British fighter jets will police the skies above Ukraine under proposals being discussed by Sir Keir Starmer’s coalition of the willing.
The Telegraph understands that key military planners discussed sending British Typhoons to Ukraine to provide air cover for troops when they met at Permanent Joint Headquarters on Thursday.
It comes as Emmanuel Macron explores alternatives to his plan with Sir Keir Starmer to put European boots on the ground to protect a future peace deal in Ukraine.
We really, really, don’t want to go to war.
Sigh.
A manned, or crewed if you like, military aircraft has low survivability in the modern combat zone. If British fighter jets merely patrol the skies in a sort of send a gunboat peacekeeping role, fair enough. If those fighter jets engage in combat they become fair game and the low survivability rule applies.
Southerner, I would suggest that the Russkies would see UK / NATO jets flying anywhere over Ukraine as fair game.
Jeffrey Sachs described the UK as thinking they still run the world whilst being more like the Black Knight in The Holy Grail after he’d lost his arms and legs…….
Don’t want to go to war?
I rather think they do. I doubt it’s quite as trivial as merely wanting to get Keir into khaki. But on the other hand, I doubt whatever reasoning does exist is much better than that.
Remember Sunak’s national conscription plan?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/20/putin-fears-our-nuclear-weapons-insists-starmer/
Nowhere near as much as I fear Putin’s or more to the point the possibility of TTK actually doing something really stupid (admittedly unlikely, he’s all talk except when it comes to locking people up).
DJT summed it up, “my red button is bigger, and it works”. I don’t recall hearing many subsequent threats by little rocket man.
Every prime minister needs a war to make their name.
With what planes? We don’t have enough for our current demands, let alone new ones 🙁
1. Exactly how many fighters can the RAF put up into the sky these days.
2. How many of our Trident missiles actually work ?
@John
Putin fears our nuclear weapons, insists Starmer
Maybe he does, but not in the context of war in Ukraine. We are not going to start lobbing nuclear bombs at Russia to deter them from capturing small towns in the east of Ukraine. Towns i.e. towns that were part of the USSR prior to 26 December 1991.
It would be a terrible shame if one of Putin’s unstoppable hypersonic missiles were to find its way to Westminster.
There is no longer any part of our armed forces that can fight a peer for more than a week or so. To go sabre-rattling you need at least the semblance of a sabre.
I’m sure our Typhoons could put up a decent fight in air-to-air combat over Ukraine, but in fact there is little air-to-air, just missiles from the ground. Hostage to fortune. Just like the boots on the ground.
War is always a cracking excuse to implement a command economy, suspend democracy and impose a “Government of National Unity”. Now that Nut Zero is falling apart there’s going to have to be some other reason to oppress us. Look at what Attlee did post-WW2. Nearly Commie nirvana.
There’ll be some frothing gussets in Westminster right now.
Air patrols are the least efficient way of employing fighter aircraft
As discovered by the Germans in WW2
Decent surface to air missile systems are far more effective, especially if layered
The coalition of the willing has withered and died, the boots on the ground have shrivelled to nothing and this latest nonsense is just a puff of smoke which will dissipate on the breeze.
We really, really, don’t want to go to war.
No, we don’t, but the Establishment of every Western European country seems desperate to do so. As Norman says, war is a useful distraction – the rise of the Nationalist Right and the dual disasters of mass third-world immigration and net zero are leading European peoples to rebel against the status-quo; what better than a nice little war to quiet the masses?
Interested @ 8.40, hopefully it’ll be a Topol warhead which would flatten Westminster and do damage out just past Stratford.
70 miles away, I should be relatively safe…..
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
I’m a bit closer in than that, so I’ll be Fiddling on the Roof.
Though I long ago promised myself that I’d never read another book on WWI or WWII or The Holocaust, I have been reading a Christmas present about different historians’ accounts of the genesis of WWI.
Sir Greased Piglet reminds me of the Italian PM who did huge damage to his countrymen for no good reason.
At least there isn’t such a chump as Kaiser Bill on the scene – not even Putin. If anyone fitted that role it was whoever was US President in 2014. That’d be – oh, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Did you ever?
Norman said:
“War is always a cracking excuse to implement a command economy, suspend democracy”
Also locking up your opponents or banning their parties; I’m expecting to see more about spurious links between Nigel and Russia, prior to preventing Reform from standing.
“British fighter jets will police the skies above Ukraine under proposals being discussed by Sir Keir Starmer’s coalition of the willing.”
I’m sure they are discussing lots of fun things, and making sure we all read about it. But nothing will happen without Trump and Putin agreeing it, and everyone knows that.
