Ukraine

Thursday

Rod Liddle

We blew our chance to befriend Putin

You have the advantage over me. It may be that you are reading this now in your makeshift fallout shelter, hair falling out and bleeding from the gums as the nuclear winter descends. More likely you are saying, rather smugly, to your neighbour: ‘I knew he was taking the piss. He’s a right one, that Putin.’ Or perhaps Vlad’s forces are already in London, having swept through western Europe in about eight hours, the Germans for once outdoing the French with their alacrity to surrender. Well, that should see an end to Stonewall and the Tavistock Clinic, no? Every cloud, etc. I would not wish to underestimate the threat posed

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Taking Ukraine would finish Putin

‘Never interrupt your enemy,’ said Napoleon, ‘when he is making a mistake.’ A Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine would prove (perhaps, by the time this Spectator is published, ‘will’ prove) a terrible mistake. Were it not for the death and despoliation such a mistake would bring — an outcome one could never welcome — the response to Vladimir Putin’s implicit threats should surely be: bring it on! When we told Russia they’d only be hurting themselves, did we not mean it? For the free world, an invasion would be a dark cloud; but, though I hate to speak of silver linings, the ultimate downfall of Putin, the severing of

Paul Wood

Russian roulette: is Moscow’s bluff backfiring?

A bluff only works if you can carry it off convincingly. The massing of some 130,000 Russian soldiers on Ukraine’s borders has led to London and Washington declaring that a full-scale invasion is imminent, but it could still be a feint. The Russians know everything they do can be seen by satellite. On the phone from Kiev, Colonel General Ihor Smeshko says he is not inclined to read too much into the Russian army’s logistics. He was head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service and later a candidate for president. ‘From the military point of view, Russian Federation has prepared everything needed to start the war,’ he said, but he still

Michael Auslin

China and Russia are an alliance of disruptors

Four years ago, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping made pancakes together in Vladivostok while thousands of their military forces conducted joint exercises in Siberia. This month, as China hosted the Olympics, Putin and Xi announced that a ‘new era’ in international relations had begun, one in which the two great authoritarian powers of the 21st century will reshape the liberal international order established in 1945 and reaffirmed in 1991. Some call it Cold War II, yet the blossoming relationship between Moscow and Beijing may best be thought of as an alliance of disruptors. As Russia roils Europe over Ukraine and China turns its attention to Taiwan after crushing Hong Kong’s

Owen Matthews

The western press is giving Putin what he wants

Why does Vladimir Putin need Russia Today and Sputnik News when the western media are doing such a great job on his behalf? Throughout his two decades in power, Putin has yearned for international respect. Failing that, he’ll settle for fear. And what more satisfying outcome could there be for a serial sabre-rattler like Putin to have his bluff finally taken seriously? For weeks, British papers and TV have been filled with images of scary Russian tanks, warships and artillery blasting away — mostly provided, if you check the photo credits, by Russia’s Ministry of Defence. Since November, the US and British governments have been issuing increasingly strident warnings that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theatre of war: Putin’s deadly dramatics over Ukraine

Vladimir Putin now knows that the West won’t fight for Ukraine. The past few weeks have shown that. All options are open to Moscow. Russian troops could march on Kiev or stay on the border destabilising Ukraine’s economy until its government gives way. If Putin wanted a fight, he would win — at least initially. No western military force will stop Russia from crossing the border. The main question is what punishment the West would be able to inflict on Russia after an incursion. Would Nato members be able to agree on what approach to take? Tensions within the alliance have been exposed. Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser,

The Spectator

How do Russian and Ukrainian military forces measure up?

