Two bonuses for the US Democrats: Trump ketchup fury and ban on abortions

The United States these days seems to be permanently in outrage over big issues of the day, whether it be about abortion rghts, smuggling of illegal immigrants, shootings or the developing sensations re the January 6 failed insurrection. The key questions is: will these mighty issues favour the Republicans or the Democrats in the midterm elections in November? Increasingly I would say the Democrats will benefit which is good news for Joe Biden and bad news for Donald Trump. On the face of it, the pro-life decision by the US Supreme Court, overturning the Joe v Wade ruling guaranteeing the constitutional right for women to have abortions, should be a boost to the conservative half of the nation, thus a big boost for Trump who welcomed the court decision. But the reality is that one in five conceptions in the US ends in an abortion. A staggering figure, but it means a helluva lot of women are now to be deprived of easy access to local doctors to receive terminations, especially, of course, if they live in states that support the Supreme Court ruling. That could well bring a backlash at the polls against the Republicans, and definitely against Trump whose past comments about women and his attitude towards them should go against him if he decides to stand again. So the scrapping of Joe v Wade just might help the Democrats to keep control of the House of Repesentatives and the Senate in November. Likewise, the revelations by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson about Trump's furious temper and his ketchup moment should send alarm bells across the country. Richard Nixon had a terrible temper and used foul language too and look what happened to him. So, all in all, I think Biden and the Democrats will be feeling quietly confident about the midterms which goes to show, not for the first time, that events can change the political landscape overnight.

Former White House aide's devastating testimony against Trump

Cassidy Hutchinson is a name that will forever be remembered, especially if the US Justice Department takes the mighty step of charging Donald Trump with criminality in relation to the armed insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 2021. The assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump's then chief of staff, spoke fluently, calmly and, ultimately, very bravely when questioned by the Congressional committee investigating the January 6's attempt by Trump's followers to overturn the election result which handed the White House to Joe Biden. She revealed a man determined to back his supporters even though he was told many were armed and who refused to intervene because, as he said, they weren't going to be violent against him. And he wanted the Secret Service to drive him to the Capitol so that he could be there with them. Effing and blinding, the then president of the United States wanted his way because he was the f.... president. Everything, well almost everything, Cassidy Hutchinson said should be reason enough for American voters never ever to even consider voting for Trump again. He was clearly a man determined to overthrow the democratic result of the 2020 presidential election and remain in power and when he was told his legal adviser disagreed with him he hurled his lunch plate against the wall, splashing tomato ketchup all over the place. Cassidy helped clear up the mess. The only thing about her testimony that worries me is her claim that Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of The Beast presidential armoured limousine to force the driver to take him to the Capitol rather than back to the White House. She didn't witness this, she was told this was what happened and that this was when he said he was the f.... president. But the president never sits in the front of The Beast next to the driver. He always sits in the back. So how could he try and grab the steering wheel from the back seat which is well away from the driver's position? That didn't somehow ring true, unless he jumped out of the vehicle and moved to the driver's side to grab the steering wheel. But that sounds unlikely, and, anyway, if that is what happened, surely Cassidy would have said so. So I think that bit of her testimony, based as it was on a third party's comment, needs a little more clarification. Nevertheless, the answers she gave to the questions should ditch Trump's chances of winning a second term as president!

The West can't save Ukraine from Putin's destruction strategy

Despite billions and billions of dollars worth of weapons pouring into Ukraine from 30 countries, led by the US, I have come to the tragic and unavoidable conclusion that Vladimir Putin cannot be stopped. He will continue to destroy Ukraine, city by city, town by town, port by port, factory by factory until there is nothing left to sustain the country as an independent nation on this planet. Putin is literally tearing Ukraine apart, taking his revenge on a country which dared to align itself with the West when it should have stayed subservient to Moscow. Ukraine, Putin said, was a non-country and ever since the invasion began on February 24, his brutal army has dedicated itself to making sure Ukraine becomes a non-country for ever. The destruction of schools, hospitals, apartment blocks and supermarkets is Putin's message to his neighbour. He wants nothing left worth keeping. Sending more and more heavy weapons for the Ukrainians to attack Russian military units is never going to be enough. Nato leaders meeting in Madrid have come up with bold statements about backing Ukraine to the end. But what is "the end"? The defeat of Russia? That's not going to happen. The defeat of Ukraine? Nato can't let that happen. I'm afraid the bold words are just that. Western weapons are not going to win a war when the enemy - Putin - is determined to destroy and annihilate and murder. The western weapons will stall some of the destruction for a period but they won't bring victory for Kyiv and humiliation for Putin. The Russian autocrat has watched with pleasure the consequences of the invasion - energy supply crises in Europe, food price hikes, cost of living turmoil - and all of this plays into his hands. There is nothing the Nato leaders can do in Madrid which will change any of this, unless......Unless the alliance issues a warning to Putin: stop the destruction now or face a war with the 30 nations of Nato. I know, I know, everyone is scared that this could lead to a nuclear war. So the likelihood of this sort of warning being made is zero. But something more than just arming Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia is going to have to be found. Otherwise Putin is going to win, win, win. And so will China. Big time.