Future lease deals in Ukraine will involve only two people, Putin and Trump, both of whom can control the situation.
Third parties butting in is most likely to destabilise the situation.
Currently, nobody has air-superiority over Ukraine… and there are Russian troops in Ukraine territory. If the Euro-lunatics want their planes to provide air-cover for the “boots on the ground”, it’s reasonable to suppose that Russia will want their planes to provide air-cover for their troops.
Meanwhile what will the Ukrainian air-force be doing? It isn’t very active because… it doesn’t have air-superiority over Ukraine and its planes easily shot down. Will it during this ceasefire be providing air-cover for its troops?
So with all these planes stooging around, helicopters, drones, anti-aircraft missile systems… Oh, Oh, Oh, what a lovely war.
‘But nothing will happen without Trump and Putin agreeing it, and everyone knows that.’
It’s certainly comforting to think that bookending the clowns who govern Yurp and Britain there are two serious men talking turkey.
But according to Dan Hannan, the RAF is currently acting as Romania’s air force. Did you vote for that? I know I didn’t. Any more than I voted for British soldiers operating in Ukraine for the last decade.
Pretty sure none of this was on the ballot.
– I’m sure they are discussing lots of fun things, and making sure we all read about it. But nothing will happen without Trump and Putin agreeing it, and everyone knows that.
Exactly, except the everyone knows bit. Everyone should know that. Exciteable chatter is what this nonsense is designed to provoke, if not the precise variety on show here. Europeans should shut the fuck up and use the proper diplomatic channels behind the scenes. John Bolton has been warning the Europeans against “go it alone” showboating as it will simply invite Trump to say off you jolly well go then.
BTW, I was against “UK peacekeepers” in rump Ukraine when it was Trump’s idea and I’ll still be against it if it becomes his idea again. Let him secure his own arrangements.
Who or what do we think may have caused the transformer explosion that has closed Heathrow? Is it another Nordstream?
“another Nordstream?” What, you mean the Yanks? To what end?
– Who or what do we think may have caused the transformer explosion that has closed Heathrow? Is it another Nordstream?
Not much point speculating on that at this stage except for fun. Wheee!
We do know for a fact that there was no effective backup supply for the airport.
No, not the Yanks, but an explosion to make a point.
“Now that Nut Zero is falling apart there’s going to have to be some other reason to oppress us. Look at what Attlee did post-WW2. Nearly Commie nirvana.”
I don’t think the 1945 Labour government used the ‘Soviet threat’ as a reason for nationalising everything that moved, they were quite happy to argue its necessity based purely in and of itself. Socialism was still seen as ‘the future’ in many circles, they didn’t need an excuse to try to implement it.
That’s not what I meant, Jim. WW2 had given Attlee the command economy and societal strictures he needed, and he made full use of them in 1945. He even nationalised road haulage, FFS. The sunlit socialist uplands were merely the carrot.
And let’s not forget that most of our current social problems are rooted in Attlee. Exhibit A: The NHS. Exhibit B: “National Insurance”. Apart from Blair he’s the most damaging PM since the war.
Trying a little Heathrow speculation here, perhaps someone better informed can tell me if it’s bollocks. What if Heathrow’s onsite biomass generation, all 1.8 MW of it, failed for soem reason. LHR then starts drawing far more than the usual amount of power through its connection to the grid. The local substation isn’t ready for that annd maybe isn’t sized for it either. Pop. And pop to the next substaton too. Is that a reasonable scenario? Or did mad bad Vlad come over himself and do it? Extinction Rebellion/Just stop oil more likely, so proud of it but afraid to claim responsibility?
“National Insurance” wasn’t Attlee – it was Lloyd George before WWI. I dare say Attlee’s fiddling with it made it worse, but he’d didn’t introduce it.
It’s striking how little of the Welfare State was introduced – as opposed to expanded or reformed – by Attlee’s post-war government.
As far as I know, however, some of the maddest economic acts were pure Attlee: nationalising gas works and road haulage for instance. Utterly loonie.
And coal and steel and the railway. All of which needed capital for investment, but after nationalisation they were all competing for government money. Competing with welfare and defence and the NHS for money from the same pot. Government never was able to invest on a long-term basis because of Events. And all were managed for next week’s headlines, devoid of target or plan.
All this furious semblance of activity is a LARP. They’re pretending to be relevant to the US-Russia negotiations when they’re at the kiddie table, and pretending to have won a victory against Putin somehow when Putin is getting everything he wants:
Sir Keir added: “It is vitally important we do that work because we know one thing for certain, which is a deal without anything behind it is something that Putin will breach.