Facing the music Police in New Zealand played Barry Manilow records to truck drivers in an attempt to persuade them to break up their protests. One of the first uses of music as a weapon was by US forces attempting to force Panamanian military leader and drug dealer General Manuel Noriega to leave the Vatican embassy, where he had sought sanctuary in December 1989. For three days over Christmas they played an eclectic mixture of music including ‘Too Old to Rock’n’Roll, Too Young to Die’ by Jethro Tull, ‘Judgment Day’ by Van Halen, ‘Born to Run’ by Bruce Springsteen, ‘Give It Up’ by KC and the Sunshine Band, ‘We Gotta

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Inflation hits 30-year high, Andrew settles out of court and Turkey changes its name

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, made ready for a Russian invasion of Ukraine by cutting short a planned visit to northern England for a Cobra meeting. ‘We are on the edge of a precipice,’ he said. He said Britain was prepared to target Russian banks and companies, and stop them raising money on London’s financial markets. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, condemned an online rally called No War in Ukraine: Stop Nato Expansion, organised by the Stop the War coalition, of which Jeremy Corbyn is the deputy president. Petrol prices reached a new high of 148.02p a litre. Inflation rose to 5.5 per cent, its highest for 30

Wednesday

Charles Moore

What would Thatcher have said about Putin?

When Sir Tony Brenton writes a letter to the Times, as he frequently does, it always says at the bottom that he was British ambassador to Moscow. The uninformed reader could be forgiven for thinking the sub-editors have got it back to front and he was actually the Russian ambassador to London. Sir Tony’s message in every letter is ‘It’s all Britain’s fault’. In his latest, his particular target was the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, after her visit to Moscow. He said she ‘might usefully recall Margaret Thatcher’s wise message to Mikhail Gorbachev sent in 1985 as perestroika began to take off: “We know that you have as much right to

Monday

Robert Peston

The Ukraine crisis has united the West

There has been a subtle change of tone from Joe Biden and Boris Johnson about the likelihood of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has gone from ‘highly likely’ to ‘there may be a diplomatic solution’ — or from ‘almost all hope lost’ to ‘chink of hope’. So from where does that hope emanate? Largely, I am told, from noises out of Ukraine that its government is moving towards a public statement that although it retains the right to join the Nato western defence alliance, it will commit to not consider applying for at least ten years. The US president and UK prime minister are keen to encourage, through diplomatic channels, such

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Putin may yet resist a full-on invasion

The west is still in the dark on what Vladimir Putin will do next. The Russian military build-up on the Ukrainian border continues but in televised meetings with Sergey Lavrov, his foreign minister, Putin was told that there is a case for ‘continuing and intensifying’ diplomatic discussions with the West. For Putin — who smarts at what he sees as the humiliation of the end of the Cold War and the decline of Soviet power — there is a satisfaction in watching the West scramble to respond to his actions. The Biden administration wanted to prioritise competition with China, but Putin is succeeding in forcing him to concentrate on European diplomacy

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

I stand with Diane Abbott

Not for the first time in her political career, Diane Abbott is getting a lot of flak online. She’s being trolled, heckled and denounced as an enemy of the United Kingdom. Only this time Ms Abbott is being hauled over the coals not for saying something silly, but for saying something sensible. Something true. Something fundamentally correct. Namely, that Nato bears a great deal of responsibility for the current crisis in Ukraine. Browsing the Abbott-bashing headlines you could be forgiven for thinking she had upped sticks, flown to Moscow, and sworn lifelong allegiance to Vladimir Putin. ‘Diane Abbott backs Russia!’, says the Express. In its regular feature on mad things

Charles Lipson

What really happens if Russia invades Ukraine?

Russia will pay an enormous price if it invades Ukraine, whether it goes for the whole country or only the eastern region around Donbas. Vladimir Putin has already assembled well over 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, moved in tanks, heavy artillery and aircraft, and brought in the medics and blood supplies needed to deal with casualties. Western governments have evacuated all but essential diplomatic personnel and told their citizens to get out now. Still, no one knows what Putin has decided, or even if he has decided. Visits to Moscow by senior western politicians have yielded little information and no diplomatic solution. The message seems to be that Putin remains

Friday

James Forsyth

Ukraine’s plight paints a bleak vision of Europe’s future

It is tempting to view Vladimir Putin as a Cold War relic: a former KGB officer who hasn’t got over the fall of the Soviet Union, which he called the ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.’ But, as I say in the Times today, what is happening on Ukraine’s border isn’t a throwback to the Cold War. Rather, it is a preview of Europe’s future. Since Nato’s creation, European security has rested on America’s involvement. But Europe is now a secondary concern for the US; Asia and competition with China is the most important challenge facing Washington now. The horribly messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan was justified on the basis that it would

