Liz Truss has a dangerously romantic view of wars!

The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, believes it would be a wonderful idea for young Brits to get arms and go and fight the Ruskies on the side of the brave Ukrainians. Like it's the Spanish Civil War or something. First of all this is outrageously irresponsible. Second it's giving approval for people of this country to put their lives in danger. And third it's a statement that will and has already angered Moscow to a point where Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, claimed it was largely because of what she said that made Putin put Russia's nuclear weapons on high alert. Ok, that's typical Kremlin-talk. But it is still true that an inflammatory remark on the BBC by Truss has just exacerbated what was already a dangerous situation. I note that Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, increasingly looking and sounding like an intelligent, sensible, authoritative politician - so rare these days - advised absolutely the opposite and said Britons should not travel to Ukraine. Truss seems to think that fighting the Russians is some sort of romantic, glamorous game, like something out of an historical romance novel. Fighting the Russians, as the Ukrainians have discovered, is a brutal, lethal, every-minute-life-threatening business. It's not for the fainthearted and it's certainly not for the young Brit who fancies his chances of making a little bit of history for himself. Stay at home, as Ben Wallace has advised. This is a bloody war against a military superpower. So the Russian troops haven't yet fulfilled their leader's order to wrap it all up in less than seven days but I can tell you if it goes on much longer with such strong Ukrainian resistance, Putin will start bombing and shelling and destroying on a far larger scale until he achieves his objective.

Putin's nuclear threat

Putin has suffered a bloody nose. The Ukrainian military have thumped his forces trying to control cities in Ukraine and the whole world bar a few unmentionables have condemned him, the US and Europe have introduced the toughest sanctions ever including banning Russian banks from using the international Swift money-exchange system, and US Treasury aces are now searching for all of Putin's friends' superyachts and property to seize or freeze access to them. Putin is now so angry that he has actually ordered Russia's nuclear forces to go on high alert. This is a seriously dangerous man who has illusions of grandeur and, I fear, a death wish to destroy the world just so that he can get his revenge against, well, everyone else. The BBC has suggested that the raising of the alert status of Russian nuclear weapons doesn't mean that he is going to launch them. Phew, that's a relief. But study the man. Ok, it's very unlikely that he would really press the button because it would lead to a nuclear nightmare and then he would never be able to enjoy the billions of dollars he has stashed away, let alone climb on to his own superyacht to enjoy an evening sunset on the ocean. No, he can't be that stupid. Can he? However, Putin's decision to put Russia's nuclear forces on higher alert was not done for fun or even as a reminder to the West that he can destroy the world if he wants to. He did it, in my view, because he has got to the stage in his paranoia about Nato and the West in general where he might even consider turning to nuclear weapons. He wants to scare the hell out of the world. It's time I think for every Russian general and admiral and spy chief to persuade Putin to calm the hell down and get real. Putin is not just isolated from the world, he is isolated from his inner and outer circle and definitely from the whole Russian population who would like a decent life and food on the table which they are not going to get under Putin's regime.

Ukraine's citizen army takes on the Russians

Could the Russian invasion force face a highly motivated urban guerrilla war if they succeed in occupying and controlling Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine? Determined citizens throwing Molotov cocktails at Russian troops and vehicles will not cow an invasion force as capable and as well-armed as Russia’s army and special forces. However, the history of guerrilla and insurgency warfare has shown that if resistance forces are appropriately and consistently armed by sympathetic foreign governments, an invasion force deployed by a military superpower such as Russia can be effectively opposed and even defeated in time. There are numerous precedents: *The CIA-armed and Pakistan intelligence service -backed Mujahideen fought the Russian occupying forces in Afghanistan for nine years in the 1980s and drove them out of the country. *The US-led coalition force suffered the same ignominy at the hands of the Taliban after 20 years. *The US-led invasion force that defeated Saddam Hussein’s army in 2003 was then challenged by years of guerrilla warfare initially waged by dismissed and disillusioned Iraqi soldiers who metamorphosed into the Islamic state (Isis). A guerrilla war or urban warfare mounted by the Ukrainian people against the Russians would depend on the scale of arms received for a covert battle, coordination and leadership skills crucial for an effective and lengthy campaign, and the level of brutality the armed citizens might face from Russia’s occupiers. Would the people of Kyiv be prepared for or capable of mounting another Stalingrad? The Battle of Stalingrad, from August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943 in the Second World War can only be a metaphorical comparison because it involved the full might of the German 6th Army against the Soviet Union’s Red Army in the most brutal of campaigns for the city. There were more than 750,000 Soviet and 400,000 German military casualties and 40,000 civilian deaths before the 6th army commander surrendered. The scale of the battle, the most horrific example of urban combat in history, is not going to be repeated in Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million. However, all Ukrainian males of potentially fighting age have been urged by the Kyiv government to take up arms and confront the Russian troops. Could this lead to a citizens’ resistance capable of spoiling Vladimir Putin’s ambition to control the city and the rest of the country? Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have had eight years’ experience of fighting Russian separatists, backed by “little green men” Spetsnaz special forces sent by Moscow to eastern Ukraine. They have learned tactics and irregular-force skills which could be passed on to a citizens’ army. There are already more than 150 territorial defence battalions which were established to cover the whole country. While they are not best-equipped or manned, they, too, could be used to stir up an armed resistance. In July last year Ukraine passed a law called the foundations of national resistance which provides a legal framework for a nationwide resistance campaign. This was aimed at avoiding potentially the worst scenario which would be a guerrilla war involving thousands of enthusiastic patriots taking up arms without any form of controlled or organised structure.

Putin has made the biggest mistake of his life

Vladimir Putin comes across as a leader who knows his mind, knows his onions and cares not a lickspittle about any other country in the world other than Mother Russia and its lost empire. But right now, after the second day of his invasion of Ukraine, he must for the first time be worried sick. Has he made the worst strategic decision of his life? The invasion is not going as rapidly or as smoothly as he had hoped. Resistance in Kyiv is pretty robust and looks like getting even more so after the ex-comedian Ukrainian president announced every man, woman and child can go to the armoury to pick up a rifle. When the Russian troops arrive en masse in the capital, they are going to get a bloody nose. And the whole world except for idiots like Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua has condemned him. Articles are appearing everywhere saying Putin is a madman. Most people looking and listening to his speeches will agree. He has become psychologically unsound to put it mildly. He is so obsessed with the Soviet Empire and its past greatness that he has lost all sense of reality. Let us hope and dream that the invasion will fail, the Russian soldiers will demand to go home, the people of Russia will rebel, and Putin's leadership days will be over. Fingers crossed.