“We know that because it happened before. I’m absolutely clear in my mind it will happen again.”
But it wasn’t Russia that broke the Minsk agreements, Western countries have already boasted they tricked Russia into signing a ceasefire to arm Ukraine for war with Russia.
However, embarrassing delusions seem to be a Great British trait now:
While all nations across Europe have the ability to send fighter jets, only the US and France can send airborne early warning and control aircraft that provide critical surveillance, including detection of missiles.
However, the RAF source said “the British Army and RAF will be part of the first vanguard into Ukraine”.
“The Brits will likely be one of the first nations to commit because everyone follows the Brits,”
Mate, you can’t even persuade young British men to “follow the Brits” into war in Eastern Europe, because the RAF hates white men and everyone knows that now. There’s zero public support for any of this shit, and if you do have a war the Russians will simply kill you all.
Good luck!
Maybe he does, but not in the context of war in Ukraine. We are not going to start lobbing nuclear bombs at Russia to deter them from capturing small towns in the east of Ukraine. Towns i.e. towns that were part of the USSR prior to 26 December 1991.
So were Dresden, Leipzig, parts of Berlin, Prague etc.
Are you saying that gives Putin the right to invade, destroy the place, torture and rape women, kidnap children and execute men as he pleases?
BiND – Are you saying that gives Putin the right to invade, destroy the place, torture and rape women, kidnap children and execute men as he pleases?
Is that a fair description of the Ukrainian civil war? Or a Strutting Prussians bayoneting Belgian babies type propaganda angle? A lot of Ukrainians have voted with their feet and moved to Russia. Why seek asylum in a country that’s all about torture-raping you?
If Russia is raping and torturing its way across Eastern Europe, all the more reason to stop the war? Unless Russia is Mordor and, as per Two Tier, congenitally incapable of abiding by agreements. The logical implication of what the British prime minister is saying is that it’s impossible to have any kind of lasting peace with Russia.
Is it possible we live in a world where both sides in a Slavic brother war tell outrageous lies in support of their causes? There’s plenty of excitable Russians who seem to believe anything short of complete conquest of Kiev will be another Betrayal Most Foul by that wishy-washy liberal, Putin.
Can we now, after 3 years of this war, take a step back from the emotional propaganda and look at it objectively? It’s been a disaster for European civilisation.
Lefty Europeans,. especially lefty Brits, are sitting the biggest reverse ferret and memory holing of all time at the moment.
You may remember that the whole Ukraine shebang was caused by NATO aggression, expanding to the borders of peaceable little Russia. What’s a poor dictator supposed to do?
Then the U.S. had an election, had a bit of a think about it and “Fuck you Europe, I’m off. Go look after yourself. “And Europe thought”Well, that’s just vulgar. The Yanks can’t do that. But nevermind, because it turns out military capability, which we we thought was nom-existent, is in fact the greatest the world has ever known. Let’s tell Trump to back off Canada OR ELSE. And he can back off Greenland or face our mighty. And Russia. Well Russia’s gonna get blockaided.and Kaliningrad gets starved out.”
For the truth of this, just visit the Tax Research UK blog. Common sense rules over there.
Oh yes, and fuckin’ shoot me. Shoot me dead.
Looks is if you weren’t far wide of the mark, rhoda:
https://archive.ph/siYvd
Luxury beliefs fuck up at least 130,000 passengers today, more for the next few days, crash airlines’ market caps and cause a load of people to lose a load of money. That might concentrate some minds.
Ironman – the whole Ukraine shebang was caused by NATO aggression, expanding to the borders of peaceable little Russia. What’s a poor dictator supposed to do?
You may remember me asking, some years before the war, why we were handing out nuclear war guarantees to the likes of North Macedonia?
Did expanding NATO make us more secure? If so, how? Wrt to Ukraine our “security guarantees” have proven to be less than worthless. They were led along a primrose path to their country getting a lot smaller and poorer – and still no NATO membership. But at least a lot of young Russian women became widows, eh? According to war fans, that’s a benefit.
Would we blame Ukrainians if they feel deceived and betrayed by the West? This is the geopolitical equivalent of convincing the div kid to fight the school bully, then standing back and watching while he gets flattened.
Re: Heathrow
I blame DEI
A lot of what Ironman says is right. The EU engineered a coup in Ukraine, Vlad felt threatened and took the opportunity to salami slice the country and annexed Crimea. In so doing, he becomes a hero at home as the Russkis maintained that the Crimea has always been Russian.
Like the Austrian Painter, Vlad discovered that he was up against paper tigers and could continue slicing.