Please Joe Biden speak up!

No one has to bellow and gesticulate like Donald Trump. But raising your voice a little really helps when trying to get across a very important message. Joe Biden just hasn't got it. The voice I mean. At the G7 summit in Bavaria he spoke like a lost soul when he appeared before the cameras. He spoke about Ukraine and the importance of not letting Pootn win as if he had just woken up from a long sleep. The message came across so quiet, almost a whisper, and no conviction at all. Surely he could have raised the decibles a touch and remind the world, and especially Pootn, that he is the president who has sent more than $5 billion of weapons to help the Ukrainians survive against the Russian onslaught. Of course we don't miss Trump, no one does, at least on this side of the Atlantic, but when he walked into a room or onto the stage he barged everyone out of the way and spoke to camera wanting the whole world to hear what he had to say. With Biden, it's all gentle gentle sleepy sleepy. Putin I bet had to turn up his TV volume to actually hear what he said about Ukraine. The thing is that as Biden gets older I doubt he is going to change the volume. Indeed, he is more likely to get quieter and quieter and more and more sleepy-sounding. When Maggie Thatcher came to power she received speech-training to lower her vocal tones and inject a more forceful sound. It worked although her voice became somewhat strident, but no one doubted who was the boss. Biden needs some serious speech-training and advice on projecting his voice and throwing his arms around a bit. Just to give the impression that he really does care what he is saying and wants everyone to hear his every word. Come on, Joe, speak up and at 'em.

Is the West too complacent about Putin's "strategic" failure?

Ever since Putin and his invasion army failed to take Kyiv in a blitzrieg attack at the beginning of the assault on Ukraine it has been a source of comfort to Nato and Nato's partners that the Russian leader had suffered a strategic failure. This comforting conclusion was repeated yet again today by Anthony Blinken, the US secretary of state, in a TV interview. The trouble is the war is more than four months old and things have changed. Putin, yes, failed to grab Kyiv in the first few days of the invasion as it seems he had planned and a helluva lot of things went wrong for him, mostly the failure by his army chiefs to get the logistics side of the invasion sorted out. Tanks ran out of fuel, soldiers ran out of food and water, and a huge amount of armour was destroyed by the Ukrainian military as the Russian convoys ground to a halt. But Putin appointed a Big Cheese general to take charge and here we are four months later and the Russians have destroyed several cities, reducing them to rubble - Mariupol being the first to get the treatment - and the Donbas region in the east is steadily falling into Russian hands. Putin has a new strategy and he is reminding the likes of Blinken that he hasn't dropped his initial strategy because he is pounding Kyiv with missile strikes and is probably hoping that it will eventually force a surrender to avoid the capital also being turned to dust. So, in reality, there is no comfort zone for the West, let alone for poor Ukraine which has suffered untold casualties and property destruction. Putin is still in charge and the Russians are still advancing. I don't think it is either realistic or truthful to try and put it across that Putin has suffered a mighty strategic defeat. Tell that to the millions of Ukrainians who have had their lives ruined, probably for ever.

Belarus demonstrates its backing for Putin

The firing of missiles into Ukraine from Belarus has reminded Nato and the Kyiv government that they are fighting two nations, Russia and its lackey, Belarus, led by the autocratic, Putin-loving Aleksandr Lukashenko. Seeing these two men together, Putin several inches shorter, never exactly creates confidence that the war in Ukraine is going to end any day soon. Putin and Lukashenko are the terrible twins, both unmovable from their leadership roles and both seriously anti-West and probably as paranoid as each other. As far as we know the Belarussian army is not fighting in Ukraine alongside Russian soldiers but Lukashenko is perfectly happy for Putin to use the territory of Belarus for missile attacks. The latest reports from British intelligence is that the Russians are running out of weapons to launch at poor Ukraine but I see no sign of that and just to prove Putin is keeping his missile factories working, 40 missiles were launched today at multiple targets, all from Belarus. You get the feeling Putin is more than happy the way things are going.

Guantanamo detainee numbers drop to 36

Three dozen to go. At the height of the Guantanamo story there were 780 prisoners in the detention camp in Cuba. With the transfer of one detainee on Thursday to Qatar, the total has dropped to 36. At this rate, under the Biden administration, we should be down to about a dozen by the end of Biden's first term of office. But Guantanamo which was first set up in January 2002 will still be there. One detainee who should by now be released and enjoying a new life outside Gitmo remains in detention in a catch-22 situation. Majid Khan, a 42-year-old Pakistani, is one of the few detainees to have cooperated with the US authorities. He decided to plead guilty to being an al-Qaeda courier and in return for a lighter sentence agreed to tell all to the FBI and CIA. When he first appeared in the military tribunal court in Guantanamo he wore a very smart pinstriped dark blue suit. He was very dfferent from other detainees who always turned up in their loose, baggy white cotton pantaloons and shirts. He completed his reduced in March. But he hasn't been able to leave Gitmo because as he cooperated with the US it's too risky for him to be repatriated to Pakistan or any third country who agrees to accept him, and there are presumably tricky legal reasons why he can't be allowed to set up home in America. So he's stuck. It's just one of the many conundrums created by a detention camp that should have been closed years ago.