Russian firepower unleashed

Russia unleashed the full panoply of combat power in its multi-pronged attack on Ukraine. Fighter aircraft, land-attack cruise missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles and long-range artillery were all deployed to hit Ukrainian military and government targets. It was Moscow’s version of the American shock-and-awe offensive against Iraq in 2003, with all the Russian armed services involved in the multiple strikes that began at 5am local time. Many of the initial attacks came from five Kilo-class Russian navy submarines operating in the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean. The submarines are armed with land-attack 3M14 Kalibr cruise missiles, similar to the US Tomahawks. Fitted with a 1,000lb high explosive warhead, the Kalibr has a range of up to 1,500 miles. In service with the Russian navy since 2015, Kalibr cruise missiles were first fired in anger the same year against Isis targets in Syria, and again in 2017. They were launched from a submarine in 2015 and from a frigate in 2017. One of the submarines that launched cruise missiles at targets in Odessa, the Black Sea port and other military sites is believed to have been the diesel-electric powered Rostov-on-Don, the same one involved in the 2015 attack in Syria. The cruise missiles were fired in concert with massed arrays of Russian artillery that had advanced from the Ukrainian border in Western Russia, and with mobile Iskander short-range ballistic-missiles operating from Belarus. The most deadly artillery in the Russian military is the Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled howitzer. It’s fitted with a 152mm gun which has a rate of fire of more than ten rounds per minute and has a maximum range of about 44 miles. The 9K720 Iskander ballistic missile, known by Nato as the SS-26 Stone, has a range of up to 310 miles and carries a payload of between 480 kilos and 700 kilos. The weapon system can also fire cruise missiles. In addition to T-72 and T-90 tanks, the Russian military are also believed to have deployed a special urban warfare armoured vehicle called the BMPT-72 “Terminator”. It’s a heavily armed tracked vehicle armed with cannon, machineguns, automatic grenade launchers and Ataka guided missiles. In addition to their most advanced fighter aircraft, some of Russia’s bomber fleet, including Tu22M3 Backfires, Tu-95 Bears and Tu-160 Blackjacks may also have played a role in the initial attacks, firing stand-off missiles from beyond the range of Ukrainian air defences. The troops involved in the invasion plan include Russian naval infantry (the equivalent of the US Marine Corps) who are on 11 amphibious landing ships in the Black Sea. They could land a force of up to 4,000 troops, plus armoured vehicles, to seize Odessa.

How can Ukraine defend itself?

Ukraine’s 150,000 troops have their best chance of defending against a Russian invasion with “shoot-and-skoot” weapons provided by the US and thousands of missile launchers delivered by Britain. In some cases Ukrainian soldiers have had only a few weeks of training on the weapon systems to get ready for a conflict to save their country from occupation. Russia has all the capabilities to hit Ukraine hard with ballistic-missiles, long-range artillery and ground-attack aircraft with stand-off weapons, a war waged initially from a distance. The Ukrainian military, by comparison, will be relying more on shorter range, urban warfare systems to try and prevent the Russians from seizing cities in the Donbass region and elsewhere in the country. It would be an unequal fight. But the thousands of anti-tank missiles now in their hands courtesy of the US and Britain could make the difference between a rapid victory by Russian forces and a much longer-term campaign in which both sides would suffer thousands of casualties. The key weapon is the American Javelin anti-tank missile because it’s simple to operate and once fired the guided rocket will home in on the target by its own. It’s a fire-and-forget weapon or “shoot-and-skoot”, allowing the soldier to press the trigger and then seek immediate cover to avoid the counter-strike. Javelin which has a maximum range of 1.5 miles was used in Afghanistan and Iraq in more than 5,000 combat engagements. The weapon provided by Britain, the NLAW anti-tank system, is much shorter range, effective between 20 and 800 metres (65ft and 2624ft), but can be fired from inside buildings and can target tanks or armoured vehicles from close quarters. The missile can cover 400 metres (1,312ft) in under two seconds. If a Russian invasion spreads throughout Ukraine, it is expected that the ensuing conflict will be largely focused on high-intensity combat operations in an urban environment. The Javelin and NLAW weapons would play a crucial role in countering Russia’s heaviest and most advanced tanks. The Russian armoured vehicles could include the BMPT-72 “Terminator” armoured fighting vehicle which only came into service last year. Social media videos have shown the huge vehicles being transported by rail to the Ukraine border. It is armed with guided missiles, a cannon, a machinegun and automatic grenade launchers, and is suitable for backing up tanks in close-range urban warfare. The Ukrainian military also have the combat-proven Bayraktar TB2 armed drone supplied by Turkey, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles sent by Latvia and Lithuania, Saxon armoured vehicles from Britain and sniper rifles, night vision and radio equipment and tons of ammunition from the US.

Putin is playing a clever divide and rule game

Instead of sending all 190,000 Russian troops into Ukraine in an all-out invasion to take over the whole country, Vladimir Putin has been far trickier. A full invasion would be easier for the West to react to because they could then pile on the toughest sanctions ever all in one go. But, no, Putin decided to do it more slowly, starting off with sending troops and tanks as "peacekeepers" into the two now-Moscow-recognised "independent states" of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. It wrong-footed the West. In Washington Biden and other officials didn't describe it as an invasion, although one National Security Council official did use the "I" word. But basically the sanctions being promised are related to the sending of troops to eastern Ukraine not because of a Putin-ordered invasion. We don't yet know how far Putin will go but unless a large chunk of the 190,000 troops along three sections of Ukraine's borders are sent home in the next few days, the invasion, including occupying the capital Kyiv, will still go ahead. But at Putin's timing. He will wait to see how the West settles down to his "peacekeeping" mission for a few weeks or longer before deploying more troops into other parts of Ukraine. This could go on for months. Putin is nothing if not an arch strategist. If he can continue to wrong-foot Biden and co, he will do so and will take great satisfaction in doing so and hope that he can create divisions between the US and the European members of the Nato alliance.

It looks like the war has already started

No Russian troop crossings yet, no bombing from the air, no naval gunfire from the Black Sea, but the Putin war in Ukraine has effectively started, with a huge increase in artillery strikes and gunfire from Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The next step will be cyber warfare attacks followed by the first deployments over the border, probably from Belarus towards Kyiv. I can't see any turning back now. Putin, as Biden says, has made up his mind, not that there was any real doubt about his plan from the very beginning. And he thinks he has President Xi Zinping on his side. The Chinese leader is far too astute to come out and give his public backing for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. But he knows that at some time in the nearish future he, too, will be ordering an invasion - of Taiwan. And he will want Putin's tacit support for that which I am sure he will give if he hasn't already. The future of this world now looks like this: China and Russia linked together against the western world. A new and much more dangerous Cold War awaits.