The time to do anything was 10 years ago. I said at the time, that Vlad would go the next step.
As a result of this inaction, the only way for plucky little Mafia state Ukraine to win now is for NATO to join in .
OK so the war has shown Russia to be useless, but they can still call on enormous resources. Britain and France could last a week in a hot war.
Starmer is such an idiot that he might really press the button once Britain’s only armoured brigade has been wiped out.
Norman, my speculation is that the LHR generator failed first. Contagious failure if not managing to be a cascade. If I’m right we won’t be told until it’s long forgotten, in a technical report taking one column inch in an inside page..
In my IT career I was peripherally involved in a few disaster plans. Usually only for my bit of the whole. As I recall, disaster planning was the lowest priority of all as it is so expensive to do it properly. The businesses never examined the total array of possible scenarios. When the Baltic Exchange was blown up a few decades ago neighbouring offices were more or less undamaged but they had to shut down because the staff weren’t allowed in. Simple, but unforeseen. There are many stories of disaster planning failure. Almost nobody does it right.
Otto – Vlad felt threatened and took the opportunity to salami slice the country and annexed Crimea. In so doing, he becomes a hero at home as the Russkis maintained that the Crimea has always been Russian.
Idk why anybody familiar with the Crimean War (where Britain and France nobly took the side of Muslim slavers against despotic Russia) or Risk (the boardgame I lose to my children and wife) would think they were going to give up their only major warm water port without a fight.
Ukraine’s claim to Crimea is based on accident, it was never historically considered part of “Little Russia” or part of the 19th century Ukrainian nationalist movement. Until the 50’s, it was always considered separate to Ukraine, Crimea having its own unique ethnic mix of Muslim Tatars (pre Stalin expulsion, they were treated horribly because some Tatars collaborated with the Nazis), Greeks, Russkies and whatnot. Crimea ending up in another country from Russia in 1991 is an odd little artifact of the USSR’s rapid and mercifully peaceful dissolution, not a historically long term stable situation or divinely mandated eternal gift to the newly created Ukrainian state. History tells us that either Russia or Turkey will inevitably be drawn to dominate that strategic location for obvs map reasons.
It’s not sacred Ukrainian clay in the way that Kiev is, and nobody seriously doubts that the local population wants to be part of Russia. Obviously, evicting Russia from Sevastopol was a CIA stretch goal. But we couldn’t eject Russia from Sevastopol even after we won the first Crimean War, so Putin’s 2014 annexation should not have been a complete shock?
Ukraine has a long list of legitimate grievances against Russia but Crimea isn’t one. They would still own the place if not for two anti-Russian colour revolutions spooking Vlad into action, so Crimea river.
OK so the war has shown Russia to be useless, but they can still call on enormous resources. Britain and France could last a week in a hot war.
Starmer is such an idiot that he might really press the button once Britain’s only armoured brigade has been wiped out.
One of the great things about this war is what a complete loser it’s been for all parties concerned.
Ukraine has been dismembered, depopulated and deindustrialised. They face an uncertain future of unpayable enormous debts to their Western benefactors.
Russia has won the war (NB like the word ‘feint’ that previously annoyed people, I don’t mean this as a value judgement.) But the war itself was a huge failure of Russian statecraft and foreign policy. It has cost them ??? lives, hundreds of billions of pounds, and their previously profitable strategic trading relationship with Germany, and their grandchildren may still be paying for reconstruction in the annexed regions.
European NATO looks less credible than ever, just stuck, hollow and alone and the fault is their own and the fault is their own.
Uncle Sam is tired of footing the bill and wants out. The biggest winner of the Ukraine war is China. They haven’t spent a penny or lost a single son, but have benefited from selling to both sides.
Well, who needs a Yellow Peril when white people are merrily engaged in killing each other, while their respective countries fill up with Africans and Asians? All China needs to do is wait.
Sir Greased Piglet has a son who is old enough to join the army. I trust he’ll send his lad as a symbol to a generation that they should volunteer. I hope all other Labour MPs with sons of 16 or older likewise send their boys into the army. That would make Putin pause.
Actually, being Labour, they ought to send their daughters and their trannies too. They would really strike fear into the drone operators of Russia.
Norman: « Luxury beliefs fuck up at least 130,000 passengers today, more for the next few days, crash airlines’ market caps and cause a load of people to lose a load of money. That might concentrate some minds. »
No doubt but I doubt that Mad Ed’s mind is among those so concentrated as he strums while Hayes burns. To gain a broader insight he ought to take up the nukelele instead.
@BiND
So were Dresden, Leipzig, parts of Berlin, Prague etc.