Lithuania's tough line apparently too tough for the EU

So Kaliningrad lives to see another day. It looks like the EU has decided Lithuania's effective blockade of Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania, is too aggressive and doesn't want Moscow to think it's a deliberate policy to stop all goods trains reaching this bizarre piece of land that was given to Russia from the post-Second World War Postdam agreement between the leaders of the US, UK and Soviet Union. Moscow will see this as a climbdown and gain satisfaction from it. Lithuania was certainly taking the sanctions measures to the limit by banning all train convoys rather than just those shipping in sanctioned products but wow didn't it upset Moscow. Putin sent his security chief Nikolai Patrushev to Kaliningrad to make a huge fuss and send a warning to the West and in particular to Lithuania about dreadful consequences. We will never know what Patrushev had in mind if the EU does, as reported, back away from confrontation. But you can bet Putin would have considered some form of direct action against Lithuania. That would then have placed Nato's North Atlantic Council in an invidious position, forced to contemplate the one thing the alliance has been trying its best to avoid, a war with Russia. So, a sensible climbdown maybe, but anything that makes Putin smile with satisfaction is seriously bad for all of us.

How much longer can the West afford to support Ukraine against Russia?

With Boris Johnson and others saying the war in Ukraine could go on for years, the question has to be asked: how much longer will the West go on funding and arming Ukraine to fight off the Russians? The West is confronted by an impossible dilemma: it cannot afford to shell out billions of dollars for ever to help Ukraine defend against Russia but it cannot afford not to because to allow Russia to achieve its objectives would be a calamity. Putin cannot be allowed to win this one. He won Crimea without a fight. He cannot be allowed to seize territory in eastern and southern Ukraine and hang on to it for ever. But, in reality, how is the West going to stop it happening without going to war with Russia? Is anyone seriously looking at the options? Boris Johnson makes trips to Kyiv and is the poster boy for Ukraine but does he for a moment stop and think about whether this can go on for ever? All we hear is that the war could continue for years. But what will this mean for Europe and the West and for the world? It's time to consider the options.

Putin's masterplan was to cause chaos

Perhaps the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a Putin masterplan that had very little to do with Ukraine itself. Perhaps the Kremlin leader really thought up this idea of causing political and economic chaos in the West and decided an invasion of Ukraine was the best way to do it. If so, victory for Putin. So while all the experts are saying Russia is having a hard time to quell Ukrainian resistance, Putin is laughing because his "special military operation" in Ukraine was just a device to undermine and hopefully destroy economies throughout Europe and the US and put huge pressure on leaders everywhere. As a long-term strategy it is already working pretty well. Joe Biden is suffering the worst popularity ratings, with much of his promised infrastructure programme on hold while he spends billions of dollars on weapons for Ukraine, Macron is facing humiliation in France, having won the presidential election but lost control of parliament, Olaf Scholz is all over the place as Angela Merkel's successor, Boris Johnson is facing rebellion in the Conservative party and the whole of Europe is struggling to cope with the rising cost of living while coming under increasing pressure from Kyiv to send more and more heavy weapons. If this was all Putin's masterplan then we are all fooling ourselves to imagine that we can deal a mighty blow to Moscow by arming Ukraine. Putin is playing with all of us, doing what he has always done best, sewing seeds of instability throughout Europe.

Who is going to blink first: Putin or Nato, or are we facing a forever war?

There is no obvious end to the war in Ukraine. There is no chance either side can at any time declare victory, and defeat, as in the defeat and surrender of Ukraine, is also not going to happen. So what we do have is a potentially long war with neither side winning, millions of casualties, wholesale destruction of towns and cities and infrastructure, ruined economies in Ukraine and Russia, rocketing cost of living for the West and the total isolation of the biggest country in the world - 11 per cent of the planet's landmass - armed with thousands of nuclear weapons. All of which spells disaster! So what on earth are we to do? How can this war end, soon? Are there any options which might be seen to be feasible? Right now, there is no scenario for ending the war which is going to please or appease everyone or, indeed, anyone. Absolutely not. So the only possible options are the following: Option One - Putin is toppled, either through ill health or because the Moscow elite/rich feel sufficiently threatened to do something about the leader who is slowly destroying Russia. Option Two - Nato sends several armoured divisions into Ukraine, supported by a huge array of fighter aircraft and bombers and pushes the Russian army out of the country and back into Russia, just like the US-led coalition did to the Iraqi army when they occupied Kuwait in 1990. Option Three - Nato warships lift the blockade of the Black Sea and clear up all the mines and guarantee safe passage for all Ukraine's exports. None of these options look likely, so the war and the annihilation of Ukraine by Russia's brutality will continue for years whatever arms the West sends to help the Ukrainians attempt to defend their country.

Are we really facing a war with Russia in Europe?