US airpower building up in Europe

The US is rapidly building up combat air power in Europe as a deterrent to Russia’s growing aggressive stance along the borders of Ukraine. At least 60 additional aircraft consisting of fighter jets, strategic bombers, reconnaissance and surveillance planes and Reaper drones have been sent from the US to Europe or redeployed from Germany and the UK to Poland, Romania and the Baltics. In the latest deployment, a dozen F-35A Lightning II joint strike fighters have been to the region and have arrived at Spangdahlem air base in Germany from Utah. “We are facing a dynamic environment and this deployment significantly enhances our support to Nato’s defences, “ General Jeffrey Harrigian, commander of US air forces in Europe and head of allied air command, said in a statement. The US air force’s advanced fifth-generation stealth fighters are now part of a growing show of force by America and Nato allies in eastern Europe, the Baltics, Germany and the UK. Four B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers flew from their base in North Dakota to RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire last week, and six US KC-135 Stratotankers were sent from RAF Mildenhall in Cambridgeshire to Ramstein air base in Germany for midair refuelling operations. In addition, on Monday eight US F-15E Strike Eagles from North Carolina arrived at Lask in Poland where Nato already has a substantial presence of fighter aircraft. There are now 16 US F-15s of different varieties carrying out patrols from Lask. There are also eight F-16s at Fetesti in Romania and six F-15s at Amari in Estonia. The significant increase in US and Nato air power matches similar reinforcements of warships, troops (6,000 American soldiers from the US so far) and support units to the region. Their mission is to provide maximum deterrence to stop the risk of any Russian invasion of Ukraine spilling over into Nato member territory. The US has around 220 aircraft normally based throughout Europe, including in the UK, Italy, Turkey and Germany. That total is a mixture of fighter aircraft, tankers, transport aircraft and helicopters. However, in the last few weeks, as the Russian troop levels on the Ukraine borders rose from 70,000 to 150,000, the Pentagon decided to ramp up the air power strength. Much of the Russian air power in the region is now in Belarus whose border with Ukraine is just 41 miles from the capital, Kyiv. The Russian fighter aircraft include Su-35S Flankers and Su-25SM Frogfoots. The multirole Flankers are based at Baranovichi which is about 300 miles east of Lask in Poland.

Russian cyber warfare waiting in the wings

President Putin’s notorious military intelligence agency will unleash a catastrophic, pre-emptive cyber attack on Ukraine if he takes the decision to invade, an American cyberwar expert has said. The GRU, behind the Salisbury poisonings, a series of political assassinations and several large-scale cyber strikes, have the tools to disrupt Ukraine’s entire infrastructure “in minutes”, said James Lewis, a former diplomat and now senior vice-president at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The Russians are the best in the world in this type of warfare and they have the advantage that they built all the networks and utilities in Ukraine, they know the country inside out,” he said. “The really effective stuff is held in reserve by GRU. We haven’t yet seen a serious effort at cyber warfare against Ukraine. If they wanted they could turn off the country’s electrical power, disrupt every network and cause havoc.” For “real” cyber warfare attacks, the Russian military has a set doctrine. “It’s called pre-conflict shaping,” Lewis said. “The fact that they haven’t done it so far is, if you like, an optimistic sign, but they could do it in minutes. If they are going to invade then they will launch cyber attacks to disrupt Ukraine’s whole critical infrastructure because the doctrine calls for it,” he said. He described recent cyber strikes against Ukraine, including a ‘denial of service’ attack on the ministry of defence and two banks in Kyiv this week, as “harassment” aimed primarily at causing tension and anxiety. There were 288,000 such attacks in Ukraine in the first ten months of last year, according to official figures. Many are performed by criminal hackers supervised by the FSB, Russia’s domestic security service. “If GRU was involved right now they wouldn’t be pussy-footing around with these harassment attacks, so they are obviously being held in reserve,” Lewis said. He predicted that the only network GRU might leave alone would be the telecommunications system in Ukraine, “but only because they would want to spy on it”. “Some of the new networks put in since the fall of the Soviet Union would be a little more difficult for them to penetrate. But they have such deep knowledge of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure that they know where the country is most vulnerable,” Lewis said. “The Ukrainians could harden their networks against cyber attacks but that takes money and even if they do it, it won’t be enough. So if Russia launches a serious cyber strike it could be very disruptive,” he said. A US administration cyber expert is currently in Europe advising Nato on how to prepare for a possible widespread attack in Ukraine. All Russian military operations of the last two decades have been preceded by cyber attacks: against Georgia in 2008 when Russian forces occupied two provinces and against Ukraine before the annexing of Crimea in 2014 and in the current armed conflict in the eastern Donbas region. GRU has been involved in some of Russia’s most brazen and aggressive cyber operations. Several GRU cyber units have been identified with names that include Fancy Bear, Voodoo Bear, Sandworm and Tsar Team. The US justice department in October 2020 indicted members of a GRU team called Unit 74455 for a series of cyber attacks including against targets in Ukraine in June 2017. GRU was accused of inserting the NotPetya malware throughout Ukrainian networks which then spread globally. Other operations blamed on GRU include the interference in the 2016 US presidential election, a failed coup in Montenegro in the same year, the attempted murder of Russian intelligence defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018 and the cyber attack on Estonia in 2017. “GRU has been doing this for decades. Their strength is their human capabilities, they have great mathematicians and computer experts and they don’t worry about international laws,” Lewis said. “So they’ve got good people, good technology which grew out of their signals intelligence expertise, and no scruples. Plus they have had a lot of practice. We in the West tend to observe international laws, whereas the Russians do it quicker and meaner.”

There will be an invasion, says Biden

President Biden has just come out and said it as a fact, there will be a Russian invasion of Ukraine in a few days. Probably Sunday when the Winter Olympics come to an end. Everything Putin has been claiming in recent days about troop and tank withdrawals means nothing because at the same time he has been sending more troops very close to the border of Ukraine with all the equipment they need to fight a war, including blood supplies for wounded troops. According to US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin there are now more than 150,000 Russian troops on the borders in western Russia and Belarus. As Austin very astutely put it, he was a soldier most of his working life and what the Russians are preparing to do right now has nothing to do with going home to barracks. Basically the Russian government lies about everything. When you are a KGB intelligence officer you are taught to lie and deceive and that's what Putin has always done. It comes to him very easily. "I have no intention of invading Ukraine" actually means "I have every intention of invading Ukraine". And that I am afraid is what we are going to see in the next three or four days. Of coure Putin will provide some justification for it, accusing the Ukrainians of massacring poor Russian people in eastern Ukraine. But that will be just another lie on the long list of lies. How can you have a dialogue with a man who lies more than he tells the truth. In fact does he ever tell the truth? Probably not. So it's doom time approaching.