No they weren’t part of the USSR: they are cities in former Warsaw Pact countries that are now NATO countries and covered by NATO article 5 mutual defence.
Ukraine is not part of NATO. Making it part of NATO would be as dumb as selling fire insurance to someone who’s house is on fire. Ukraine has been in military conflict with Russia since its revolution in 2014 so letting it join NATO would be tantamount to declaring war on Russia. Fighting Russia might punish them but would result in many people being hurt and killed. Possibly ones I care a great deal more about than any from parts of the former USSR.
The victor defines the terms for ending a war. Russia will be the victor. Their terms are that they permanently annex the traditionally Russian leaning regions to the east of the country, demilitarize Ukraine so it can’t mount a revenge attack, and bar it from NATO so it can’t provoke WW3. This could be done now were Ukraine to agree. If they don’t the war drags on till the Ukraine army has no blood left to spill and these conditions and possibly many more are forced upon them.
@Steve
Uncle Sam is tired of footing the bill and wants out.
Interestingly, that bill started with the well publicized $5 billion spent over a couple of decades promoting “pro democracy” (as in anti Russia sentiment) after the USSR collapsed. Ultimately this movement led to the revolution in 2014 and the hostilities with Russia who supported the ethnic Russians in the East who did not want alliance with the west.
The US support for Ukraine’s fight Russia turned the take over attempt into a war which meant that the USSR is not coming back, ever. From a very cynical perspective the job for the US is done. There is no need to continue spending.
– Russia will be the victor.
They will be if Trump lets them, which will be partly reliant on Putin not fucking things up. Carrying on hitting Ukrainian energy infrastructure immediately after a supposed energy infrastructure ceasefire was not the best move. Ukraine being allowed to do the same in return is significant, and the massive hit on Engles was clearly in conjunction with the US. Trump has ostentatiously offered Putin everything he could reasonably expect but the silly mong might be too stupid to accept it.
‘Twill be interesting to see if dear old Puke imitates Adolf and decides that the panzers should roar into Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland etc.
Of course back when Gorby was withdrawing the troops from Eastern Europe, I decided that the Russkies didn’t really care if I lived in catastrophic capitalist corruption. So I didn’t care if they still languished in a corrupt commie catastrophe.
But people can change their minds!!
Well, seeing as it is now possible to be executed in Romania for criticising Ursula VdL’s hairdo, I guess the bad old days are back.
Andyf,
The victor defines the terms for ending a war.
Yes, but as Russia was the aggressor that doesn’t make it right.
Russia will be the victor.
King Pyrrhus of Epirus wants a word.
Their terms are that they permanently annex the traditionally Russian leaning regions to the east of the country,
It would be interesting to see how Russia leaning they really are after what Putin and the gangsters who ran those regions put them through.
demilitarize Ukraine so it can’t mount a revenge attack
Its a sovereign nation, it has a right to arm itself and protect itself from neighbouring bullies.
, and bar it from NATO so it can’t provoke WW3.
Is if it was a member of NATO (which I don’t support FWIW) Article 5 excludes a member attacking another country, without justification. If it was to become a member it would have to be on the condition that it accepted the borders at the time of entry.
This could be done now were Ukraine to agree.
Putin has never seen an agreement he wasn’t going to break, which is why all the former Soviet countries want to strengthen their defence. The only way Ukraine can agree is if it gets some form of security guarantee from a 3rd party because they know Putin and probably any successor will be back.
If they don’t the war drags on till the Ukraine army has no blood left to spill and these conditions and possibly many more are forced upon them.
Why is it difficult to understand why a nation would prefer to defend itself rather live in subjugation of a tyrant and a country that makes it clear they think Ukrainians are sub human?
Andy – Interestingly, that bill started with the well publicized $5 billion spent over a couple of decades promoting “pro democracy” (as in anti Russia sentiment) after the USSR collapsed. Ultimately this movement led to the revolution in 2014 and the hostilities with Russia who supported the ethnic Russians in the East who did not want alliance with the west.
All American government spending on “democracy” is used to destabilise other countries, identity and promote local traitors willing to sell out their people to the US government, and provide weapons and support for whatever political murders the CIA thinks the country needs. Ukraine was no different.
The US support for Ukraine’s fight Russia turned the take over attempt into a war which meant that the USSR is not coming back, ever
The USSR wasn’t coming back, ever, since 1991. We won, and if only our masters were willing to accept victory in the Cold War as an outcome, we wouldn’t now be facing a mobilised and revanchist Russia.
