World

Wednesday

James Snell

Could Ukraine go nuclear?

Should Ukraine have nuclear weapons? This is a question that was raised, a little insincerely, by President Zelensky recently as he discussed Nato membership and its alternatives. If Ukraine was not in Nato, Zelensky mused, the only alternative would be to look for protection of another kind: nuclear arms. A recent story in the Times said that Ukraine could make a ‘rudimentary’ nuclear bomb ‘within months’ if Donald Trump withdrew Ukraine’s military assistance. Russia has not used its nuclear weapons, but they have been the major reason no western power has directly intervened on Ukraine’s side. Ukraine had its own nuclear arsenal after the fall of the Soviet Union left it

Tuesday

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Joe Biden has put Ukraine in an impossible position

This week, Joe Biden lifted one of the many restraints placed on Ukraine in its war with Russia. The outgoing US president has allowed Kyiv to use long-range US-made ATACMS missiles in the Russian region of Kursk, a part of which is currently held by Ukraine. Last night, Kyiv used these missiles to strike a large Russian weapons depot in the Bryansk region neighbouring Kursk, suggesting Ukraine will also be able to use ATACMS on other Russian border regions. Biden’s move is mainly intended to ‘send a message’ to North Korea – which has sent 10,000 troops to aid Russia – and to thwart the Kremlin campaign to force Ukraine out of

Limor Simhony Philpott

An Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire will never last

Could this long round of armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah finally come to an end? It’s too early to know for sure, but all signs seem to point in this direction. Lebanon and Hezbollah have reportedly agreed yesterday to a US ceasefire proposal. American envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut today to finalise a deal between the sides. It seems that there’s an agreement on most issues, and Hochstein’s role is to tie up a few loose ends. Even if an agreement is reached, it would only be a temporary solution According to the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah will have to abide by UN Security Resolution 1701 from

Benedict Rogers

The jailing of democracy activists marks a dark day for Hong Kong

Hong Kong has sentenced dozens of democracy protestors to years in prison, in the largest trial since Beijing’s National Security Law was imposed on the city in 2020. The imprisonment of the 45 former elected legislators and pro-democracy campaigners comes just a day after Keir Starmer met Xi Jinping, telling the Chinese leader that he wants a “strong UK-China relationship”. The draconian punishments that have been dished out today are a humiliation for the Prime Minister’s attempt to build rapport with Beijing. Student leader Joshua Wong was imprisoned for four years Among those who have been locked up are law professor Benny Tai, sentenced to ten years, journalist Gwyneth Ho,

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Could Trump save Ukraine?

One thousand days into Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, three facts seem to be evident. First, Russia is losing. It is using its soldiers like human ammunition, burning through its economic reserves and mortgaging its future to Beijing. Second, Ukraine is losing faster than Russia. Ukraine’s forces are beleaguered along a too-long front and increasingly reliant on what looks like press-ganging for recruits. The country’s energy infrastructure is 80 per cent damaged or destroyed. The third fact: Donald Trump’s election is throwing all the old assumptions about the war into doubt. It is a sign of the odd times in which we live… Chief of the Defence Staff Sir

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Banning Marine Le Pen from politics would be a grave mistake

Paris prosecutors last week recommended that Marine Le Pen be jailed and banned from public office for five years. The court also wants similar sentences for 24 members of the party who, along with Le Pen, are accused of misusing public funds. The prosecutor accuses Le Pen of using money intended for EU parliamentary aides to instead pay staff who worked for the party between 2009 and 2016. The defence’s argument is that it’s hard to differentiate between what constitutes EU work and party work as the two often overlap. The judges will study the evidence and a verdict is expected in early 2025. Le Pen was probably not surprised

Monday

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Keir Starmer’s desperate cosying up to Beijing

Keir Starmer has met President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, telling the Chinese leader that he wants to build ‘consistent, durable, respectful’ relations. China’s official Xinhua news agency said there was ‘vast space for cooperation’. It was the first meeting between a British prime minister and Xi since 2018, and Starmer proposed further top-level meetings. Starmer clearly believes that Britain can ‘speak frankly’ where it disagrees with China while pursuing closer economic ties The timing was unfortunate, not only because of the shadow of Donald Trump, and the prospect that a cosying of British relations with Beijing will put the UK at odds with a

Fabian Hoffmann

How effective will Ukraine’s ATACMS be?

Last night, US President Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to use American ATACMS – or Army Tactical Missile Systems – against targets in the Russian region of Kursk. This decision came approximately six months after ATACMS were first deployed in Ukraine. Before now, they have been limited to targets in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. The decision from Biden appears to be a direct response to Russia amassing a large number of troops in Kursk, which Ukraine has held since August this year. Reports suggest that up to 50,000 Russian troops are currently preparing for a large-scale counteroffensive to take back the region, using 10,000 to 12,000 North Korean troops sent by Kim Jong-un. The

James Heale James Heale

Labour’s Trump-Xi balancing act

14 min listen

Keir Starmer today will become the first British leader to meet China’s Xi Jinping since 2018. The two leaders will meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil, and under the looming shadow of a second Trump presidency. Can Starmer strike the right balance? James Heale talks to Cindy Yu and Katy Balls. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Graham Watts

What really caused Vladimir Shklyarov to fall to his death?

