I have long thought it wrong of the EU and Biden’s USA to tell Ukraine to fight on against Russia but to fail to supply enough weapons and ammunition to give them a better chance of winning. The UK did proportionately more to lead the West into giving more powerful and modern weapons in greater quantities, but has nothing like the scale of arms manufacture in peacetime required for such a war. The West as a whole by its weakness and thanks to Biden’s mis speaking led Putin to take a chance, and then to double down when his plan for an easy win was thwarted by Ukrainian bravery . The West has been reminded if it wishes to fight a war by proxy it still needs to put its own industry on a war footing.
Today after 3 long years and all too many deaths the two sides are at a violent standstill. Russia edges forward in the south east of Ukraine but is unable to evict Ukrainian forces from its own soil. Many Ukrainians have battle fatigue and want to end the bombardment of their towns and cities. Russia is suffering large losses of personnel and some economic privations from sanctions.
Biden, Scholz and Macron were united in saying to Ukraine they should fight on, but no NATO troops would be committed. The EU failed to meet its promises for ammunition, leaving Ukrainian forces out gunned. President Trump is making the allies face uncomfortable truths. They want Ukraine to sacrifice more without giving them the means to win. He says do a deal with Russia now, then fortify the new border with EU forces. The USA seeking to cut its huge deficit and concentrating on western defence against China wants out of European security matters. The EU has to grasp that it needs to spend a lot more on defence, as Ukraine is an EU problem.
February 15, 2025
True though it is that “The EU has to grasp that it needs to spend a lot more on defence, as Ukraine is an EU problem” Starmer will surely see the U.K. involved, once again pulling others’ chestnuts out of the fire when we have no need to do so.
The Trump peace proposals seems sound enough to me. Those who say Putin will start a war in Europe by 2030 might be right of course (I don’t think so) but that gives us five years to plan to stay well out of it.
February 15, 2025
If Putin started a war with Europe we can’t guarantee which side Germany will support. I believe they could declare themselves neutral and supply arms to both sides
The EU has no chance defending itself especially as Hungary and Turkey would probably assist Russia.
Britain should be siding with Trump and get this conflict over before China tries to invade Taiwan.
February 15, 2025
No. Hungary and Turkey probably would not. It suits these countries to be pro Russia in ways but not at cost of going to war against Europe (which is also going to war against USA).
February 15, 2025
Righty or wrongly, Trump is saying ‘I’m not paying more for your wars; here’s my plan, if you don’t like it then work out one of your own.’
Well, over to the European nations to start digging into their pockets and find the necessary resources to win, or have the Russian bear threatening Poland and all the eastern states. I feel sorry for Ukraine, there’ll be no help from the EU pearl-clutchers.
February 15, 2025
Boris Johnson encouraged Ukraine to fight when they were near to cutting a deal.
An end to the war seems a good thing to me.
It’s a shame we cannot say the same about Israel.
Unfortunately the Israel Lobby has long captured all influential politicians in the USA.
February 15, 2025
The situation in the Levant is different Peter. Israel must defend itself. The alternative is annihilation!;
February 15, 2025
Ukraine was never near to cutting a deal. Putin wants regime change and for Ukraine to become a vassal state for Russia, like Belarus.
February 15, 2025
Boris was right. No deal was nearly in site.
Putin is a thug. His reason for war v simple. He needs an ‘enemy’ to unite his country over. That’s an old textbook Machiavellian trick. Don’t be so naive / Neville Chamberlain.
February 16, 2025
The Ukrainian negotiator who initialled the agreement in Istanbul must be lying. Putin must have forged the Minsk Agreements? Pigs must be flying.
All of that necessary to cause your remark to be true.
February 15, 2025
If the EU wishes us to act as friends then the EU might like to act as friends.
Our army, your market without a level playing field and Windsor framework
February 15, 2025
Putin is the enemy. and he has caused untold misery for ordinary Russians and as well as for Ukrainians although far more damage has been done to Russia than to Ukraine. Based upon historical evidence the Russians will continue with their violence and their continuing relative fall in their standard of living. One can understand the general point that the South and West of Ukraine is almost Russian and if those inhabitants are supportive of Moscow it is probably realistic to accept the succession of those lands to Moscow formerly part of EuroRussia i.e. Russia, Urkaine and Belorussia. However the west of Ukraine is and has been pro Europe and in favour of joining NATO. The compromise surely is to concede the South and East in exchange for Western protection of the West part of the country with entry into NATO and the EU within a short period, not longer than two years with guarantee of Moscow not to encroach on the West of Ukraine. We cannot afford to leave the impression that Putin is being rewarded for his outrageous aggression.
February 15, 2025
The West has been protecting Ukraine with supply of weapons. How will they further protect in ways they aren’t doing now?
February 15, 2025
Putin will then just choose another war to fight (and another malevolent campaigns). It’s not about territory (he doesn’t care). But the Machiavellian trick of creating an ‘enemy’ to unite the country over / have a raison d’être.
February 15, 2025
I hope that Donald Trump spells out the consequences to Putin and Zelensky of not coming to an equitable settlement. This to my mind would leave russian speaking Crimea in russian hands and returning to previous national borders.
In general terms, Russia could be offered the lifting of sanctions and a slow return to normal relationships with the West. The fortification of the new border and its integrity should largely be in EU hands with continued Vance like encouragement from the USA. The UK could be in the vanguard of this. All in Europe were given a sharp reminder by the USA yesterday that they need to pay much more for their own defence and that includes the UK.