PJF is bemused that Vlad isn’t biting off Trump’s hand at a peace offer. That’s because Russia has the option of simply continuing a war they’re winning, and little reason to trust the US or Ukraine. If Boris hadn’t gone to Kiev to stop peace breaking out in 2022, the war would be long over and on terms vastly more favourable to Ukraine than are now possible.
BiND says Its a sovereign nation, it has a right to arm itself and protect itself from neighbouring bullies.
Veering slightly into Real Man’s beat there, but no, Ukraine has never been a sovereign nation. That’s their tragedy.
The place has been ruled by two competing gangs of oligarchs since 1991. When your country gets to choose between either Moscow or Western owned kleptocrats, that’s not sovereignty.
Putin has never seen an agreement he wasn’t going to break,
But when you ask which agreements, they go red in the face and start shouting. The upshot of “Russia doesn’t agreements” is that we should immediately fire all of our nuclear weapons at Russia. Because we’ve already ruled out peace as an option, so why wait?
Why is it difficult to understand why a nation would prefer to defend itself rather live in subjugation of a tyrant and a country that makes it clear they think Ukrainians are sub human?
Imagine if Ukraine was ruled by a Russian speaking tyrant who seized control of the media, cancelled elections and banned Christian churches he didn’t like, while his armed thugs kidnapped men off the streets.
That would be crazy.
Here’s the Commando Comics Warspunkers view of the world, for balance:
GENERAL SIR RICHARD SHIRREFF reveals how he believes WW3 will begin… and we have just two years to prepare
Ceasefire: even the word is ominous. The deal being brokered by America to bring a halt to the battlefield slaughter in Ukraine is not a peace treaty.
It is exactly what it implies – a temporary cessation in the fighting.
Whatever emerges from the negotiations, there can be no lasting peace, not as long as Russia is intent on expansion.
The concessions being forced on Ukraine amount to little more than appeasement.
As Adolf Hitler took advantage of Allied naivety in 1938 at Munich, using the paper-thin treaty negotiated by British PM Neville Chamberlain to buy more time for his war preparations, so Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will use this ceasefire to rebuild his forces and get ready for all-out war with the West.
We don’t yet know all the details of the deal with Russia. But one thing is certain: when the Kremlin is ready, Russia will renege in the most bloodthirsty fashion.
I predict there will be war in two years at the outside, unless we do what is needed to deter Russia.
What dictates whether the West can survive is how well prepared we are.
Europe’s ‘coalition of the willing’, urged on by the UK, has pledged to put peacekeeping troops into Ukraine to enforce the ceasefire.
President Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance have made it clear the US will do no such thing – there will be no military guarantees from Washington, merely hundreds of American miners overseeing the extraction of up to half a trillion dollars-worth of rare minerals from Ukraine soil.
Putin proved he cares nothing for the lives of Westerners when he ordered the assassination of defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury seven years ago, using a weapons-grade nerve agent.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia survived but an innocent Briton was killed and a policeman suffered life-changing harm. The death toll could easily have been in the tens of thousands in the quiet cathedral city of Salisbury.
Western politicians have to work on the basis that, intentionally or not, Trump is effectively a Russian asset.
There’s plenty of solid evidence to show that he was close to the Soviet regime in the 1980s and, when his business empire faltered in the 1990s, he was bankrolled by Russians.
Whether he is actively colluding with the Kremlin has not been established, but without doubt he is a sympathetic agent of influence for Putin’s regime.
I would also nominate him as Putin’s most useful idiot, aided and abetted by his blundering diplomats, Marco Rubio and his real estate sidekick Steve Witkoff.
Cuckoo!
1. Sorry, I don’t like Russia much but it isn’t a threat to my way of life. I HAVE identified a threat to my way of life, but nobody in power or the media in my country will acknowledge it, even though they must be able to see it too. So they are the greater threat.
2. I am not interested in some fight with Russia to make up for the one we never had with the USSR. The one that made the army I was in arm for north-west Germany when all its actual fights were elsewhere and we were not equipped for them.
Oh, and 3. I want my SLR back.
Rhoda – you aren’t moved by General Sir Richard Shirreff’s world class one-handed typing about The Skripals and how the President of the United States is a secret Russian spy?
The old fool is also an expert on Romanian politics:
The far-Right Romanian populist rabble-rouser Calin Georgescu lost his appeal this month against a ruling that bars him from standing in May’s presidential elections.
Georgescu won the first round of voting last year but was disqualified when Romanian intelligence discovered that hundreds of TikTok accounts backing his candidacy were set up by Russian agents.