At approximately 1 a.m. on Saturday, 16 November, Vladimir Shklyarov fell to his death from the fifth floor of his apartment block at Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment on St Petersburg’s Vasilyevsky Island. He was 39. That much is true. How and why he fell will be the subject of ongoing conjecture, perhaps for years to come. Shklyarov posted on social media: ‘I’m against all warfare…I want neither wars nor borders’ Nicknamed ‘the Skylark’ by English-speaking balletomanes, Shklyarov was nearing the end of his career as one of his generation’s greatest dancers, possessing an elegant lyrical, yet athletic, virtuoso performance style and technique, which was second to none. His whole career was

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Ukraine will make the most of its new firepower

Overnight, the news of Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles on Russian soil has been sinking in. Reports suggest that Kyiv is planning to use US-made ATACMS missiles for the first time in the coming days. We won’t know for sure until after the attack has taken place though – speaking at a press conference last night, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the news but said ‘strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves.’ The White House was reportedly persuaded to grant Ukraine permission to use the missiles following the news that approximately 10,000 North Korean troops

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is it wise for Starmer to meet Xi?

Keir Starmer will today become the first prime minister in six years to meet with Xi Jinping. The Labour leader is due to meet with the Chinese president at the G20 summit in Brazil as Starmer’s government attempts a wider reset of UK/China relations. This is being pitched by Downing Street as a move to ‘stable and pragmatic engagement’ with Beijing following a cooling of relations in recent years. The last prime minister to meet with Xi was Theresa May in 2018 who hailed a ‘golden era of UK-China relations’. Since then, however, allegations of espionage, human rights abuses, the national security law in Hong Kong and the pandemic have

Sergey Radchenko

What will Putin do about Biden’s parting gift to Ukraine?

At the very moment most people seem to have forgotten of his existence, President Biden has slowly but purposefully shuffled across Vladimir Putin’s latest red line in Ukraine. After months of President Zelensky’s tireless pleas, the United States has finally given Kyiv a green light to use American missiles (ATACMS) for strikes deep inside Russia. Putin may well decide that it is safer to swallow his pride and pretend nothing has happened Reports indicate that Biden’s permission applies in the first instance only to the Russian and North Korean troops deployed in the Kursk region. It aims at helping Kyiv to hold on to the piece of the Russian territory that

Sunday

Michael Evans

The sad death of the Eurofighter Typhoon

Britain’s fighter jets are running missions into Syria, dropping bombs on the Houthis in Yemen, patrolling over Estonia, Lithuania and Romania, close to Ukraine, and guarding our shores from interloping Russian bombers. And yet, the Typhoon final-assembly production line at Warton in Preston has effectively come to a halt. There are no new orders from the Ministry of Defence, and there is a battle going on between Typhoon supporters and those who want Britain’s military to have more American Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft instead. The government is saying nothing because there is a strategic defence review underway. It’s an old, old story, rehearsed so many times in the past. Do

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Donald Trump’s style of politics originated in Europe

A headline in a recent Washington Post op-ed declared that: ‘The Trump contagion is already in Europe – and it’s spreading’. The Post‘s European Affairs columnist, Lee Hockstader, who wrote the article, described the president-elect as ‘a dangerous role model to a rising cadre of European wannabes’. Sorry, Post. Europe may have given the USA blue jeans, burgers, and bubble wrap, but Trump’s form of political leadership originated in Europe at the turn of this century. Its initial purveyors were Pim Fortuyn of Holland, France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Jörg Haider of Austria. They also knew, like Trump, how to engage with the masses, tapping into anger at the liberal

Saturday

Nadine Dorries

Nadine Dorries, Katy Balls, Edmund West, Sam Dalrymple, and Tanjil Rashid

32 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Nadine Dorries reads her diary (1:12); Katy Balls analyses the politics behind the Assisted Dying debate (5:58); Edmund West allows us a glimpse into Whitby Goth Week (11:55); reviewing Avinash Paliwal’s book India’s New East, Sam Dalrymple looks at the birth of Bangladesh (17:39); and Tanjil Rashid reveals William Morris’s debt to Islam (21:23).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Niko Vorobyov

Russia’s mephedrone problem is spiralling out of control

Russians are, stereotypically, known as heavy vodka drinkers – a fact that is often celebrated, despite all the bodily perils it entails. What’s rather less talked about is that Russia suffers one of the worst HIV epidemics outside Africa. This is thanks, in no small part, to heroin users sharing needles. But the latest challenge to public health, aside from the meatgrinder in Ukraine, is the synthetic stimulants craze behind which lie an underworld of cyber drug cartels. Russia’s drug problem is nothing new The annual death toll from illicit drugs has more than doubled since 2019 to over 10,000 a year, a gruesome trend that’s likely to continue as the stress of the

Rupert Darwall

Cop is dying

In the near three-decade history of the annual round of UN climate conferences, the Baku Cop29 stands out. There have been disastrous Cops before. For those with long memories, there was Cop6 in the Hague after George W. Bush narrowly won the 2000 presidential election, which was disrupted by protestors and the outgoing American climate negotiator had a cake thrown at him. Then there is the Copenhagen Cop15, when the Global South, led by China, India, Brazil and South Africa, sunk a binding climate treaty that would have required them to cap their emissions. But never before has there been the indifference and mass absenteeism that marks the Baku Cop.

Friday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Trump making America Florida?

31 min listen

Freddy Gray is joined by political operator and consultant Roger Stone, a Floridian, to discuss Trump’s cabinet appointees. Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, Matt Gaetz are all part of Trump’s new team – what’s behind Florida’s growing influence within the Republican Party?

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Democrats don’t need their own Joe Rogan

One of the new cliches of American politics is that progressives need their own Joe Rogan. The comedian turned podcaster has an audience that is four-fifths male and 51 per cent aged 18-34, and it has not escaped the Democrats’ notice that, while women aged 18 to 29 voted overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris, men in the same age group went narrowly for Donald Trump. This tracks with pre-election research which showed a majority of Rogan listeners, regardless of sex or age, planned to vote Republican while only a quarter intended to back the Democrats. Rogan himself endorsed Trump, crediting Elon Musk for making ‘the most compelling case for Trump you’ll