Prince Andrew must go to his father's memorial service

Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, has had a torrid time for so long that he has become the royal bete noir for every newspaper in the land. He has brought much of it on himself and the announcement that he has come to an out-of-court settlement with the woman who accused him of forcing her to have sex when she was 17 has made his personal situation immeasurably worse. There is little doubt that he and his lawyers agreed to the settlement worth, it is claimed, £12 million partly because of a desperate wish to resolve the matter and remove it from the courts at a time when the Queen is supposed to be celebrating the 70th platinum anniversary of her accession to the throne. Royal experts in the media are saying Andrew should now disappear from public life (I thought he had already) and that he should stay at home when the Queen attends the memorial service in honour of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. In my view this would be totally wrong and unduly cruel. Whatever one's feelings about the way he may or may not have behaved all those years ago, Andrew should be allowed to accompany the royal family to Westminster Abbey for the special memorial service on March 29. Prince Philip for heaven's sake was his father. Andrew has a right to be there. If people are worried that his presence will be a distraction at such an occasion, then the answer is simple. Keep the photographers' cameras and television cameras focused on the Queen, and leave Andrew well alone. I know it won't happen but I still believe Andrew should be with his family on that day.

Putin is playing the game according to his plan

Vladimir Putin was asked at a press conference in Moscow today what Russia would be doing next. He replied with a smile: "According to the plan". With that he gave nothing away but revealed everything because ths is what it has all been about for the last few weeks. Putin has a well-structured, detailed plan which he is unveiling slowly as each day passes. Today it was the time to lift all the gloom and make a small gesture by the claimed withdrawal of some of the Russian troops who had supposedly completed their exercise and could go home. Well home for all of them was at garrisons not far from the Ukraine border, so it probably wasn't a big deal. Then after he had finished the press conference alongside the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz - the latest western leader to come begging to Moscow - there was a massive cyber strike on Kyiv, affecting the ministry of defence and two banks. Putin's plan? Steady, deadly pressure on a country Putin believes should be part of the Russian "empire". The West meanwhile grabs any sign of Putin backing off as a sign that pressure on Moscow has worked. But actuallly Putin is the master in the ring. He has western leaders where he wants them, confused and anxious about what he might do next. His plan to put Russia back on the geopolitical map, forcing the West to reconsider its whole security strategy for Europe, seems to be working nicely.

How the West could punish Russia for invading Ukraine

The US, backed by Europe, has drawn up punitive sanctions to hit Moscow and its leaders in the event of an invasion of Ukraine. How comprehensive they will be and how effective in isolating Russia from the international financial community remains to be seen because the full details have yet to be disclosed. However, from authoritative briefings by US senior administration officials in recent weeks it is clear that the sanctions regime being contemplated by President Biden will be the harshest ever proposed by America against Russia. They will far exceed the sanctions imposed by President Obama when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and could even target Putin himself. The measures to be selected will have to take into account both the impact on the Russian economy and the consequential financial and energy-supply hit that could be suffered by the US and Europe. The commonest sanctions tool is to freeze assets and impose travel bans on individual Russian hierarchy figures. The US, Europe and the UK already have sanctions in place against a range of Russian individuals; not just for the annexing of Crimea but also for the fatal poisonings of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and the attempted Novichok nerve-agent poisoning of ex-intelligence officer/double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018. Russia has endured sanctions for so long that the Kremlin will have learned ways of softening the blow. They know how the game is played, as one expert put it. So the sanctions now on Biden’s list are expected to include: *Export controls: This would mean the denial of exports from the US involving sophisticated technologies that American companies design and which are essential for Russia’s strategic ambitions and cannot be easily replaced from any other country. This could include crucial components related to artificial intelligence, quantum computing, aerospace, defence and other technologies which Putin needs to industrialise the Russian economy. The White House has already warned the US microchip industry to be prepared for new restrictions on exports to Russia. *Sweeping sanctions on Russian government and military officials, as well as banks and energy companies: More than 700 Russian individuals are still under US sanctions over the annexation of Crimea. But the new measures are likely to target the Kremlin elite including the billionaire oligarchs who amassed wealth during the Russian privatisation of state industries after the end of the Cold War. The UK could take action against the billionaires who invested widely in property in London. Banks to be targeted could include the state-backed Russian direct investment fund which is crucial to investing in Russia’s leading companies. *Moscow cut out of the SWIFT international financial system used by banks around the world which would prevent Russia from taking part in global finance transactions. This would be a heavyweight punishment which could have unpredictable consequences. It was a sanction considered but not used after the Crimea annexation. Russia has tried to set up its own system called SPFS but with only marginal success. *Access to dollars and ban on Russian bonds: Russia could be blocked from access to the dollar which would make life difficult for all Russian companies needing to benefit from the US banking system. US financial institutions are already prohibited from buying Russian government bonds but further action could be taken to restrict any dealings with Russia’s bond market. *The Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany: The pipeline is completed but not yet switched on. Biden has indicated with unenthusiastic support by Germany, that the pipeline will remain shut down. The danger is that Russia would retaliate by “weaponising” its crude oil and gas supplies to Europe which would have a huge impact on energy prices and could lead to widespread shortages. However, oil and gas export income represent about half of Russia’s federal budget revenues. So any restrictions on energy supplies to Europe would also hit the Russian economy. The US has been seeking to identify extra volumes of non-Russian natural gas from other parts of the world, such as North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the US itself. *Purtin’s wealth: This is the most controversial sanctions option and possibly the most challenging. Putin’s wealth and where his money is held are two unknowns. The US Treasury has a unit capable of tracking hidden riches of targeted individuals, whether terrorists, members of organised crime groups or leaders of countries regarded as adversaries. The Russian government has declared that Putin had a take-home salary of $131,900 in 2020 and has assets that include a 77 square metre apartment, an 18 square metre garage, two vintage Volga cars, a Lada Niva SUV and a trailer. No mention has been made about a palace on the Black Sea which Putin’s jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny claims is owned by the Russian president. Nor the alleged $200 billion fortune Putin is supposed to have accumulated, according to one estimate provided to the US senate five years ago. Whatever Putin’s real wealth, Biden has said he is considering possible action against the Russian leader’s personal assets. But following the money trails could lead to a wall of mirrors.