But the damage is done. Thousands of Georgescu supporters have staged angry protests, no doubt stirred up by Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. They are proclaiming his victory and denouncing the judges who barred him as traitors
And Heathrow airport:
The fire which brought Heathrow to a standstill yesterday may be an accident. But if it is sabotage, it is straight out of the Kremlin playbook.
And being a deluded fanny:
It is no exaggeration to say that tens of millions of lives and the national survival of Britain, France, Germany and all our true allies are at stake.
If the Americans have figured out that the Brits are barkingly insane clowns screaming “Putin!” and “Wibble!” at inopportune moments, who can blame them?
General Sir Alexander Richard David Shirreff, KCB, CBE (born 21 October 1955) is a retired senior British Army officer and author. From March 2011 to March 2014 he served as Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
World class chinless posh twats, every one. Never won a war, but they’re world class.
– That’s because Russia has the option of simply continuing a war they’re winning, and little reason to trust the US or Ukraine.
As I said, they can win if Trump lets them (which still seems the order of the day). But if Trump does a 180 then Russia is in big trouble. Full on (non-direct) military support of Ukraine and full on sanctions on Russia will see the latter making dramatic good will gestures again.
Trump’s accomodation of Russia has been so comedically generous that from anyone else it would look like a clumsy attempt at giving Putin enough rope to hang himself.
PJF – As I said, they can win if Trump lets them (which still seems the order of the day). But if Trump does a 180 then Russia is in big trouble. Full on (non-direct) military support of Ukraine and full on sanctions on Russia will see the latter making dramatic good will gestures again.
Russian option A: keep fighting until the facts on the ground change in Russia’s favour, then talk. Relevant from today’s Reuters:
As Russia retakes Kursk, Ukrainians ask, ‘Was it worth it?’
By Manuel Ausloos and Olena Harmash
March 22, 20259:40 AM GMT
No, Kursk was not worth it. It was an opulent waste of Ukrainian lives, like the war itself.
Option B: agree to a limited ceasefire as a confidence building measure prior to imminent peace talks. Which seems to be what they’re going for? The bastards.
Not sure what, 3 years in, “full on” military support would be, but it sounds a lot like the “full on” sanctions. Until recently you were confident the sanctions from hell were going to bring down the Russian economy, any day now, but now we need even sanctionier sanctions?
Trump’s accomodation of Russia has been so comedically generous that from anyone else it would look like a clumsy attempt at giving Putin enough rope to hang himself.
So salty. This isn’t first failed neocon adventure Trump has had to gracefully extinguish. there was Afghanistan. There’s interesting similarities.
But I wanted to share this absolute pants-shidding insanity with you, from General Sir Richard Shirreff, KCB, CBE:
Monday March 1, 2027: A Russian unit patrolling occupied Donetsk is attacked and, after a brief firefight, surrenders. The soldiers are executed in cold blood. Russia blames Ukrainian special forces.
Kyiv immediately denies it. Bodycam footage from one of the dead soldiers shows the ambush was carried out by men in Ukraine uniforms
Tuesday March 2: The Kremlin announces that, for the safety of its citizens and soldiers, and the protection of American mining installations along the border, it will be establishing a 100-mile ‘buffer zone’.
Heavily equipped Russian forces immediately roll into Ukraine.
President Vitali Klitschko, who succeeded Volodymyr Zelensky after the 2025 elections, denies again the involvement of Ukrainian troops and accuses Russia of a ‘false flag’ operation.
‘Putin is a psychopath,’ he says, ‘who murders his own soldiers to create a lie.’ Klitschko demands Nato support Ukraine in driving back the Russian advance.
More than 500 miles away, the peacekeeping force prepares to mobilise, but Trump steps in. The White House welcomes the creation of a buffer zone, he says, to keep American mining operations safe from Ukraine rebels.
Thursday March 4: At a UN Security Council emergency meeting, the US votes with Russia to redraw the map. Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk warns that Putin is testing Europe’s resolve.
Unless we have the determination to force a Russian retreat, without US involvement and in open battle if necessary, he will interpret our weakness as an invitation to go further. Russia offers to negotiate a withdrawal.
Klitschko rejects the ploy, dismissing it as a cynical trick: the longer the West delays, the more time Putin has to reinforce his positions. But Nato chiefs agree to talks.
Sunday March 7: Tusk is proven right. Putin has decided we are toothless. At 4.30am, a full Russian armoured division begins to roll across the border into Estonia and Latvia. Within four hours they are approaching the Estonian capital of Tallinn.
The British-led Enhanced Forward Battle Group in Estonia puts up brief resistance but takes heavy losses before being overwhelmed and forced to withdraw.