Personally I welcomed the Vance reality check, there should be more in like vein.
February 15, 2025
You want to leave Russian speaking Luhansk, Donetsk, Odessa, Kharkov, Kherson etc in the hands of German Europe? Why?
February 15, 2025
Correct Lynn. I get the impression that Sir John doesn’t understand why Russia invaded Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine which Zelensky was bombarding. The UK mainstream media also are simply pushing anti-Russian propaganda.
February 15, 2025
At one point the Argentine were going to import thousands of main land Argentine people into the Falkland Islands to increase the number of spanish speakers to justify their invasion and historic sovereignty
February 15, 2025
Zelensky is a native Russian speaker – from Chasov Yah. He had to ‘learn’ Ukrainian and still speaks it with a Russian accent!
These are native Russians who have occupied this land fron long before Ukraine was created.
February 15, 2025
Trump is being updated. Fortunately he is pragmatic enough to take on the new information. He will settle the deal or leave Zelensky and the EU and the U.K. to fight to the death – which will not be very long at all.
Kellog is NOT in the US negotiating team.
You can hear the pennies dropping.
February 16, 2025
He’s getting there, but it will take a while longer, I fear. Sir John just needs to consider Starmer’s position on Ukraine, to realise it is untenable for much longer, and insanely expensive while it lasts.
February 15, 2025
Hitler invaded the sudetenland 1938 to protect german speakers
February 16, 2025
‘Immigrant’ german speakers. In east Ukraine these are Russian natives of the land they occupy.
Big difference
February 16, 2025
A ‘native’ russian is someone who is born in russia ….and not the ukraine
February 17, 2025
Yeah right, from the 11th c some German-speaking people had moved to Moravia and Bohemia in what was to become centuries later Czechoslovakia.
BTW-1, How can it be that Russia-speaking people in the south and east of Ukraine can have been there for centuries when most of the towns in the area were founded at the end of the 18th c: Luhansk 1795, Odesa 1794, Mykolaiv 1789, Simferopol and Melitopol 1784, Sevastopol 1783, Mariupol and Kherson 1778, Dnipro 1776, and Zaporizhzhia 1770, following a politics of migration encouraged by Imperial Russia?
This ‘nativist’ discourse when applied on people who had migrated wilfully or forcibly to another area, as had happened numerous times in the course of history, is getting … an adjective I will not write down.
BTW-2, Are you so sure you are not some kind of an immigrant to Britain? From the areas that are now Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, France or Scandinavia? Or can you trace back your roots to pre-Roman Britons?
February 15, 2025
The consequences to Russia for continuing the military action are huge, yet it still continues. What consequences can Trump further threaten?
February 15, 2025
Exactly JR. You either fight to win or do not bother – little point in half measures.
Well said fee speech vance too.
February 15, 2025
I hope Vance tajes over from Trump in 4 years. He’s our only buttress against all this leftards woke nonesense.
February 15, 2025
Lefty woke nonsense and net zero rip off energy lunacy too. – It seem the UK will suffer most with the deluded anti-free speech, open door to allimmigration , the net zero lunacy of Ed, the anti growth lunacy of Reeves and the moronic Chagos and slavery compensations of evil race baiter Lammy and two tier kier.
February 15, 2025
Vance is less of a blowhard and chancer than Trump. He comes from a poor background and seems to have a genuine sense of right and wrong.
He is more of a paleoconservative than Trump, but Trump has been good at persuading voters – even if his policies don’t always match up to his promises.
February 15, 2025
The main problem in the West (USA / UK / EU) is cultural not political. Trump / Vance can’t make that big a difference unless they over-reach in power and do something daft.
The discussion should really be about how to change the culture. Not easy.
February 15, 2025
You either fight to win, or you let the aggressor army sweep through with rape and pillage. Of course you fight.
February 15, 2025
Also, Putin is 72. One’s zest for blood and guts wanes as one gets closer to the inevitable of life.
February 16, 2025
Putin is a moderate. A careful lawyer. You don’t know of the anger in Russia at his careful approach obviously.
February 16, 2025
That’s exactly what the Donbas people have been doing for ten years, fighting back aganst the Kiev ultra-nationalists. They think like you, Dave.
February 15, 2025
Sir John has provided a detailed analysis of the 3 years that Ukraine has been forced to fight the Russian invasion. The British military and intelligence establishment would disagree with much of it.
However, it is correct that neither Biden, nor the EU countries provided Ukraine with sufficient weaponry to throw back Putin’s hordes. Trump should remember that European countries have provided more military and economic aid than America has
Trump is famous for “The Art of the Deal”. However, just as with his negotiations with the Taliban, he has given Putin with two of his key objectives before any negotiations had even started. One, no return to the 2014 borders, leaving millions of Ukrainians in the Donbas and Crimea under the Russian yoke and two, he capitulated to Putin’s demand of no Ukraine NATO membership. Putin opposes Ukraine’s NATO membership not because he believes it is a military threat, but because it would prevent him from controlling Ukraine.
Trump has gone further. His flunkey Hegseth confirmed at last week’s NATO meeting that Europe could not expect American military support in the event of hostilities and that Trump will shortly withdraw American NATO troops. His Vice President Vance then made a speech insulting European countries, claiming that their democracies were at risk. Vance still refuses to accept that Trump lost the 2020 election and repeatedly denies that the 6th Jan Capital Hill riots were an insurrection.
One has to ask the question, what exactly is the hold that Putin has over Trump?