Four months of a grinding war in Ukraine and suddenly the British top brass are warning of having to fight the Russians at some point in the future. Putin is wnning winning winning. He has now got everyone scared for our future. I guess it makes good sense for the new head of the British Army to prepare the UK forces for a possible war but surely the whole effort so far has been to avoid at all costs any confrontation with the Russian army. So why on earth should we start thinking of fighting the Russians in the future? There cannot be a war in Europe a la World War Three, because it would end up nuclear. The Russians know that, we know that. What we need to prepare for in the future is to deter Russia from ever plotting to fight the West in Europe. That doesn't mean training British soldiers to conduct a land war but to buy the right sort of weapons to stop Putin or any future successor from daring to attack the West. Right now the focus should be on helping the Ukrainians give Russia the bloodiest nose they have ever suffered in modern history. And that means sending them the best weapons to do so.

Joe Biden gets his feet stuck

When the president of the United States falls off his bike it makes world headlines. When the president of the United States falls off his bike at the age of 79, the headlines tend to hint that if he can't stop himself falling off his bike he shouldn't be considering running again for the highest office in the land in 2024. I guess that was inevitable when poor old Joe Biden stopped on his bike to talk to well-wishers near his holiday home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and got one of his feet stuck in the strap-on pedal and over he went. But I'll tell you what, he looked pretty fit on his bike in all his biking gear and please tell me when you ever saw Donald Trump riding a bike. The only thing he rides is a golf buggy. I can't even imagine, and don't want to even imagine Trump in biking kit on the saddle. But I would definitely feel sorry for the bike. Barack Obama of course, being a cool fit cat, could surf board and wind-surf and ride a mountain bike like a natural. But the problem for Biden is that if anything goes wrong it always come down to his age. Like, what is a 79-year-old doing riding a bike in the first place? Well, Biden looked pretty good wheeling towards the cameras until he tried to extricate his spiked shoes from the pedals. Every biker, whatever age, faces the same challenge. But for Biden it's a reminder to all American voters that if he stands in 2024 and wins he will start his second term in office at the venerable age of 82. Will he I wonder still be riding his bike? Of course he will, and probably still falling off because of those damned spiked shoes.

Staggering arms flow to Ukraine statistics

Every day we hear from either President Volodymyr Zelensky or one of his ministers that they need more weapons, bigger weapons and much much faster to fight off the Russians. You might get the impression that the West is being dilatory in providing weapons but you only have to look at the amazing statistics of the amount of stuff being delivered almost on a daily basis to realise what an incredible package of military support is being sent to Ukraine. The one I liked most was refered to by General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who revealed that 97,000 anti-tank weapons had now been sent by the US and the other countries engaged in the arms programme which is more than the total number of tanks in the whole world. The tank total is reliably said to be around 73,000. It is true of course that the Russians have a bigger supply of pretty well everything and until the HIMARS long-range multiple-launch rocket systems are in operation, the Ukrainians are outgunned and facing defeat in the Donbas region to the east. But here are a few more statistics: The Kyiv government asked for 10 battalions of artillery, the West sent 12 battalions, they asked for 200 tanks, they got 237, they wanted 100 infantry fighting vehicles, they got more than 300; plus 1,600 air defence systems, 1,500 Stinger anti-air missiles, 700 deadly Switchblade armed drones, 20 Mi-17 helicopters etc etc. The list goes on and on. And while there has to be a degree of bureaucracy involved in sending so much stuff to Ukraine via the secret back routes through Germany and Poland and other east European countries, generally speaking it has only been a matter of days for the arms to be delivered following a Kyiv request. That's pretty impressive by any standards. But it still may not be enough to stop Russia winning in Donbas.

Will Joe Biden regret his planned visit to Saudi Arabia?

For strategic, geo-political reasons, Joe Biden is probably right in his decision to pay a visit to Saudi Arabia, a longstanding ally and partner of the United States and buyer of US weapons. But in many people's minds, these reasons are outweighed by all the arguments for staying away from Saudi Arabia and its de facto leader Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The Crown Prince has certainly introduced a number of reforms to Saudi society, not least the decision to allow women to drive for the first time. But the appalling murder of Kamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident journalist, on October 2, 2018, by agents of the Saudi government, can never and should never be forgiven. Whoever gave the order for this assassination in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, there can be little doubt that it was authorised at a high level. Can Biden therefore shake the hands of any member of the Saudi royal family, however important for diplomatic reasons it might be to court Saudi Arabia once again. The country will always play a crucial role in the Middle East and stands as a balwark against Iran. But it's a very tricky one for Biden. I'm sure there were those in the US State Department who tried to persuade him to go and others who advised the opposite. In the end it was a decision made by Biden in consultation with his national security team. He IS going, in July, after a visit to Israel. But will he allow himself to be photographed shaking the hand of the crown prince known as MBS? To go to Riyadh and not shake his hand would be tantamout to an insult to the Saudi leader. Biden will have no choice and the photograph will appear in every newspaper around the world. It will be the moment when MBS, at least, will feel he has shaken off the pointing fingers over the Khashoggi assassination and is back in Washington's favour.