What is Putin thinking right now?

What is Putin most worried about? Is it launching an invasion that will lead to death and destruction and a long-haul occupation of Ukraine? Is it about going to war without the approval or enthusiasm of the Russian people or even some generals it seems? Is it about how western sanctions will destroy Russia's economy and the financial assets of all his closest friends and internal allies? Is it about how the sanctions might target for the first time his own considerable fortune allegedly held under different names at home and overseas, not to mention the thought that his superyacht, if it's true he has one under a series of named companies, could be seized? Or is it how a war in Ukraine will change the face of future security in Europe and could lead to him being osctracised by all world leaders that matter with the possible exception of President Xi Zinping? Or that an invasion could end up in a war with Nato at some point in the future? It's a lot of things to think about. I think he wants to seize and occupy Kyiv and install a pro-Moscow regime. But Russia tried that in the 1980s, as did the West from 2001-2021, in Afghanistan and in both cases it proved to be disastrous. Putin is actually trapped by his own ambition and aggression. He knows a war in Ukraine could be the worst possible option for his future and for the future of Russia but he has gone so far it's too late to back down. The whole world is now waiting for his final decision.

Four days before the invasion?

Unless the CIA has got its intelligence wrong or has been duped by a Moscow-leaked "invasion plan", the mighty Russian military force sitting along Ukraine's borders will begin attacking its neighbour early Wednesday morning. That's four days left for what now must be considered meaningless and pointless diplomacy. By now Putin has heard the same message from the West 100 times, none of which has gone anywhere near meeting his demands for Nato to pull back its troops and weapons away from Russia's borders and inform Ukraine that it can never be a member of the alliance. So with no concessions from the US and the rest of Nato, Putin will go for broke and send his troops into Kyiv as swiftly as possible and line the streets with soldiers and seize the president's palace. All this stuff from Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, about the invasion starting with massive aerial bombing is surely nonsense. Why on earth would the Russians want to do that. They don't want to destroy Ukraine's capital, they want to control it and all they have to do is send the 30,000 troops they already have in Belarus across the border and into Kyiv at maximum speed and set up road blocks everywhere. The first sign of this manoeuvre will be a huge cyberstrike that will freeze Kyiv into a state of panic and confusion. I say again, why launch an aerial bombardment? This highly detailed war plan which the CIA allegedly acquired sounds a bit fishy to me. This is not going to be like the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 which started with massive bombing and shelling. Putin wants to hang onto Ukraine not bomb it to the Middle Ages. I hope all of the above is wrong, untrue and will never happen. But everyone who has seen this leaked war-plan intelligence is convinced beyond doubt that the invasion is so imminent that Wednesday has been pencilled in - nay printed - on their calendars. But one person for some reason seems to be not too concerned which is very strange. Blinken is on a trip to Fiji and elsewhere in the Pacific. What the hell is that all about?

Russia's hybrid combat patrol ship aka submarine

Sink or swim, the latest Russian-designed combat patrol ship can operate above or beneath the waves with equal effectiveness. Russia’s prime naval platform designer has produced a new version of a patrol ship that can turn into a submarine at the flick of a switch. The Rubin central design bureau of marine engineering which mainly focuses on submarines first produced a submersible patrol ship a year ago. The 1,000-tonne vessel was called Sentry and looked similar to the Whiskey-class diesel-electric submarine which the Soviet Union built in the early Cold War period. However, the new version of the “border and offshore submersible Sentry” (BOSS) has a futuristic look about it, similar in some ways to the US Navy’s Zumwalt-class destroyer. It’s longer and bigger, at 1,300-tonnes, than the first model, is better-armed and has a sharply-featured wave-piercing bow, like the Zumwalt. However, unlike the Zumwalt, the Russian submersible patrol ship can disappear beneath the waves when required, providing an anti-submarine warfare capability both above and below the surface. In a statement, Rubin said the new contours with the wave-cutting forward bow and sloping sides would “reduce rolling motion, increase the ship’s steadiness as a weapons platform and cut radar signature”. Armed with two missile launchers , four torpedo tubes and a close-range automatic gun, the new Sentry has two air-tight hangars to accommodate boats,. It has an operational range of 4,000 miles at a speed of 10 knots (11.5mph). The company said it could accelerate to double that speed. The same company designed the 48,000-tonne Typhoon-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. The Typhoon, now out of service, was the largest submarine ever built in the world. A model of the Typhoon stands as a monument at the Ruben design bureau’s headquarters in St Petersburg. The innovative design for the Russian ship and its twin-role capability is in line with many of Russia’s newest weapon systems which have taken on an exotic character. President Putin unveiled many of the new systems in 2018. He described them as “superoruzhie” (super weapons). They included the Zircon hypersonic ship-launched missile and Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, both nuclear-capable and able to travel well in excess of five times the speed of sound (Mach 5). *A video of a new Chinese submarine which appears to be conventionally-powered and smaller in size than existing submarines has emerged on social media. China has an extensive submarine-building programme. The video of the new submarine shows China is not just focusing on nuclear-powered boats.

Putin is the most mentioned name in the world's media today

Vladimir Putin has achieved at least one thing out of his suspected plan to invade neighbouring Ukraine any day now. He is the most talked about leader in the world and every president, prime minister, foreign minister and defence minister from the western alliance has either been on the phone to him or made statements about him or visited him in the Kremlin to beg him not to do anything rash. That's a helluva change for Putin compared with the previous eight years. Well, since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Putin had become so isolated from the world that no one wanted to be associated with him. Even Donald Trump who started off his presidency by advocating friendship with the Russian leader didn't take long to go off him. Biden has had a couple of recent chats with Putin and they seemed to sort of get along but nothing came of it and since the alarming ratcheting up of Russia's military strength along the Ukrainian border all that has emerged from the White House have been warnings and ultimatums. But while Biden seems to be in no hurry to get together again with Putin face to face, everyone else is rushing to Moscow to speak to him or his officials and then pose in Red Square to show folks back home that they are doing a fine job in trying to stop an invasion. Well, that's what Liz Truss, the British foreign secretary, did after meeting with her counterpart in Moscow, Sergey Lavrov. Wearing a very fetching Russian-style bear hat as well. Putin must be tinkled pink. One moment he is cold-shouldered Cold-War style and then he is the leader everyone wants to chat to. It's probably all a waste of time because Putin will do what Putin will do. He already knows and taken into his calculations what the West will do by way of retaliation if he does order an invasion, so he doesn't need all these anxious-looking western VIPs turning up on his doorstep but it must still give him a lot of satisfaction. The meeting he is probably looking forward to most is his session with Olaf Scholz, the new German chancellor, because it will give him an opportunity to drive a wedge between Germany and her allies in Nato. During the meeting set for February 15 I anticipate Putin will use all his cunning and charm, nurtured after years of being a KGB officer, to persuade Scholz to return to Berlin with a feeling of sympathy and support for the Russian leader's paranoia about Nato's expansion eastwards. I am becoming more and more convinced, unfortunately, that the Scholz meeting will effectively be the last before Putin finally decides to ignore all the western entreaties and go for the invasion option. He knows he's not going to get any promise that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato - such an unbelievably stupid and short-sighted and dangerously brazen offer originally made by alliance leaders in 2008 - so the only way forward for the most talked-about leader on the planet right now is to seize Ukraine. Only then will Kyiv be barred from joining the western alliance. In Putin's view. I fear it's a done deal. Unless of course Joe Biden blinks and says ok ok, Ukraine should not be a member of the alliance. Putin I think has already judged that Biden wouldn't dare.