February 15, 2025
If Trump does not want Ukraine within NATO (and why would he?) then it is no concession to Putin to offer to keep it out. Likewise, no concession to let Russia keep what it possesses now when there is no clear interest or will to change that, as Putin will also know. The art of making a deal includes inducing the other side to agree: Trump has made a decent start surely.
February 15, 2025
I rarely agree with Russian media but this Wednesday on Rossija 1 chanel on Prjamo Efir program participants were rejoicing beacuse Trump is tearing the Western world apart.
The host of the show Jevgeni Popov mentioned that “we wanted to do it but now he is doing it for us” while audience laughed.
I really don’t know what Putin has over Trump but he knows how to play him.
February 15, 2025
Originally the US troops were in Europe because Hitler had backed up Japan by declaring war on the US after the Pearl Harbour attack and Churchill had persuaded Roosevelt that it should be “Germany first”. It could have been very different if Hitler had held back from that fatal step, or if another US President had said “Sorry, you’re on your own, my priority is defeating Japan”. Stalin was much cannier about Japan, his declaration of war came after Hiroshima but before Japanese surrender. Personally I want the US troops to stay in Europe and I want NATO to be the bedrock of our collective defence and I definitely do not want the EU to have its own army which is the way we are heading. That to me is the great danger in what is happening now, that we will end up being threatened by yet another hostile military power with imperial ambitions on the other side of the Channel.
February 15, 2025
Roosevelt had wanted US troops to remain in Europe for no longer than two years after the defeat of Germany.Stalin had committed to open a new front against the Japanese in Manchuria before Hiroshima-at one of the conferences between the three main powers-it was one of the most stunningly successful campaigns of the whole war-the Red Army (and an allied force from the Peoples Republic of Mongolia) rolled up the whole Kwantung army in less than one month,taking an area the size of west-central Europe, and advancing into Korea.Putin and Xi will be celebrating it together this September in Northern China(the name Manchuria has been erased from the lexicon).Xi will also be in Moscow for Victory Day in May,as might Kim Jong Un,both events marking the 80th anniversary of the defeat of “international fascism”.
February 15, 2025
The Ukrainian Army has been bigger numerically, than the Russian throughout the war!
The USA has provided USD 350 billion officially. The EU including the U.K. has provided USD 150 billion. Trump says unofficially the USA has provided USD 500 billion (the Biden administration cooked the books, valuation of equipment etc.)
If Trump is doing all of this, including DOGE, because Putin is pulling his strings, Putin is the greatest man ever to have lived.
February 15, 2025
Eh, surely you mean Biden? Trump has been POTUS only for few weeks.
All he has done in terms of Ukraine is to give in to Putin.
Getting that phone call and be treated as equal was exactly how Putin wanted it.
Trump may believe Putin needed his call – to get peace. But he really does not need any peace. Russia can go on and on.
Ladies and Gentelman. The new POTUS just gave new meaning for term “useful idiot”.
Further.
Be cautious with the numbers of this ex true television star.
He claimed Russia lost 60 million people in second world war. 20 million is correct.
He also claimed “millions” have died in present conflict. Nobody knows how many but not millions. Million or perhaps little bit more maybe – albeit too much.
Ukraine Oversight – an official USA gov. site gives number 183 billion USD as the amount of US aid to Ukraine.
500 billion is Donald show.
February 15, 2025
Ever heard of DOGE? They are finding the real numbers and Trump is saying them out loud. Putin did not need to treat anybody as an equal. Russia is winning the war. But he wants to stop killing Slavs and knows Trump is sentient, which is more than could be Sid for 46!
Ukraine has lost a Million. 60,000 since August in Kursk alone. Ukrainians are more likely to die because they have such poor evacuation and medical facilities. Wounded Russians are quickly cared for, therefore more likely to survive. But the attrition rate and differential is huge. A terrible war. Must stop.
February 15, 2025
DOGE? The bunch who just fired over 300 staff responsible for looking after the USA’s nuclear stockpile?
February 15, 2025
@SG. The hold Putin has is that Russia is winning.
On the battlefront it has gained much more territory than it has lost, including half of Ukraine’s rare earth mineral deposits. It has defeated western weaponry (remember how Leopard tanks would change everything, etc). It has shown it has superior weapons in some cases (hypersonic missiles).
In terms of Putin’s invasion aims, he has largely achieved them (stop the abuse of the Russian speaking minority and prevent Ukraine joining NATO). He has not defeated certain elements there though, which was another aim.
Beyond the war, the Russian economy is thriving compared to that of Europe, despite embargoes. The country has massive natural resources. Its people are relatively content and nationalist, despite there being multiple ethnicities. China has remained friendly, despite it having the capacity to weaken its great neighbour.
The west has been exposed as untrustworthy (unreliable as an ally), duplicitous (signing Accords they have no intention of respecting) and venal (interested in Ukraine, and Russia, for potential spoils; happy to countenance outrageous corruption and transfer of money to its elites).
I wish Trump and JD well. This appalling war was unnecessary, as Trump has said. But Putin is not a supplicant, and the Zelenskyist Ukrainians and the EU/UK hardly come into the equation. Trump and Putin will cut a deal and we would be best advised to welcome it insofar as it stops the war, and try to keep out of paying too much for propping up what’s left of Ukraine.
February 15, 2025
“Its people are relatively content”. Is that your reflection on Putin securing 88% in the presidential election?
I can suggest other reasons why he has such strong approval.
February 15, 2025
You need to go and speak to them. Stand on a corner of any Russian city and take a poll. You will be floored. Putin is delivering massive improvements in income per capita and in living conditions generally. They have rebuilt many of the Ukrainian cities which were levelled early in the war, Mariupol.