When a picture says more than a thousand words

The famous picture of 20 prisoners in orange jumpsuits kneeling with heads bowed between two high-wire fences at Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba defined the war on terrorism launched by President George W Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. Now 20 years later a series of official pictures taken by American military photographers after Guantanamo was first opened for terrorist suspects in January 2002 have been released for the first time. The pictures, made public following a freedom of information application by The New York Times, will reopen the accusation that the existence of the camp and the treatment of the hundreds of detainees sent there helped to inspire jihadist militants around the world against the US. One of the released images shows a prisoner being carried blindfolded, masked and shackled from a military bus into the camp by two soldiers. “With the shackles on, it was easier to transport them by carrying them,” Michael Pendergrass, a US navy photographer who took the picture is quoted as saying. A close-up picture of one detainee, identified by a tattoo on his left arm as David Hicks, an Australian who was taken prisoner when fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, shows him wearing goggles with duck tape over the lenses, earmuffs and a medical mask as he was taken down the ramp of a cargo plane which had brought him to Guantanamo. Hicks pleaded guilty to war crimes and was repatriated to Australia in 2007. He was released from Adelaide’s high-security Yatala Labour prison in December 2007 under a control order. In another photograph, the US stars and stripes flag has been placed in the hands of a blindfolded detainee. The initial flow of terrorist suspects were all brought to the Guantanamo facility, then known as Camp X-Ray, in buses which had had the seats ripped out. In their place a metal bar was welded to the floor and each prisoner was shackled to it. The first 20 prisoners were flown to the Guantanamo Bay naval base from Afghanistan via Incirlik in Turkey. Out of the 780 detainees sent to Guantanamo only 37 are now left. President Biden, like President Obama, has vowed to close the camp but the Pentagon which has overall responsibility for Guantanamo is still spending around $540 million a year to keep it open. The Biden administration has provisionally cleared 20 of the remaining detainees to be transferred to other countries. But ten detainees are awaiting trial under the military tribunal process, including the five, headed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a 58-year-old Pakistani, charged with masterminding the 9/11 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001. These detainees were all interrogated by the CIA in secret “black” prisons in foreign countries and subjected to torture before being sent to Guantanamo . The numerous pre-trial hearings have largely focused on their treatment in legal arguments raised by defence lawyers paid for by the Pentagon. There are also another five detainees who have not been charged but who are considered too dangerous ever to be given their freedom. They have been called “the forever prisoners”.

Hacking CIA spy on trial - again

A former coder in a top secret CIA hacking unit accused of the biggest leak of classified material in the intelligence agency’s history faced a second espionage trial today. Joshua Schulte , 33, who worked for the CIA’s engineering development programme called the Operations Support Branch which created hacking tools for cyber spying was charged with handing more than two billion pages of secret data to WikiLeaks in April 2016. His first trial in February 2020 in a New York court ended with a hung jury on the most serious charges. He was found guilty of making false statements to the FBI and contempt of court. WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, published thousands of classified documents in March 2017 which exposed how the CIA had been penetrating the computer networks of foreign governments and terrorist organisations. The breach of secret material was known as the Vault 7 leak. On Schulte’s indictment in June 2018, Manhattan US attorney Geoffrey Berman said he allegedly used his access to theCIA to transmit classified material to an outside organisation. He also revealed that federal agents had discovered alleged child pornography in his New York residence. After a four-week hearing, the jury failed to record a verdict on eight charges including the transmission of national defence information and illegal gathering of classified material. The judge declared a mistrial. The huge leak was described in testimony during the 2020 trial as “the equivalent of a digital Pearl Harbour”. One CIA witness at the hearing was asked whether they recalled the agency attempting to hack into the emails of Angela Merkel, then German chancellor. Schulte left the CIA in November 2016 after falling out with his colleagues, and joined a private company as a software engineer. At his new trial, Schulte is representing himself. Meanwhile the US continues to seek the extradition of Assange from Britain on espionage charges. In April at Westmister magistrates court an extradition order was granted. But Assange remains in Belmarsh prison in London after he was convicted of breaching the Bail Act.

If Putin takes Donbas, then what?

The way things are going in eastern Ukraine the Russian forces will eventually overpower the whole Donbas region and settle into a long occupation. What does the West do then? If the Russian troops can't be persuaded, militarily or diplomatically, to move out and go back to their garrisons in Russia, there would seem to be few if any options for the West to do anything other than maintain tough sanctions in the hope that Putin will be forced to relent as the Russian economy dives. It's a totally unrealistic scenario. Once Putin has grabbed the territory he was really after from the beginning, he is not going to give it up for the sake of saving the Russian economy from continuous sanctions battering. So it's very difficut to envisage how this Ukrainian war crisis is going to end without Kyiv and the West suffering a defeat at the hands of Ukraine's bullying neighbour. Ukraine will be left with a country minus its industrial eastern region, its vital port in Mariupol and thousands of valiant male and female soldiers who sacrificed their lives to try and save their nation's sovereignty. What more can Joe Biden and his fellow leaders do once Putin has achieved his territorial-grabbing ambition? I fear that when this happens, there will be a redoubling of diplomatic efforts to try and make the best of what will be a tragic conclusion to a terrible war. Even when the long-range multiple-launch rocket systems and other heavy artillery sent by the US and others are in daily use against the Russians, Moscow can pile on the agony by adding more and more weaponry to smother eastern Ukraine. With this prospect in mind what are Biden and co doing right now to stop Putin from declaring victory? Again, there are no options that offer much hope for Ukraine. I hope I'm wrong.

Sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda is wrong and crazy

According to the august Times newspaper Prince Charles has privately expressed his view that the Boris Johnson government's decision to send illegal immigrants for resettlement to Rwanda is "appalling". Of course he is right. How can any sensible-thinking person, let alone a minister with huge responsibilities - Priti Patel, Home Secretary - come up with such a daft and immoral idea? How on earth is sending immigrants to Rwanda going to solve the problem of boatloads of people trying to cross the Channel to gain refuge in Britain? It just hands the responsibility to another country. And even if the Rwandan government deals with the immigrants humanely and kindly and gives them homes and support, it is still a crazy idea to send anyone off to a foreign country rather than deal with the challenge here in the UK where the immigrants have chosen to come. I find it difficut to believe that the Supreme Cout where this will all surely end up will give the go ahead for such a scheme, for legal, moral and human rights reasons. There have been so many ideas like this in the past and none of them came to fruition. There was talk of sending illegal immigrants to Albania and way back there was a suggestion of putting them on a ship out at sea or in old army barracks. There is no question that the arrival of so many illegal immigrants in small boats is a huge problem, but carting them off to Rwanda is never going to work and is morally disgraceful. The Prince of Wales should tell Priti Patel in person, or Boris Johnson, that it will damage Britain's reputation immeasurably.

Vladimir Peter the Great Putin. Ha!

So Putin really has got delusions of grandeur. He wants to be today's version of Peter the Great, the Russian czar who ruled for 42 years. God help us. Putin for 20 years has been bad enough, now he wants another 20 years. Peter the Great who died in his 50s of gangrene had aspirations to build a great Russian nation and created the Russian navy. All Putin will be remembered for is the destruction of Ukraine, the decimation of the Russian army, the ruination of the Russian economy and world isolation for his country. Not bad for a former lieutenant-colonel of the KGB. He will never be Peter the Great. He is already viewed by most of the rest of the world as an abject failed leader, a brutal enforcer and an accumulator of personal wealth unrivalled by almost anyone in the world who has gained riches by legitimate means. The only thing he still has going for him is the vast stock of nuclear weapons. It is purely for this reason that Putin still has a place in the planet's hierarchy. He once also had oil and natural gas to blackmail us all but this asset is swiftly vanishing as Europe and many other nations turn their back on Russia's energy supplies. Peter the Great would be turning over in his grave.

Russian Navy's strap-on surface-to-air missiles in Black Sea

Russia has started fitting ground-based Tor surface-to-air missiles on the flight decks of some of its smaller warships in the Black Sea to protect them against new anti-ship weapons provided by the UK and Denmark. The improvised missile system seen strapped to the deck of at least one Russian navy corvette appears to be a direct response to the sinking of the Black Sea fleet flagship cruiser, Moskva, which was struck by two Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles on April 14. The arrival of Harpoon sea-skimming anti-ship missiles has given Ukraine an advanced weapon system capable of striking a warship over a distance of 80-150 miles. The Russian Black Sea fleet currently has about 20 warships, including submarines, on operations engaged in blockading Ukrainian ports and firing cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine. Up to four of the warships are Vasily Bykov-class and Dmitry Rogachev-class corvettes, designed to protect ships at sea and in naval bases. They are like large patrol ships but much smaller (308ft long and 1,500 tons) than the Moskva Slava-class cruiser (611ft long and 11,490 tons). The Vasily Bykov-class corvettes, one of which was spotted carrying the Russian Tor surface-to-air missile (sam), are usually only armed with shoulder-launched anti-air weapons with a limited range. The Tor system which Nato identifies as an SA-15 Gauntlet has up to 16 missiles with a maximum range of more than nine miles. “This system is quite good to fight UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] and anti-ship missiles and also helicopters and aircraft,” Captain Andrii Ryzhenko, a former Ukrainian navy commander told The War Zone, an online US defence magazine. The decision to put the Tor missile on the corvettes was “a reaction to the Moskva,” he said. There had been reports before the sinking of the Moskva that one of the corvettes had been hit by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles. But this turned out to be untrue. Putting the Tor missile system on the flight deck will give the corvettes a much-improved air defence capability. However, the delivery to Ukraine of Harpoon anti-ship missiles is likely to play an increasingly important role over the next few weeks as the Kyiv government attempts to get its vital grain exports through the Russian naval blockade. The missiles can be launched from ships, aircraft of from trucks on land and will pose a significant threat to Russian warships operating in the Black Sea. The decision to strap Tor missiles to the smaller Russian warships in the Black Sea is the clearest indication that Moscow is wary of losing any more ships in the war with Ukraine. The fleet of Russian warships also include Tarantul-class missile corvettes, Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, Ropucha-class landing ships and Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines.