Russian amphibious warfare ships gather in the Black Sea

Six Russian amphibious landing ships filled with tanks and troops have assembled in the Black Sea after sailing from the Mediterranean as part of a build-up of naval forces to the south of Ukraine. With the arrival of the ships, each capable of putting at least 10 tanks and around 340 troops ashore, the Russian Black Sea Fleet now has up to 11 amphibious landing ships in the region. The six from the Mediterranean where they had been taking part in an extensive naval exercise, were also accompanied by a Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarine. Although Moscow is still insisting there are no invasion plans, the armada of amphibious vessels and other warships in the area suggests that if President Putin were to give the go ahead, an attempt could be made to seize Odessa, Ukraine’s biggest port on the Black Sea. In anticipation of Russia’s expanding naval presence in the Black Sea, Nato has had three carrier strike groups operating in the Mediterranean, based around the American USS Harry S Truman, the Italian ITS Cavour and the French FS Charles de Gaulle. A US destroyer is also operating in the North Aegean Sea, monitoring the large Russian task force. En route to the Black Sea, Russia’s six amphibious landing ships had called in at Tartus, the port in Syria leased by the Russian navy. The defence ministry in Moscow has said the naval deployments are just part of global military drills which involve more than 140 warships and support vessels, about 60 aircraft and more than 10,000 troops. The six landing ships now in the Black Sea are the 4,080-ton Ropucha-class Korolev, Minsk, Georgiy Pobedonosets, Kaliningrad and Olenegorsky Gornyak, and the larger 6,600-ton Ivan Gren-class Pyotr Murgunov which can carry 13 tanks , 300 troops and two attack helicopters. In the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine it is anticipated that the Black Sea Fleet could play a significant role. In a report in December, the Royal United Services Institute in London said the Black Sea Fleet had enjoyed “something of a renaissance” with an increased number of smaller vessels equipped with long-range strike capabilities. “The decision to arm even relatively small vessels with potent strike capabilities means that the fleet can contribute to both regional sea denial and long-range precision strikes,” RUSI said. The Black Sea Fleet was engaged in Russia’s annexing of Crimea in 2014, preventing Ukrainian ships from returning to their ports.

Putin reminds the West Russia has nukes

Vladimir Putin has upped the rhetoric by a magnitude of ten. Referring to the danger of a war between Russia and Nato in Europe, he acknowledged that there was no comparison between Russia's conventional military might and Nato's. But then he added that he always had his nukes. This is crazy talk. If he is actually contemplating escalating the Ukraine crisis to a nuclear war, the Russian leader must have left all common sense under his bed. Does he want a redesigned Grand Russia or annihilation for all? For the leader of a superpower to threaten a nuclear strike it shows how desperate Putin has become to persuade Nato to stop expanding and to scrap alliance membership plans for Ukraine. No one, not even Putin, can believe that threatening to use nuclear weapons is going to solve anything. It was an outrageous remark and, hopefully, every Russian general will feel the same as the rest of us, that such a warning will inflame what is already a dangerous security crisis. It's time everyone calmed down. Britain is rushing Royal Marines, fighter aircraft and warships to eastern Europe, nearly 2,000 paratroopers from the US 82nd Airborne Division are already arriving in Poland. It'll likely be tanks and short-range ballistic missiles next if Putin continues to increase the size of the would-be invasion force on Ukraine's borders. It makes me wonder what Trump would have done were he still president, especially as he was so rude about Nato. Would he have cowtowed to Putin or would he have sent an armoured division to Ukraine to face the Russians? We will never know. The one thing that worries me is that Biden made it clear from the very beginning that the US/Nato would never send troops to Ukraine tself, just to the surrounding alliance countries. With Putin threatening to turn to nukes, would the dispatching of a US armoured division to sit on the Ukraine/Russia border force Putin to back down or encourage him to launch a full-scale war with the West in Europe? Biden has rejected any such move, so, again, we will never know.

Is Macron another Chamberlain?

President Macron made it clear prior to his trip to see Putin in Moscow that he sympathised with the Russian leader's concerns about the way things were going in Europe - Nato's steady encroachment in eastern Europe, getting closer and closer to Russia's borders. Macron believes there should be some way of meeting Putin's worries. Macron is right but of course what really matters is what the French president has in mind. How big a concession is he planning to offer and does he have the full authority of the US and other Nato leaders behind him when he puts his cards on the Kremlin table? Washington is playing the Bad Cop and France the Good Cop it seems, but I doubt Putin will be fooled. Whatever happens between Macron and Putin, the Russian will want to win his argument and to prove to the Russian people and to the world that he is the better diplomat. Which is why the Macron charm offensive has distinct echoes of the efforts by Neville Chamberlain, Conservative Prime Minister of Great Britain and the Empire, in the lead-up to the Second World War. Chamberlain became driven by the desire to persuade Hitler to sign a piece of paper that effectively said Germany and Britain would never again go to war and that there would be peace. This piece of paper which had no international legal binding whatsoever was put to Hitler to sign the day after Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, the French prime minister, Mussolini and Hitler had signed the Munich Agreement which approved Germany's taking of the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in return for not launching a war in Europe. That was a pretty gross and humiliating concession by the western powers which of course Hitler ignored. The extra piece of paper with Chamberlain's signature on it was just flummery but it was waved in the air by Chamberlain on his return to Britain as if it was a peace treaty. Which it wasn't. And again Hitler ignored it and carried on with his plan to invade and occupy the whole of Europe, albeit a year later which at least gave Britain time to rearm in preparation for a possible war. Putin and Macron will know their Chamberlain history, and the French president, more than anyone, will be wary of signing or agreeing anything with Putin which the Russian leader then casually flouts. That would be disastrous for Macron and would probably ruin his chances of being reelected as president. For Putin, a piece of paper signed with Macron could be a smart move because it would no doubt rattle Washington and anything to upset cohesion between Paris and Washington, and thus between Europe and the US would be welcomed by the Kremlin. So the Macron mission is filled with danger. My worry is that Putin is much wilier than Macron. He will play the game as a consummate poker player while Macron will attempt to finesse the Russian leader as a competent bridge player. Two different games. There will only be one winner.