If you are a democrat you have to accept internationally scrutinised elections, as the ones in Russia itself and the referenda in Donbass were.
February 15, 2025
Spot on.
February 15, 2025
SK lets wait for more publicly known facts to emerge from the events leading up to the 2020 elections and the Jan 6th event.
After all those pardons given do not make a lot of sense, but should provoke a lot of questions.
We are still waiting on the disclosure of the JFK files etc . Never mind the Ukraine files.
February 15, 2025
And as far as Pharma goes, nothing says ‘trust the science’ as an application to hide all the data for 75 years.
Covid and the MRNA shots were a vicious attack and a war crime.
February 15, 2025
Trump is 78. Oldish man. I’d say whatever Putin’s hold over Trump is it’s less now than 5 years ago. I think Trump is, to some degree, more focused now on his LEGACY (for the sake of his children, friends and country – and the world as a whole). He’s quite a different leader now to 5 years ago. More calm / responsible. But I’m not counting chickens either.
February 15, 2025
Good morning.
I would like to add two things to this debate.
1. The Ukrainian Government is considering lowering the conscription age to 18.
2. Many of the Mexican drug cartels have been receiving advanced weapons, including shoulder launched surface to air missiles. These weapons have been traced back to the Ukrainian Government.
This war was totally avoidable and unnecessary, and I hate to predict the long term consequences of it. But consequences there will be, for all of us.
February 15, 2025
@Mark B
“Many of the Mexican drug cartels have been receiving advanced weapons, including shoulder launched surface to air missiles. These weapons have been traced back to the Ukrainian Government”
This statement is false (like a great deal of what you post here) and originates with Russian propaganda which can be traced back to the OSB. The Mexican cartels are arming themselves with some of the $billions in first-class American weaponry abandoned in Afghanistan by Biden’s incompetent Vietnam-war era precipitate pull-out.
The Taliban have been selling this American weaponry to HAMAS and HEZBOLLAH for years. To which we can add that some of it is now turning up in Africa, particularly in the Congo
February 15, 2025
Much of the weaponry that the Mexican cartels have comes directly south across the border from the USA. It’s almost impossible to buy weapons in Mexico (there are 2 gun shops in the entire country).
If Trump is serious about dealing with the cartels, dealing with that flow of weapons would be a good place to start given his attitude towards who is responsible for Fentanyl coming into the USA i.e. it’s down to the country that the supply is coming from to deal with the problem.
February 15, 2025
Ukrainian is the most corrupt country in Europe and it is no surprise that SAMs and other arms supplied for their war are being sold on the illegal international arms market.
February 15, 2025
Now it is just Europe that wants to keep the Ukraine war going.
The interview Boris gave to GBN last night, concerning that great speech by Vance at the security conference, shows Boris up as a warmonger. He was trying to put a spin on what Trump actually wants.
”Trump wants us Europeans to take responsibility for Ukraine, and we have to step up and support them!” Boris said, or some thing similar.
His interpretation of Trump’s request that Europe should fund it’s own defence was to argue for ever more money to go to Ukraine — to keep the war going INDEFINITELY.
This is not what Trump wants, and no rational person would try and extend this war.
It is pretty sure this narrative from Boris was intended to box Trump in, in his attempts at ending the war.
February 15, 2025
Johnson has more responsibility for this disastrous war than most politicians. He scuppered a good chance of a settlement at the start, acting on behalf of the American deep state which has promoted wars.
Now the incompetent Starmer is following European leaders in insisting that Nato should still expand to the Russian border. This was the main reason for the war I addition to splitting Ukraine and persecution of the Russian speaking Eastern population. Starmer seems to get everything wrong.
February 15, 2025
+1. British politicians have a lot of the blame for this war continuing. It is crazy that we should “stand by Ukraine for 100yrs”.
Russia made it plain before all this started, that Ukranian NATO accession would not be tolerated. They have long made it crystal clear that NATO is a threat to them which they will not accept on their central/southern border.
February 15, 2025
No. This war is Putin’s making. Stop being Neville Chamberlain to Putin and his Machiavellianism.
February 15, 2025
+1
February 15, 2025
The Ukraine war is an epoch-ending event-ushering in a new world order based on the Eurasian axis ,rather than the Atlantic seaboard.I said on here(or tried to-our host censored it)during the first few days of the war -this represents the final end of the British Empire-and the vested interests behind that residual empire.Boris Johnson is articulating the desperation of this class which is now living on borrowed time.See also Charles Moore in today’s DT.
Reply This war has nothing to do with the British Empire which ended in the last century.m
February 15, 2025
We can’t shake what was the British Empire off. They cling on relentlessly to Britain in a voluntary institution known as the Commonwealth. They must all have hated the Empire!
February 15, 2025
Reply to reply.Wrong-the financial system is the residue of that empire.The 1945 arrangements were the continuation of empire by other means,albeit under American suzeraintReply There is no British Empire and the sterling area us no more.
February 21, 2025
What about the various ‘treasure islands’ of British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, (British Overseas Territories) or British Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man.
February 15, 2025
I doubt Trump cares if the war continues…provided the USA is neither involved or paying.
February 15, 2025
I think Trump does care to a degree. A lot of Republicans – both politicians and voters don’t want Putin unopposed in Europe for both economic and political reasons.