US army recruits to be offered the Arctic option

A Second World War airborne division which fought in the heat of the Pacific theatre has been reactivated to become America’s frontline unit in the Arctic where temperatures can drop to minus 65 degrees Fahrenheit (-54 Celsius). The US Army’s 11th Airborne Division which was deactivated in 1965 is now dedicated to fighting in the extreme cold and will take on the challenge of confronting an expanding Chinese and Russian military presence in the region. After years of US troop reductions in Alaska, the new division represents a significant change in Pentagon strategy, aimed at meeting the global-warming changes in the Arctic where melting ice caps are opening up critical sea lanes. The full division of around 12,000 troops, headquartered at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, has been given the task of denying China and Russia dominance of the Arctic sea lanes. It is the first time a US airborne division has been stood up in nearly 70 years. “Wherever you go, you will be the most highly trained, disciplined and fit Arctic warfighting unit in the world, “ General James McConville, army chief of staff, told troops at a formal ceremony. Because of the freezing conditions, US army chiefs are hoping to recruit new soldiers who will volunteer to serve in the Arctic when they enlist. The new 11th Airborne Division whose soldiers are known as Arctic Angels will focus on having light infantry units. As part of the revamping of the Alaska-based military presence, an existing brigade based in the region and equipped with heavy, eight-wheeled Stryker armoured vehicles will be replaced. The Strykers have not performed well in the Arctic and will be switched to units in warmer regions or scrapped. The Pentagon has been warning for some years that the army had to be prepared for potential war in the Arctic. The warming climate has not only opened sea lanes for trade but it is also a region rich in natural resources which will become easier to exploit. The 11th Airborne Division which was first activated in February, 1943 won its spurs in operations in New Guinea and the Philippines in the Second World War. The division participated in the liberation of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, from February-March, 1945. The operation involved thousands of US and Philippine troops against the Imperial Japanese Army which had occupied the Philippines from 1942 to 1945.

Is Boris kaputski?

Boris is having a good war. Volodymyr Zelensky loves him. When the Ukrainian leader asks for more weapons, like every day, Boris is almost first in line to send him what he wants. So his "win" in the confidence vote in parliament was received with relief and admiration in Kyiv. But here in Blighty, Boris is seen to be kaputski, at the beginning of a road that leads with his removal from Number 10. He may have won the vote but so many Tory MPs went against him Boris knows that almost half his parliamentary party is opposed to him and will be clamouring for him to be sacked as prime minister over the next few months. Will Boris survive beyond Christmas or will the scheming Tories change the rules and force a second no-confidence vote in the near future? Boris's favourite comment is to say that he wants to "get on with the job" and "make sure he delivers what he promised at the last election". But I fear he will find it even more difficult now to persuade his rebellious party to back him. Yet, somehow, I suspect Boris will survive for longer than people think. Provided he can keep a united cabinet behind him he will plough on like a bull in a china shop and the rebels will be treated with disdain and accused of acting unpatriotically. He might just succeed in sweeping away these whingeing Tories and achieve whatever he wants to achieve. He might still do it, especially when you look at the likely replacements for the Number 10 job: Liz Truss, please save me, Dominic Raab, never, Jeremy Hunt, decent but fairly hopeless, Rishi Sunak, ok but not now, Sajid Javid, can't work him out, Priti Patel, God help us, Ben Wallace, sound and steady but not inspirational, Michael Gove, strangely quiet these days. So, with this lot waiting in the wings, Boris will feel fairly confident that he can outstay them all and keep his nameplate on Number 10. So kaputski? Yes, but not this year and may be not next year either.

The Harry and Meghan visit was a damp squib

The Platinum Jubilee weekend was all about the Queen and it proved to be a huge success. There has never been such an outpouring of affection and love for the 70-year reigning Monarch. But there was one negative and sad aspect of the four days. Prince Harry and his Hollywood wife Meghan were such a sideshow that there wasn't even a single photograph of them with their two children out in the public eye. Now the majority of people in this country are probably fed up wth Harry and Meghan and care less about their damp squib of a visit to the UK. But I have to say I feel desperately sorry for Harry. Not that long ago he was a prominent member of the Royal Family and he and his brother William were great knockabout mates. But now he is nothing, or almost nothing. The main photograph of Harry during the Jubilee service at St Pauls was the one where he was positively scowling in the direction of his brother, father and other members of the first-rank family sitting in the front row in the best seats. I know Harry, and especially Meghan, have seriously blotted their royal copybook by speaking out so outrageously to Oprah Winfrey and for all the other things they have said and done which has brought this massive division between them and the rest of the Royal Family. So in most people's eyes they deserve what they are now getting. But I still worry about Harry who has lost, perhaps for ever, that closeness he had with all the royals. It was his and Meghan's choice to step away from their royal roles and move to California but I doubt they can have imagined how disastrous that move would turn out for them and for their two children. No one, it seems, back in Blighty, cares about them. The Jubilee weekend made that absolutely clear and by Sunday late morning they had had enough and got on a plane to go back to California. I suspect Netflix will have got the message and will be drastically reconsidering all future production schemes with them.