This is a tripwire force, numbering just over a thousand, of which around 90 per cent are British with the rest from other nations. More than 50 UK soldiers are among those killed and seriously wounded in the ferocious first action.
At 11am, Sir Keir Starmer announces Britain is formally at war with Russia.
Televised statements are made by the German chancellor, the French president and the Italian prime minister.
But not all Nato countries are united in the reaction. As well as Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, the US refuses to offer support.
On his Truth Social service, Donald Trump posts: ‘This is Europe’s mess. I gave them peace. They screwed it up. America is staying out of this fight, as long as our great Engineers in Ukraine are safe under Russian protection. Vitali, this warning is for you.’
But the Estonians, combined with the remains of the Nato battle group and reinforcements hastily flown in from UK and other Nato nations, are putting up fierce resistance.
The RAF, German Luftwaffe, Finnish and Swedish airforces, with support from the French, rapidly establish dominance in the air.
Putin unleashes a missile attack on RAF bases in east England, but Britain’s world class air defences prove solid. Patrolling in the North Sea, a pair of newly commissioned Type 45 destroyers pick off the Geran-2 rocket drones, fired in clusters from Kaliningrad.
Some missiles hit targets in Western Europe, but the hundreds of billions of euros poured into strengthening our armed forces in the past two years means we can defend ourselves – and hit back hard.
Retaliatory strikes deep inside Russia take out oil refineries and missile silos. But the European war plan is not to win by sheer firepower. Instead, we turn the tables on the Kremlin’s cyber-warfare tactics, with a devastating barrage of electronic tricks.
As night falls, Russia’s computer networks are crippled, taking down their fuel supplies, electricity grid and financial systems. It’s -6C in Moscow and millions are without heating.
Tuesday March 9: Fighting intensifies in the Baltic states. The advance has slowed but defenders are hugely outnumbered. They will face a bitter struggle to fend off the invaders until reinforcements can arrive by sea – and even then Russia could still have the upper hand.
Their forces are battle-hardened after three years of trench warfare and house-to-house fighting in Ukraine, and they can absorb horrendous losses.
But if Putin is close to winning on the battlefield, he is close to losing control in his cities. European missiles continue to pick off vital targets in Russia.
Transport is grinding to a halt. Food is scarce. The internet is not functioning, and the security forces are stretched, trying to contain anti-war protests.
Russia, consumed by the demands of an insane warmongering dictator for so many years, is on the brink of total collapse.
Wednesday March 10: In a desperate last attempt to blackmail the world, Putin announces he will use nuclear weapons before allowing the West to defeat Russia. Satellite intelligence suggests this is no bluff, and that Kyiv is a likely first target.
That is all the provocation Ukraine needs. During two years of ceasefire, its own nuclear scientists have not been idle.
They have the Bomb and a burning hatred of everything Russian. In an act of stupendous revenge, Ukraine launches a nuclear strike against the industrial Volgograd. The city is instantly obliterated.
Within the hour, Trump declares Ukraine a terrorist state. But he also warns Russia – and others – against retaliation with nuclear weapons. China orders the Kremlin to sue for peace immediately.
There is no need. By nightfall, ultra-nationalists enraged at the destruction of their country have staged a palace coup and overthrown Putin.
The madman of Moscow has finally gone. Russia’s vassal republics in the far east and Caucasus begin to declare their independence from Putin’s rapidly disintegrating empire.
Fiction this might be, but if we duck the opportunity to become masters of our fate, it will be Putin, not us, who is in control.
Again, whether the West can survive depends on how well prepared we are. Tens of millions of lives and the very existence of Britain, France, Germany and the democracies of Europe are at stake.
This man was a general in the British army. How thoroughly embarrassing.
– Until recently you were confident the sanctions from hell were going to bring down the Russian economy, any day now, but now we need even sanctionier sanctions?
This is not so. Again, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are confusing my position with someone elses’s rather than outright lying. I have always said the sanctions are deliberately weak to protect Russia (as well as various more direct western interests). You have expressed snorting contempt at the notion, which should have been enough to remind you of my actual position. Also worth remembering is that Trump himself claimed the sanctions were weak and has recently threatened “even sanctionier sanctions”. Yuge.
. . . there was Afghanistan. There’s interesting similarities.
Indeed, though you forgot the dis in front of graceful. Cut’n’run betrayals always have consequences.
As to the imaginative general causing you embarrassment, so what? You believe the universe is run by supernatural beings with cartoon motivations (a personal interest in your “soul” amongst others) and you take (have taken?) various mind altering substances to cope with your ailments. Yet you seem quite capable of performing your job.
“the good general”
Thanks Steve, that was jolly entertaining. 🙂