Thursday

The Spectator

Why Putin wins

Does Vladimir Putin intend to invade Ukraine? Or are his troop manoeuvres just a game — another test of the West’s resolve? If the former, he will win: British troops (and citizens) have been told to leave Ukraine in the event of conflict and no one doubts that the estimated 130,000 Russian forces could succeed in their objective. So the first major land war in Europe since World War II would end in an easy victory for Russia.  “My guess is he will move in,” Joe Biden said last week, as if he were a casual observer. Families of US diplomats in Ukraine have been ordered to leave the country But even if it’s a bluff, Putin can count

Saturday

William Nattrass

Could Viktor Orbán be a peacemaker in Ukraine?

For a politician whose calling card is the struggle for Hungarian national sovereignty, Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin’s press conference on Tuesday didn’t look good for the Hungarian leader. Putin abruptly walked off the stage, brusquely beckoning Orbán to follow. The Hungarian strongman dutifully picked up his papers and traipsed across the large, socially distanced podium all alone, apparently flummoxed by whether or not to button up his suit jacket. The unfortunate clip makes Orbán look every inch Putin’s puppet – quite the turnaround for a politician who made his name campaigning against Hungary’s lack of independence as a Soviet satellite state in the dying days of the Cold War.

Mary Dejevsky

What the media gets wrong about Putin and Ukraine

Western warnings of an ‘imminent’ Russian invasion of Ukraine have grown more insistent in recent weeks with different voices, from the media to politicians, needlessly stoking the fires of war with their aggressive and inaccurate rhetoric.  Time and again, Putin’s words have been twisted or misconstrued in a way that fits and reinforces western preconceptions Part of the reason for this is because the grainy satellite images of Russian troops poised on Ukraine’s border, just waiting for their orders to attack, conformed so well to every western stereotype: an aggressive Russia under a dictatorial leader, ready to bully, if not annihilate, poor little – well, actually not so little –

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Is our Ukrainian ambassador OK?

I know the following sentence is going to get me into trouble. Still, there are times when you wonder whether highly feminised people should perform certain jobs. I am not saying ‘women’ and I am not saying ‘always’, just ‘times’. Still, I can hear you say: what sort of a dinosaur are you? Well, join me in the Jurassic period for a moment by contemplating the social media activity of our lead diplomatic representative and ambassador in the Ukraine, Melinda Simmons. Simmons is in a rather important position at present, yet her social-media account suggests otherwise. Here is Simmons a few months ago, writing on Instagram about a photograph of

The Spectator

How many people still send letters?

Borderland Few countries can have passed through as many kingdoms and empires as Ukraine — the ‘borderlands’. These are just a few of the political entities which have controlled parts or all of modern-day Ukraine before it became an independent nation in 1991: Scythian Kingdom; Roman Empire; Ostrogothic Kingdom; Bulgar Kingdom; Khazar Kingdom; Kievan Rus; Mongolia; Galicia-Volhynia; Poland; Lithuania; Ottoman Empire; Cossack Hetmanate; Austro-Hungarian Empire; Russia; Free Territory of Ukraine; Soviet Union. Schemes and scams The government hopes to raise £12 billion through the 1.25% rise in National Insurance contributions from April. How does this compare with money wrongfully claimed under Covid relief schemes? According to HMRC estimates: 8.7% of

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Sue Gray speaks, Boris goes to Ukraine and 477-mile bolt of lightning strikes

Home Sue Gray, the second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, in a 12-page ‘update’ on her investigation into 16 gatherings in Downing Street, refrained from comment on particular cases, 12 of which were being looked into by police. ‘Some of the behaviour surrounding these gatherings is difficult to justify,’ she concluded. ‘There was a serious failure to observe… the standards expected of the entire British population.’ Some events ‘should not have been allowed to take place’. She said that ‘excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace’. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told the Commons that he ‘wanted to say sorry’. ‘I get it and I