February 15, 2025
We’re talking european defense here and not only for the EU – if so agreed it is time to set-up our own European neighbourhood watch as it is clear now we cannot rely on the americans anymore and who knows after Trump maybe Biden might come back for another run.
February 15, 2025
February 15, 2025
If Kiev continues to insist that all the ‘contested territories’ must be returned to its control:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jutxOeoCgM
the war will carry on for as long as its forces are supplied with weapons by external allies.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2025/01/19/an-agenda-for-uk-us-co-operation/#comment-1494843
“I think history will see it as a clash of empires, American and European combined against Russian.”
and thank goodness that the American empire has had enough of it and is backing away.
February 15, 2025
+1 NATO v Russia.
Russia won.
February 15, 2025
@Lynn Atkinson. Correct!
February 15, 2025
Ukraine is very short of men willing to fight,so it’s not just a question of arms or money.It’s why the vested interests behind NATO are desperate to find new ‘sepoys’ to fight their battles for them.
There is also a much bigger issue which no-one (in the msm)has mentioned:the security architecture which Putin proposed in his draft Treaty circulated to NATO leaders just before the war started which involves rolling back NATO,not just keeping it out of Ukraine.Will Schryver reminds us of it in a comment on x this week:
“Putin’s definition of terms in relation to these ‘root causes'(and the requisites of their resolution)are contained in the 12/2021 Draft Treaty(delivered to the NATO bloc) and Putin’s landmark speeches of February 21 & 24,2022.
The Trump regime will choke on those terms.”
Although Trump’s comment the other night about getting together with Putin and Xi to agree a major reduction in military spending could be a nod towards that.
February 15, 2025
Trump will accept those terms.
They are mutually beneficial for the USA – Trump wants to ‘halve Defence spending’, EUROPE and Russia.
February 15, 2025
What a waste of so many young lives when some common sense couild and should have ended this conflict a long time ago.
There are echoes of this with the Palestinians where the BBC regularly features people from the Gaza Strip displaying their defiance to Israel. I have no idea what the popular will in Gaza is. I DO know that promoting just one point of view is immoral.
February 15, 2025
Past UK governments, and Parliaments, and our political class in general, share of some responsibility for this horrible war. They allowed the inexorable process of “ever closer union” to proceed so that what had masqueraded as little more than a convenient arrangement for regional trade turned into a “post-imperial empire” with its own Foreign Minister who went to Kiev and stirred things up rather than calming them down.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2024/10/21/the-eus-conflict-with-russia/#comment-1480362
One easily loses track but wikipedia summarises it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Representative_of_the_Union_for_Foreign_Affairs_and_Security_Policy
“The European Constitution proposed to merge the European Commissioner for External Relations with the High Representative to create a Union Minister for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Although the Constitution failed to be ratified, its replacement, the Treaty of Lisbon, retained the change under a different name … The creation of a High Representative for foreign policy, or, better still, a Minister for foreign affairs would be a big change compared with the current situation ….”, and that was approved by our Parliament.
February 15, 2025
Kenneth,
The one point of view the BBC promotes is certainly not that of the Palestinians.
Various programmes that might shed light on their views have been suppressed along with a charity appeal.
February 15, 2025
Continue the war until Putin surrenders Donbas & Crimea ….otherwise the tyrant has won
February 15, 2025
So never ending wait until the last European?
February 15, 2025
So what’s the point of sovereignty, international rule of laws and the united nations
February 15, 2025
Yes I feel the same expecting Ukraine to fight without full support of weapons & ammunition is a disgrace
I feel we have let Ukraine down badly
As usual our EU politicians are full of empty promises
February 15, 2025
Ukrainians were unable to operate the complex western weapons. They have yet to get a F16 in the air, and the donors are loath to supply airmen.
Any sophisticated western weapon was operated by western military personnel. One ex-Tory MP openly announced he was joining the Ukrainian forces. Andrea Jenkins husband (might be ex-husband for all I know or care).
February 15, 2025
VP Vance speech in Munich yesterday was a bit mad to say the least – he talked about the lack of free speech that we have here in Britain and europe that we should be able to say whatever we like straight out irrespective of the the consequences for hatred or insulting behaviour even presumably to the point of murdering each other in the streets – and this is what he’s pushing should be the norm for our civil society – the law of the jungle it seems to me. However when you think about what he’s really pushing is the Musk “X” agenda and Zucherberg philosophy all for Trump and his pals – ie. ‘Yes free speech on everything so long as they get to control it’
February 15, 2025
That’s what we always had. Did you not know? We could say anything at all so long as it was true. If untrue we could be sued.
February 15, 2025
@Sayagain – who defines what is hate or what is insulting? Society is safer when those with extreme views are not driven under ground.
Never forget Keir Starmer accused anyone that disagreed with him as being ‘right-wing’ and had the authorities drag them into court – that is the real part of making society unsafe.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary want her authorities by law to manage and control the thoughts of society putting everyone at risk from her & Starmers thought police.
Free speech means, someone at sometime will be offended. Its about challenging views thoughts etc. Is it right for politicians or religions to go unchallenged even if the find what is said offends them. The direction the Labour Government is heading at speed is to cancel everyone that doesn’t buy their view and direction.
I would suggest Vance is correct and the only people he offended was those that are putting personal ideology above the people and their real job of managing
February 15, 2025
With the US flag being burnt in Chicago by those of a particular middle-east extraction, I suggest he’s got his own similar problems at home.
February 15, 2025
He’s solving them!