Russia accuses West of scaremongering about an invasion that won't happen

Either every Russian who has denied there is any intention of invading Ukraine is a liar or they don't know what's going on or they actually know for sure that what Putin really wants is to ratchet up the military invasion pressure just in order to get what he wants in terms of a changed European security architecture and a redrawing of the map. Whichever it is, the brinkmanship rhetoric is now getting seriously uncomfortable. Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, has been doing the rounds of the TV stations today to warn that a Russian invasion could happen any day, and that the US "in lockstep" with Europe is ready for instant retaliatory sanctions that could cripple Russia's economy. He also warned for good measure that if Putin's best pal, President Xi Zinping, so much as hints that Beijing will support and aid Putin in invading Ukraine, than watch out China for some sanctions too and worldwide condemnation. This is all building up to a massive disaster for Ukraine and for all of Europe if this sort of language drives Putin to gamble on a full-scale invasion. He might still do it whatever all these senior Russian chaps are saying, like the Russian deputy UN ambassador who was the one accusing the West of scaremongering. But of course they are all playing the same game, whatever happens in the next few weeks - invasion, minor incursion, massive cyber attack or backdow. Each side of the theoretical Iron Curtain will blame the other. The Americans will blame Putin for ignoring all the warnings and mounting a catastrophic empire-building invasion, and the Kremlin will accuse Washington of forcing them to snatch Ukraine because of the dastardly plot to undermine Putin's conviction that Ukraine belongs and always has belonged to Moscow. Right now both sides are scaremongering.

Ukraine is years away from being eligible for Nato membership

A form of words has to be magically plucked from the air which both confirms Ukraine has the absolute right to apply for Nato membership but has no chance of achieving it for so many years that it shouldn't be an issue to worry Moscow. The trouble is Nato is stuck with its decision from the Bucharest summit in 2008 when membership was dangled but not offered to the Kyiv government. So if this magic formula even hints that the Nato leadership is hoping to keep the membership topic off the realistic agenda for as long as possible, then Kyiv will get very angry and will, understandably, say to the alliance, "We've aleady waited nearly 14 years, what's the problem?" If Nato is going to continue with its open-door, anyone-can-join policy, then Ukraine can't be left waiting for much longer. But in the present climate, with Putin waving his big stick, any offer of membership with a date in the foreseeable future will be viewed in Moscow as dangerously provocative, while no offer of any kind for the next decade or so will be seen in Kyiv as a betrayal and a huge blow to their hopes of being part of the West's sphere of influence rather than Moscow's. Putin of course wants Nato membership for Ukraine to be banned for ever, never mind what was said in Bucharest in 2008. That's not going to happen but this is where the right formula of words needs to be found to keep both Moscow and Kyiv happy. Perhaps something like this: "We, the leaders of the Nato alliance confirm that we intend to maintain our open-door policy under which all nations who are eligible by their adherence to certain standards and democratic values can apply for membership of Nato which is a purely defensive organisation committed to peace and stability in the whole of Europe. Under this policy, former members of the Warsaw Pact decided by their own free will to seek to join the alliance and because of their commitment to democratic values and human rights and their contribution to Europe's security, have played a vital role in maintaining peace in the region. It is perfectly right and proper that other countries in Europe who believe they can play a similar role should have the opportunity to prove they, too, can be a valued member of the extended European family of nations. The criteria for membership are high and no country can expect to be accepted into the alliance unless they meet the exacting standards recquired. Ukraine has declared it wishes to be part of this open-door policy and wants to join the alliance at some time in the future when it succeeds in meeting those required standards. The Kyiv government knows that it is still a long way from achieving that goal. If other nations in the eastern region of Europe, such as Georgia and Moldova and even Russia itself would consider a similar path, alliance leaders would be delighted and honoured to provide every chance for them either to become full members of the organisation or to forge special partnership arrangements so that the whole of Europe is guided by the same commitment to peace and stability. Not just Europe but the whole world would benefit from such an arrangement." How would Putin respond to that sort of formula? I offer it to Nato free gratis.

Biden's "bin Laden" moment

Like the previous two most wanted terrorist leaders on America’s list – his predecessor as Isis chief and the founder of al-Qaeda - Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi had spent every hour of every day and night hiding from the eyes and ears of the US intelligence services. As soon as he had been officially named in 2019 to succeed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who took his own life when trapped by US special forces, a bounty of $10 million was placed on his head and every component of the US counter-terrorism apparatus, backed by the ever-watchful and listening satellites of the National Security Agency (NSA), were focused on hunting him down. The three most prominent successes of the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in tracking America’s most dangerous terrorist adversaries over the last decade have followed similar patterns. It took a dedicated team of CIA counter-terrorist specialists ten years to find Osama bin Laden in a compound outside the town of Abbottabad in Pakistan, and just a few hours for a JSOC unit of around two dozen members of Seal Team Six to assault his hideout and shoot him dead. In the case of al-Qurayshi, the hunting had taken 28 months but about four weeks ago the intelligence on his whereabouts was so strong that President Biden was informed of the breakthrough and his approval sought for a special operations attack to be carried out. The same type of military options were presented to the White House in all three of the counter-terrorist operations.The intelligence on bin Laden’s hideaway was good but not fullproof. There was some doubt, although not in the mind of the CIA trackers, that the tall man seen walking inside the compound with his head down was the leader of al-Qaeda. In April 2011 President Obama was given the option of a bombing raid to destroy the compound and everyone in it. But he chose the option of a ground strike force, not just in the hope of preventing casualties among bin Laden’s family living with him but also to provide the proof he knew the world would be waiting for, that the tall man really was the al-Qaeda leader. It was the highest-risk option and nearly proved disastrous when one of the assault team’s helicopters crashed on site. But the mission succeeded and Obama was able to make his historic announcement from the White House in May 2011. The special operations option was selected for both al-Bahgdadi and al-Qurayshi for the same reasons. To prove that JSOC had got their man, DNA samples were needed in each case. Too often al-Baghdadi, for example, had “died” but then appeared again. Al-Baghdadi, the founding leader of Isis, was cornered by special operations troops at his isolated hideout in October 2019 in Syria’s Idlib province. He detonated a suicide vest in a tunnel beneath the building when the commandos approached. Al-Qurayshi made the same decision but blew up his family with him.