Putin is getting rattled by the US rockets

So Putin is going to bomb Western cities (with what?) if the Ukrainians use their new longer-range rockets supplied by the US to hit Russian targets over the border. It's all rhetoric but it serves as a warning that ths war could escalate beyond control if something goes wrong.With the arrival of the new rocket system the room for miscalcuation has widened significantly. The Ukrainian military will have to wait at least three weeks before they can start firing the new advanced multiple launch rocket systems being provided by the US. The four M152 high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) are being brought out of US pre-positioned stocks held in Europe. They were sent there in anticipation of President Biden’s decision to approve the delivery of these longer-range weapons for Ukraine. However, US officials said the Ukrainians would need around three weeks to be trained on how to launch the precision-guided rockets and also to maintain the HIMARS. It’s expected that this training will take place in Poland or possibly Germany. But by the end of this month the Ukrainians should be operating a weapon system that will allow them to fire accurate weapons over a range of more than 40 miles. “These are precision-guided systems with extended range. For high value targets that allows them to keep some of the pressure off the Ukrainian forces on the front,” Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defence for policy at the Pentagon, said. The Ukrainians have already shown they are adept at learning rapidly how to use western weapons, and have proven in combat how they have successfully operated the M777 howitzers previously sent by the US which have half the range of the HIMARS artillery. The vehicle-mounted HIMARS launchers can fire volleys of six guided rockets at a time that land within several feet of the target. The question is, will the rockets make such a difference on the battlefield that Putin gets seriously angry and seeks revenge against the US? He knows that Biden will continue to send more and more arms, so at some point Putin might say to himself, enough is enough. And then what will he do? In addition to the four HIMARS systems, the latest $700 million package of weapons provided by the US includes five counter-artillery radars, two air-surveillance radars, 1,000 more Javelin anti-tank missiles, 6,000 anti-armour weapons, 15,000 155mm artillery rounds and four more Mi-17 helicopters. The US has now committed about $5.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine under the Biden administration, of which $4.6 billion has been provided since the Russian invasion on February 24. It's a staggering sum.

One hundred days of war in Ukraine! When will it end?

It has become a war whose outcome is almost impossible to predict with any degree of certainty. Neither side wants to give up or give in. Putin wants to grab as much territory as possible and then pressure Zelnsnky to negotiate. Zelensky wants all Russian troops out of his country before he will sit down with Putin. Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, is firmly of the view that a deal will be the only way to end the war but envisages it continuing for many more months. Zelensky, at least publically, is convinced Russia can be beaten, and when he gets his hands on the four near-50-mile range advanced artillery rocket systems the US is sending, he is anticipating getting his revenge on the Russians who have been firing artillery shells into Ukrainian cities, destroying once great places to live and work. When the new weapon systems arrive they will certainly make a difference but, first, the Ukrainian military will have to be trained by the Americans to fire them. In the three weeks it will take to get them trained, the Russian troops may well have advanced so far into the Donbas region that there may be nothing left for the Kyiv forces to recover. The Russians seem to have an endless supply of artillery shells. It seems strange that Joe Biden waited so long before sending Ukraine the weapons they have been desperately calling for for nearly the whole 100 days. It may now be too late.

Putin's generals exit stage left

Putin has sacked so many generals there can't be many left to fight his war. I'm not saying he's wrong to get rid of incompetent generals but the fact that the war has been going so wrong is not so much their fault but the fault of the Kremlin bosses who have been trying to micromanage battle strategy from the comfort of their armchairs in Moscow. The generals are being sacked even though the Russians are now making progress in eastern Ukraine. In fact the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has now grabbed one fifth of Ukrainian territory, so the generals got something right in the sense that amid all the destruction they have caused they have managed to take control of a fair chunk of ground. But Putin is not satisfied and has fired another five generals because in every other sense the Russian invasion has failed. However long it goes on for Putin will never succeed in fulfilling his priority objective which was to subjugate the whole of Ukraine. That will never happen. But I have no doubt Putin will declare that he has won a famous victory by returning great swathes of Ukraine to their "rightful Russian owners". If he seeks a negotiated deal once the whole of the Donbas region has been pulverised, will Zelensky ever be in a mood to meet Putin? I think not. Meanwhile I'm sure Putin will sack more generals until the cupboard is bare.

Putin's biggest blow - European unity

Putin made so many assumptions when he launched his invasion of Ukraine: he was confident the Ukrainians would crumble rapidly and Kyiev would be his within weeks, he thought his trump card - blackmailing Europe into insignificance by piling on the gas and oil pressure points - was a winner, he reckoned Joe Biden was too weak to stand up to him, and he believed his constant implied threat to launch nuclear weapons, whether tactical or otherwise, would scare the West into disarray. None of these assumptions have worked out for him and now he is faced with America's boldest move, sending long-range multiple-launch rocket systems to strike at his artillery, as well as Europe's ban on 90 per cent of Russian oil exports. Nothing has gone accoding to plan since the invasion of February 24. Putin's worst nightmare is Europe. The economy of Russia is dependent on selling oil and gas to Europe but European leaders, with the exception of Hungary's autocratic Viktor Orban, have not given into Putin's blackmail. Putin is now at war with Ukraine and the whole of Europe. It's not World War Three, as some people have suggested, but it's a European war which Putin is going to lose one way or the other because no one, apart from Orban, is ever going to want to talk to the Russian leader, let alone do business with him, in the future. Putin is finished as far as Europe is concerned. He should be seriously worried. He may think he is making progress in eastern Ukraine but it's the tiniest of victories because he knows he has lost the wider war. Europe is united and against him. For ever.