February 16, 2025
@Dave Andrews – even then working and living in Chicago is a lot more relaxing, clean, calm and safe when compared to London
February 15, 2025
All the West has achieved is to prolong the bloodshed, to no discernible purpose. Trump’s action represents the first instance of common sense in this unhappy saga; we need a few more of the mind of him and Vance, but little sign of them in the corridors of power on this side of the Atlantic.
Starmer makes a lot of noise, but lacks the means and the inclination to pay for what he proposes.
February 15, 2025
Well said William. Trump has a way of cutting to the chase. He is not afraid to express the broad-brush issues of life and death that have caught up so many ordinary decent souls in senseless suffering. Even in Gaza, he is bold enough to say that a re-settled population could have a better life elsewhere: the Arabs are not short of land, or cash. However, Trump must be well aware all these conflicts have deep seated causes. The good thing is that America potentially has the power to exert real influence on a global scale. In this regard, Trump is a remarkable leader, and many people of good will across the world wish him well, even though his efforts may be misunderstood and will often fall short. For example, the hostages were not all released today, and the dire consequences are now seen as a bluff – or were they? We shall see.
February 15, 2025
Germany refused to send any weapons to Ukraine until 3 days after Russia invaded. What caused this reversal of its policy? A Faustian deal with Zelensky whereby he signed over the future sovereignty of Ukraine to the EU in exchange for supply of weapons. What did Germany and the EU want? Not to save Ukraine fro Russia but to gain contro lof its vast mineral reserves of which rare earths and lithum alone are valued at up to US$13 trillion.
The Ukrainians will never get the independent sovereignty they are fighting for.
The EU’s European Raw Materials Alliance was set up in 2017 to exploit resources such as those in Ukraine. Putin’s invasion gave the EU an opportunity to gain control, support its Green Energy, reduce dependence on China and make money from them rather than pay for them.
The EU’s declared policy on postwar reconstruction of Ukraine is that it will be directed to supporting EU Green Energy.
References:
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-ukraine-russia-funding-weapons-budget-military-aid/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-signs-formal-request-join-european-union-2022-02-28/
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-commits-100-billion-to-defense-spending/a-60933724
https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/eu-and-ukraine-outline-plans-sustainable-reconstruction-high-level-conference-2023-11-27_en
https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/statement-president-von-der-leyen-joint-press-conference-ukrainian-president-zelenskyy-2023-02-02_en
https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/eu-and-ukraine-outline-plans-sustainable-reconstruction-high-level-conference-2023-11-27_en
https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/1b20b50f-60d6-11ee-9220-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-search
February 16, 2025
And there we have it. As I said above, ‘Trump must be well aware all these conflicts have deep seated causes’.
February 15, 2025
I agree with John Redwood’s criticism that when asking Ukraine to fight the West did not give them sufficient weaponry and ammunition, or more important we did not give them and allow them to use sufficiently sophisticated weaponry (which Europe and especially America seems to have) to enable them to win. I would at even this late stage (on the basis of better late than never)far rather Ukraine be given this more advanced weaponry and be given a chance to win. However if that is not going to happen, Donald Trump and John Redwood, (distasteful though it is to let Putin get any benefit or encouragement out of the war he started) are probably right.
February 15, 2025
I very much agree with Sir John that we cannot expect Ukraine to fight on and sacrifice without sufficient weaponry to win.
Ukraine cannot win this conflict so the only outcomes are a negotiated peace settlement or a Russian victory. Any peace settlement however needs to be secured.
I believe as part of any deal Ukraine needs to have EU membership, NATO membership or have country-specific defence treaties to protect her and prevent all this happening again in the future.
I would opt for the EU option given NATO is going to be unacceptable to Putin. If Putin will not accept Ukraine’s EU membership either then Ukraine must have multiple defence treaties with the West as a substitute until it gets its EU membership in the future. Any treaties must mean a permanent Western military presence on the ground in Ukraine too. Its a price worth paying to avert WW3.
February 15, 2025
The main cause of the Ukraine war is that the US elects Presidents every four years who don’t actually control its foreign policy or for that matter its health policy; these are normally under the control of entrenched bureaucracies that hold sway irrespective of who is nominally in control.
The US State department which has been responsible for murder and mayhem on an epic scale in many locations outside North America, decided that after the final collapse of the Bolshevik Empire in 1991, it would thieve Russia’s plenitude of natural resources. To this end to weaken Russia it spent five billion dollars on removing Ukraine from Russian influence and delivering it to an extremely unlikely alliance of Banderites and the descendents of the Bolshevik mass murderers who had already lost control of Russia and mostly lived abroad.
Ukraine as currently constituted by the Bolsheviks is a state consisting of an educated Russian class who controlled the industrial heart of the country and who have always lived in the South East since well before the Bolshevik coup d’etat (financed by Kuhn Loeb as an investment to steal the wealth of the Czar and his family) and Ukrainian farmers who lived mainly to the West of the Dnieper.
It is high time the liblabcon understood that Ukraine now no longer exists and they are wasting our money on trying to support a regime that lays claim to the country within borders created by the Bolsheviks, especially as President Trump with his advisors has decided to break with the past and not follow the foreign policy of the Biden regime but open a dialogue with Russia to achieve a resolution of the Ukraine conflict.
February 15, 2025
Four points: firstly, it is a strategic blunder to see only one’s own weakness and not that of the enemy. The West is indeed inconvenienced by the war, but Russia is bankrupt, out of men and materiel, punch drunk and on its knees.
Secondly, no people who have tasted freedom will return to subjection. Ukrainians will fight on because they have no choice. They know what defeat will bring because they have experienced it before: forcible deportation of millions to Siberia, to die there of abuse and neglect.
