Ukraine

Thursday

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

Sunday

Katja Hoyer

Germany’s diplomatic game doesn’t make sense

Amidst the heavy criticism of Germany’s lack of commitment in the Ukraine crisis, the German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock argued in a speech to the German parliament on Thursday that alliance systems were a bit like a football team. ‘You don’t need 11 centre-forwards who all do the same thing; you need 11 players who get on with one another and who, most importantly, have the same game plan in mind.’ In other words, western alliance systems such as Nato should assign different roles and responsibilities to member states that are best suited to their individual strengths and weaknesses – horses for courses, to stay within the sporting imagery. The

Friday

Ian Williams

The dangerous alliance between Russia and China

The growing alliance between Russia and China is something we shouldn’t lose sleep over, their long history of mutual suspicion runs too deep – or so we are told. Such a view is too complacent by half. China and Russia’s mutual hostility towards the West and their opportunism also run deep. And even if their burgeoning alliance is a marriage of convenience, it is still a very dangerous one. As Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border, the nightmare for western strategists is that Vladimir Putin’s actions are being coordinated with those of Xi Jinping in and around the Taiwan Strait, where China’s military intimidation of

Thursday

Tucker Carlson

Read: Tucker Carlson on Ukraine, ethno-nationalism and M&Ms

This week, Tucker Carlson spoke to Freddy Gray on the latest episode of Spectator TV. You can watch their conversation here, or read it below: Freddy Gray: It’s a great honour to be joined by Tucker Carlson, who is the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, which is a show on Fox News, but it’s also available in the UK or through the Fox News app. We’re going to continue to be talking about Ukraine. And Tucker, I think it’s fair to say you’ve encountered quite a lot of criticism in recent days because as far as I can figure out, you are the only mainstream host who is sceptical of

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

No one should celebrate the decline of America

Where is America? Like an old friend who hasn’t been in touch for years, you wonder if its silence is lost interest or if it just got too busy. America used to be everywhere, the dominant voice in world affairs, a desirable friend and a much-feared enemy. It intervened (and, yes, interfered) whenever it felt its interests or values were threatened. Often its involvement was unwanted and sometimes it didn’t improve matters, but there was a reliable solidity to it, a sturdiness born of military might, prosperity and national self-belief. It could be admired or reviled, but it had to be reckoned with. America shies away from it all now.

Owen Matthews

The phoney war: what’s really going on between Boris and Putin

What a lucky coincidence. At the start of a week that could see the ignominious collapse of Boris Johnson’s premiership, an opportunity to go fully Churchillian has appeared out of the blue. In an unprecedentedly detailed and direct memorandum, the British Foreign Office announced that it had exposed Russian plans to mount a coup in Kiev. Johnson was quick to back the alarming news with a grave warning to Vladimir Putin. ‘The intelligence is very clear that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine, the plan for a lightning war that could take out Kiev is one that everybody can see,’ Johnson told reporters on Monday.

Julius Strauss

Letter from Odessa: life on the front line of a new Cold War

‘God Save the Queen’ trended on Ukrainian social media over the weekend. ‘As a Brit in Kiev I have never felt so popular,’ one expat tweeted. Four hundred miles to the south, however, on the once grand, now shabby streets of Odessa, the enthusiasms of the Twittersphere seem remote. There is little optimism that Britain, or indeed any other western country, can do much to halt the tidal wave that locals fear Russia is about to release on them. At first blush, life might look normal. On the main pedestrian street, Deribasovskaya, horsemen offer children rides on ponies with pink saddles. But in the city’s cafés, markets and large open

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Unease in Ukraine, tensions in No. 10 and hamsters escape Hong Kong

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told the Commons that Britain was prepared to send troops to protect Nato allies in Europe if Russia invaded Ukraine. The Foreign Office named Yevhen Murayev, a former Ukrainian MP, as a candidate that President Vladimir Putin of Russia was plotting to install in Ukraine. About half the staff at the British embassy in Kiev would come home. The Queen took a helicopter from Windsor Castle to Sandringham, where she is expected to stay for the 70th anniversary of her accession on 6 February. The Metropolitan Police began an investigation, led by deputy assistant commissioner Jane Connors, into ‘a number of events that took