicken Europeans, who had voted against the same resolution in the General Assembly in the morning, had the decency to abstain, rather than vote against the resolution at the Security Council.
Trump made that possible.
Sorry, the 4th paragraph should have been the 3rd. Trump made it possible that USA voted in unison with Russia and China. I wonder when that last happened at the UN?
Glad to see the skeptic shifting the Overton window towards the view that is known as honesty. As for “Russia has only gone a few miles”, check out the battle of Bakhmut where essentially he used the dregs of Wagner to crush the main body of the Ukrainian army.
spoiler alert, Russia is in no rush and it does not want to kill civilians which is why only around 12,000 have been killed, but about 1 million Ukrainian military. Russia moves slowly because it doesn’t need to move quickly. It has no ambitions to invade anywhere else. It simply wants the Yanks to pack up and go home which they are finally doing. That is because Russia has won.
So Ellwood was part of the 77th with their pernicious Covid propaganda. Thanks for that news.
Ukraine agreed the US minerals/economic security deal. President Trump, when asked what they get for that, replied: “$350bn, lots of military equipment, and the right to fight on.” Is that the abandonment of the country? Michael Every.
Russia is a failed state with no succession mechanism, and will fall further when Putin passes away.
I too feel sorry for the Russian people, but Putin is a dictator and so takes the blame both for murdering Ukrainians as well as Russians. He is a murdering bastard and everything he does is destructive. The fact or Russia’s demographics is not necessarily positive for us because he has nukes.
If I was a parent whose child had just been killed by a Russian missile in a Ukrainian city, would I be worrying about history ? If Russia stopped fighting there would be no war
I think the writer of this self indulgent piece is claiming that the EU is more of a threat to us than Putin is. Putin is less predictable, and potentially vastly more expensive to contain. Oh, and a nasty, vicious bastard.