Thirdly, Moscow’s word is worthless. When it has got its breath back it will manufacture provocations to resume hostilities.
Fourthly, the front line in Taiwan and the Far East runs through Ukraine. If Trump doesn’t know that he has not understood the geopolitics.
February 15, 2025
Wow – is that the BBC you are quoting or The Telegraph?
You are all on for a tremendous shock. Russia is booming, militarily out producing the entire west by multiples and in sophistication. We still don’t have a hypersonic weapon. Trump has said he will soon.
Europe is bankrupt. Germany ist kaput! Britain will not follow Starmer!
February 16, 2025
I’ve worked in Russia. I can assure you none of their technology rivals that of the West, even those bits of it they have copied. I suspect one reason they won’t use nuclear weapons in Ukraine is the high probably they would malfunction or hit Russian territory.
February 16, 2025
We have nothing to fear then. They are a petrol station posing as a country. How bad must NATO be to have been comprehensively out-manufactured by multiples and also by quality?
February 15, 2025
There is the economics that also comes into play. Europe has a population that is around 50% greater than that of the USA. So more people, more resources and seemingly more tax collected and squandered. But it looks like the EU leadership just as with the UK leadership is 100% concerned with ideology before people and country. To the USA I would guess (just a guess) their taxpayers find the leadership of the EU and UK insulting on every level.
The the big contradiction from the leadership on this side of the pond, is they assume and expect the US Taxpayer to fund their(Europe’s) defence by them paying a whopping 70% more than they care to do for themselves. In essence a smaller population is paying more than the bigger one.
Yet what’s forgotten again this side of the pond as well as the USA funding to keep Europe afloat and defended it also has to protect it Western borders from the likes of China and North Korea. Would the EU come to the aid of the US if North Korea attacked Guam? They have demonstrated they can.
Reply The EU is so much poorer than US. Just half US GDP per head.m
February 15, 2025
The UK coming to any ones aid? The guys in the UK’s little defence force are personal very very capable. For a couple of days the could make a big impression, but defence is a 24-7 operation. Being on station 24 – 7 that’s 168 hours a week without let up, when the average UK worker complains about 37.5 hour a week and expects week-ends and holidays.
The UK couldn’t find 40,000 troops to sit on the Ukraine borders. In perspective more people went to see Taylor Swift at Wembley than the UK has than can commit to the front line – if the UK doubled the size of its front line guys and sent them to Wembley there would still be space in the Stadium for those seeking freebies.
February 15, 2025
if any had asked for Taylor Swift tickets they probably would have been given them.
February 15, 2025
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgl27x74wpo
“‘Army of Europe’ needed to challenge Russia says Zelensky”
I do not join in with the hero worship accorded to this man.
February 15, 2025
Peace should be the first move. That is far better than destroying lives, buildings, resources and much more.
The matter appears fundamentally to be a conflict about occupation of land space. Russia has the largest share of land in the world, with far more than enough room for their 140 million people to swing their cats on very long ropes. Ukraine has only 37 million people, but has much more space than the UK is squashed into.
Two countries killing each other’s citizens is a crazy way to increase their survivors’ personal share of space.
If combat is involved, deciding the outcome on the basis of a chess tournament would be far more sensible.
The tournament should be between Ukraine & Russia. USA doesn’t belong on the board.
February 15, 2025
Peace should be the first move. That is far better than destroying lives, buildings, resources and much more.
The matter appears fundamentally to be a conflict about occupation of land space. Russia has the largest share of land in the world, with far more than enough room for their 140 million people to swing their cats on very long ropes. Ukraine has only 37 million people, but has much more space than the UK is squashed into.
Two countries killing each other’s citizens is a crazy way to increase their survivors’ personal share of space.
If combat is involved, deciding the outcome on the basis of a chess tournament would be far more sensible.
The tournament is between Ukraine and Russia. USA doesn’t belong on the board.
February 15, 2025
Trumps 5AM tweet this morning – “He who saves his country does not break any law”
February 16, 2025
+1 that’s what Enoch Powell said. ‘You can do ANYTHING – you can kill, to defend your country.
February 16, 2025
Beware: some Napoleone Bonaparte is supposed to have said it, as reported as a joke by Honore de Balzac/J.L.Gaudy 1838 in his ‘Maximes et pensées de Napoleon’. This was then published again this time seriously in 1912 by historian Jules Bertaut in ‘Virilités, maximes et pensées’.
‘Celui qui sauve sa patrie ne viole aucune loi’.
February 16, 2025
In the late 1930s Chamberlain was warned we needed to decide whether to make a military treaty with Soviet Russia or with Poland. Instead of asking ‘Why on earth either of them, as we can’t possibly field such an expeditionary force?’ Chamberlain plumped for Poland. And a fat lot of use we were to Poland in 1939.
We are geographically placed to stay out of the Ukraine conflict, and should remain out.
February 16, 2025
Christopher Sheldrake
34m ago
I offer this off-topic comment as an example of how another healthcare system operates in the Far East :
It isn’t complicated, just very well run and there wasn’t a foreign member of staff anywhere in sight :
I was recently treated in an immaculate modern rural hospital in Thailand on a Saturday morning. It was in a town about the size of Salisbury and had superb facilities with excellent staff all dressed in immaculate uniforms.My holiday insurers recommended the hospital and pre-warned them that I would be arriving by car, within a two hour time window.
