Lisa Haseldine

Britain should prepare for more rape cases involving illegal migrants, Dominic Cummings has warned. Speaking on The Spectator’s Quite right! podcast, the former advisor to Boris Johnson referenced the case of two young Afghan asylum seekers who were jailed earlier this month for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Leamington Spa. Places like Leamington ‘better get used to it’, Cummings said, ‘because there’s going to be a lot more of it.’ Criticising the lack of information Warwickshire police were initially willing to share about the identities of the Leamington perpetrators, Jan Jahanzeb and Israr Niazal, following their arrest in May, Cummings told Michael Gove and Madeline Grant: The odd thing is, the country knows it's all fake.

Ukraine – not Russia – is ‘refusing to end this conflict using peaceful means’, Vladimir Putin claimed this morning. The Russian President chose to open his traditional end-of-year press conference in Moscow with the subject of Ukraine, rehashing lines Kremlin-watchers have heard many times since he launched his full-scale invasion almost four years ago. The strength of feeling with which he answered prompts the question of whether Putin truly believes what he is saying?Asked by NBC – one of the few foreign outlets granted a question during the marathon press conference – if he would feel responsible for more deaths if he didn’t agree to a peace plan, Putin replied: ‘We do not consider ourselves responsible for the loss of life because we did not start this war.

Keir Starmer will travel to Berlin this afternoon to join European leaders for a ‘mini-summit’ in support of Ukraine following two days of talks between president Volodymyr Zelensky and American officials. Zelensky has been in the German capital since yesterday, locked in talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to hammer out the terms of a peace deal on the war in Ukraine that can then be presented to Russia. US representatives have also been invited to this afternoon's mini-summit – due to kick off shortly after 5.30 p.m. UK time. Overnight, Witkoff declared that ‘significant progress’ had been made with Zelensky.

Vladimir Putin is ‘morally responsible’ for the death of Dawn Sturgess, a public inquiry today has concluded. The mother of three died in Salisbury in June 2018 after unknowingly spraying herself with the nerve agent novichok, which had been discarded three months earlier by two Kremlin agents sent to kill the former spy Sergei Skripal. The operation was so sensitive that it ‘must have been authorised at the highest level by President Putin’ as a ‘demonstration of Russian power’, the inquiry’s chair Lord Hughes said. Keir Starmer condemned the Kremlin’s ‘disregard for innocent lives’ Lord Hughes said that disguising the novichok in a perfume bottle ‘dramatically magnified’ the risk of unintended casualties, and called it ‘an astonishingly reckless act’.

As Donald Trump presses on with his breathless efforts to secure an end to the war in Ukraine, the leaders of Europe face a task of their own. In the event of a peace deal with Russia, how will they – in place of an America that can’t be trusted as a reliable ally – provide Kyiv with the security guarantees against Russian aggression that it craves? And even if they are willing, are they capable of delivering them?

Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today to debrief with Donald Trump following the US President’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. The purpose of today’s meeting at the White House will be to discuss the parameters of a potential peace deal in Ukraine. The last time Zelensky came to Washington was in February, when Trump and his vice president J.D. Vance berated the war-time leader for not being sufficiently ‘grateful’ for America’s support in the conflict with Russia. Once again, there is every possibility today’s summit will turn out as tense as it did six months ago.  Zelensky and his allies have a tall task ahead of them today Trump reportedly wants to discuss the territorial concessions demanded by Putin during Friday’s tete-a-tete.