Three thousand extra US troops "won't scare Putin"

Russia will not be scared of America’s deployment of 3,000 reinforcement troops to eastern Europe, a former top British and Nato commander has warned. “I mean, 3,000? Frankly you can imagine Mr Putin sitting in the Kremlin and raising an eyebrow and saying, ‘that’s really going to frighten me’,”General Sir Richard Shirreff told Times Radio. The former deputy supreme allied commander Europe who has warned n the past of the urgent need to boost defences in eastern Europe, was reacting to President Biden’s decision to send extra troops to Poland and Romania. Calling on the West to show “real resolve”, Shirreff said “significant ready forces” should be sent to the Baltic states and to northeast Romania to send a message to Moscow that “absolutely no way is any Russian boot going to step across into Nato territory”. “And if it does, we’re prepared to fight to defend ourselves,” he said. “This is a very, very dangerous situation, arguably the most dangerous situation Europe has faced since the Cuban missile crisis [in 1962],” he warned.. Shirreff, 66, served in the 1991 Gulf war and in Iraq . In 2007 he was appointed commander of the allied rapid reaction corps. Since his retirement he has written a fictional account of a war with Russia over the Baltics. As he dismissed Biden’s limited troop deployments to eastern Europe, new satellite images have revealed that Russian high-readiness battle groups are now located in at least six locations in western Russia, Crimea and Belarus. An estimated total of around 75 Russian army battalion tactical groups (BTGs), each with 1,000 troops with support units attached are now deployed at three locations in western Russia, two in Crimea and one in Belarus, according to the imagery collected and analysed by Maxar Technologies, based in Colorado. The presence of tents, shelters and housing at the sites indicates that the BTGs are at full strength and have the backing of tanks, artillery, armoured personnel carriers and Iskander short-range ballistic missiles. The 9K720 Iskander-M, known by Nato as the SS-26 Stone, is seen deployed at Osipovichi near Mogilev in Belarus. They have a range of 500 kilometres (310 miles). Mogilev to Kyiv is around 240 miles flying time. The new satellite pictures show that Russia is continuing a steady build-up of forces with the Russian army’s most capable units spread out around the Ukrainian border and deployed for a potential triple-flank intervention. One of the key locations, the images show, is at Yelnya in western Russia where elements of the 41st Combined Arms Army, normally garrisoned 2,000 miles away at Novosibirsk in Siberia, are now gathered about 150 miles north of the Ukrainian border. The huge build-up of forces at Yelna include a battalion of Iskander ballistic missiles as well as rocket launchers and tanks. Despite the distance between Yelna and the Ukrainian border, the battle-ready forces could move rapidly southwards or even divert through Belarus to threaten Kyiv. Other units are much closer to the border, including an artillery training area at Persianovsky in western Russia, only 30 miles from Ukraine. Maxar said the new satellite images reflected an “increased level of activity and readiness “. Live-fire artillery and manoeuvre exercises can be seen in progress at numerous training areas. The Russian army’s BTGs can be spotted at Yelnya, Pogonovo and Kursk in western Russia, at Bakhchysarai and Yevpatoria in Crimea, and at Obuz-Lesnovsky in Belarus. The satellite images were taken on February 1.

The Ukraine crisis is getting more alarming

Satellite images and intelligence analysis are showing that the build-up of Russian forces and weapons along the Ukrainian border have reached alarming proportions. The crisis is getting worse. So much so that President Biden has now ordered several thousand troops to deploy to Poland and Romania to boost defences in eastern Europe. He had put 8,500 troops on standby but now, as tensions and disagreements between Moscow and Washington increase daly, he has decided it's time to send some of the standby troops to the region, more as a signal to Vladimir Putin than as a fighting force. Indeed, the 3,000 troops being sent will have only a deterrent function. They are not being flown off to fight a war in Ukraine. Even Putin probably believes that although I suspect he will make a big fuss about it. The deployments are not significant in terms of numbers but Biden will be hoping that Putin gets the message: "Don't invade Ukraine and, above all, don't even think of ever venturing towards the Baltics, Poland and Romania." Any hint of such a catastrophic miscalculation on Putin's part and the US with Nato allies will be reinforcing the region with tens of thousands of troops plus heavy armour. The Pentagon has stressed that the troop deployments are to add reassurance to allies in the region but the main message is for the man in the Kremlin. It gives him something else to think about as he mulls over the pros and cons of ordering an invasion of Ukraine. The new satellite pics look very very disturbing!

Putin in centre stage where he likes to be

Putin or Poot'n as the Americans call him, is centre stage and I guess that's how he likes it. Everyone is rushing to talk to him to plead with him, please please don't invade. As soon as one leader has sat in a chair alongside him, the next one is queuing up. Or the phone is ringing and it's Macron again. Of course everyone has their own agenda. It's not just about Ukraine. Boris Johnson currently in Kyiv wants his people back home to forget all about his Christmas party scandals, Macron is playing the Emperor of Europe role, and Biden is just tryng to get something right, anything will do, to raise his popularity ratings. Poot'n is playing the toon and everyone is dancing to it. He must be very very pleased with himself. Right now he has more power in his hands than ever before and I'm sure he gets a real kick out of it. However, there is one aspect of this whole saga that must not be forgotten. Although he has world leaders appealing to his better nature -if he has one - it's not all pleasure for him because he still suffers from the one character trait which has been with him ever since he was old enough to vote. He is totally paranoid about the West. He genuinely believes the West is out to get him, that Nato is harbouring plots to invade Russia and seize all his nukes. He doesn't believe and never has believed that Nato is anything but an aggressive alliance that wants to destroy Russia. When you suffer from that sort of paranoia it must be very difficult to get up in the morning without peering through the curtains first to doublecheck there are no Nato troops on the streets of Moscow. It's all about paranoia. All Russian leaders with the exception of Mikhail Gorbachov and possibly Boris Yelstin when he wasn't drunk, have suffered from this same paranoia. Biden and co, if they want to stop this coming war in its tracks, have somehow to convince Poot'n and his hardline cohorts that the Nato alliance is a fun-loving welcome-to-all-comers sort of club and has no intention EVER of doing anything militarily against Russia. But I guess Poot'n will never believe it. So when he invades Ukraine he will say it's all Nato's fault.