I waited no time at all, seeing the triage nurse, a senior sister, and a junior doctor all within 30 minutes. I had been given a thorough check over and an initial assessment and was then referred upstairs to a Gastro specialist for a suspected hernia.
X rays were ordered and the complete process including a final consultation with the specialist were completed within 3 hours. Fortunately no serious hernia, just a minor stomach problem probably down to dietary differences and a recommendation to see my GP when I returned home to look at a potential future Hernia problem.
The cost ? Just £175 in total including a four X rays, medication and a precautionary follow up visit after 5 days. All paid for by credit card at the desk in the main entrance. I thought it was remarkable value for money and will be covered by insurance.
In my local NHS hospital, I would probably not even have had an initial triage assessment by the time I was being discharged and had paid the bill in Trang. Heaven knows what our local trust would charge the NHS for a similar procedure. Several times the cost, I would guess.
February 16, 2025
You do need some money but money alone does not buy a proper Health Service or Defence Force.
I’m pleased there was nothing seriously wrong.
February 16, 2025
Whatever the End of the Ukraine war or End of the British Mandate in Palestine – here we go again – the big powers are involved but when put to it they pull out usually following a collapse as in Vietnam or a grubby deal like Afghanistan and leave a mess behind – FYI fifty years following the Americans departing SE Asia the local people in Laos and Camodia are still clearing up the bomblets from the forest floor. And now listening to VP Vance and Secretary Hegseth’s ‘New Sheriff in town’ stuff I can see where all of this is going – so we had better lookout because if Europe is not involved and do not have a role to play as guarantor then I fail to see an end – if Peace is not settled properly the Russians will be back for sure.
February 16, 2025
Germany and France acted as Guarantor for the Minsk Agreements which Merkel and Holland openly said were to ‘buy Ukraine time to fully arm’.
You think Putin should ask them to guarantee the next agreement?
You must really believe the Russians are fools. Big mistake.
February 16, 2025
Many of those talking of appeasement now took no action at all when Russia invaded Crimea when Obama was President. There was no fighting to regain it and a de facto acceptance of the new borders. I don’t see why now is any different with some pre-war Eastern parts of Ukraine tending to support Russia anyway. It seems at one point Ukraine were about to break through but the USA stopped them after a threat of nuclear weapon use by Putin – in that case a non-negotiated settlement could only be a stalemate or a Russian victory.
February 16, 2025
What happened to ‘The Art of the Deal’? Does giving up all grounds, the possibility of a NATO membership, and telling beforehand that the USA will not participate in any potential deployment, even before any talks have started, the best way to proceed?
As for the spurious argument that there are Russian speakers in East Ukraine, does that mean that Germany, Italy and France should manœuvre to take over the German-speaking, Italian-speaking and French-speaking of Switzerland? Or the Netherlands and France their respective parts of Dutch and French-speaking Belgium?
Some people should read wikipedia ‘List of multilingual countries and regions’ and (try to) understand it. I know it will be a huge task for some here.
February 16, 2025
Yes the Art of the Deal phase one is find out the facts.
Phase two is accept what cannot be recovered.
Phase three is try to secure that which has not yet been lost.
This issue is not whether sections of a population speak a different language – the midlands is no longer majority English speaking for instance. The issue is whether genetic people on their own ancient lands have a right to be themselves. The Russians were in Donbas and in fact in Kiev before Ukraine was established.
Similarly the Jews were in Israel before the British invented the nation State. Still, it is their land.
I know this will be hard for you to understand. It will be a huge task, but try!
February 16, 2025
Lawrence Freedman 16/02/2025 ‘Putin’s weak spot?’
What about you going through it and telling us what is wrong with it?
February 17, 2025
Most of his premise is misplaced. Thereafter he is lost.
Lavrov stating once again that there will be no territorial concessions. That Ukraine deploying its armed forces against its own citizens – the genetically Russian ones – breaks all international human rights legislation and norms.
You should listen to Lavrov. The Russian are not losing. Not afraid, not unreasonable.
If you prefer they will just fight on until they feel secure. That is what they are expecting and planning to do. They HOPE that Trump will cause that to be unnecessary.
February 17, 2025
So do you maintain that the Russian Black Sea Fleet has not suffered any loss since the beginning of the war in February 2022?
February 17, 2025
Well, basically you have nothing to say. Am I surprised?
You accept everything that Trump is doing, giving Putin Ukraine as a gift with a big red bow on it, might is right, Putin back as a reasonable member of the G8, all territories taken to be kept by Russia, no NATO membership for Ukraine. Putin got everything he wants from a weak PotUS without any negotiations, without giving anything in exchange.
‘The Art of the Deal’, what a (sad) laugh.
February 17, 2025
I remember reading an article in the Guardian by Jonathan Powell who wrote “Britain once punched above its weight. Now we are irrelevant”. The New York Times, Diplomatic editor, Steven Erlanger claimed no-one knows what Britain is anymore…Britain has no real influence anymore. To be honest, I thought good at least we’re not going to get dragged into Iraq, Afghanistan or other big world fights that usually leave us as the baddies.
May was left twiddling her bracelets, ignored and made to look small. Again, good riddance.
Yet here we are, expected to stump up money and manpower, smarmy EU leaders hugging Starmer in his fake fatigues trying to look like a big player. Suddenly now they want our money and personnel we’re relevant again at an emergency summit. Starmers on his knees giving more away no doubt.
No thanks. Unless all those spare men with nothing to do and nothing but a significant expense, whom we are putting up in hotels, can be redeployed to peacekeeping in Ukraine, perhaps.