Watch out for the KGB mafia

Putin will tough it out and survive. But lurking behind him, waiting and wondering and possiby plottling, are the KGB mafia who keep Putin in power. They are known as the Silovik, an organisation that consists of the highest echelons of the security and intelligence services and defence ministry. Key man is Alexander Vasilyevich, head of the FSB, the federal security service. For FSB read KGB. The FSB is all-powerful and keeps Putin in power. So Vasilyevich keeps Putin in power. Like Putin, he is a former KGB officer and is probably now the most deadly threat to Putin's future. Until now he and his old KGB mucker Vladimir Putin have been mates but who knows what the FSB boss is thinking now. I bet Putin doesn't know what Vasilyevich is thinking, let alone plotting. Putin is in overall command of the FSB as the president and commander-in-chief but after the weird and wonderful march on justice on Moscow by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his gang of mercenaries, there seems to be a slight discrepancy between Putin's demands and Vasilyevich's wishes. Putin said there was to be no investigation of Wagner and its boss but apparently the FSB is pursuing an investigation with KGB vigour. So cracks may be appearing and if they get wide enough Putin might fall through the gap. The KGB gap. As Calder Walton, an American intelligence historian, beautifully put it in an article in Time magazine: "Russia is effectively a security service with a state attached." It could be the KGB's big moment. Again.

Putin's purge has begun

So now the reckoning begins. There was never any chance that Vladimir Putin would just sit in the Kremlin and say to everyone: "Let's be nice this time, we'll forgive everyone and have a cup of tea." No, there will be a Putin revenge, and generals are going to be summoned from all over the place. It seems that the general named by The New York Times as being party to the non-coup by Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin has already "disappeared". The FSB internal security organisation is now busy tracking down any general who showed even a hint of support for the billionaire Wagner founder. This is an old-style KGB investigation and those in the firing line will now be trembling. What impact this will have on the Putin leadership and regime and the war in Ukraine is uncertain. But Putin's focus right now is to be seen to be tough and he's normally pretty good at that. What even he doesn't know is what is in the minds of his most trusted confidants inside the Kremlin. They may be swearing allegiance but what are they really thinking? Are they thinking Putin is losing it and might need to be retired off? This just might be keeping him up at night.

Can Putin trust his generals?

Ultimately Putin's long-term survival as leader in the Kremlin will depend on his inner circle of elite billionaires and former KGB partners and his generals. His two top generals seem to be on side still. That's General Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, and General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff. Shoigu hopped over to Ukraine as soon as the bizarre non-coup by Wagner Group commander Yevgeny Prigozhin was over, presumably to reassure the troops that the war was in good hands. I doubt many of the Russian conscripts believed a word he said. But he was there as Putin's man. So Shoigu stays put. Putin hates too many changes unless he is forced to do something, so he will want to hang on to Gerasimov as well. But what about the hundreds of other generals? Are they still loyal and willing to fight on in Ukraine for Putin's sake? Well of course they would be foolish to even hint at disagreement, let alone disloyalty. Open windows in tall buildings would have to be avoided at all costs. Which is why I wonder why the New York Times has suggested that one of Putin's top generals actually knew about Prigozhin's coup plans and might have had some sympathy. The article based on US intelligence sources would seem to put this particular general in a very hazardous position, vis a vis life expentancy. I won't name him but it's all over the front page of the newspaper. Putin has demonstrated many times over the years that disloyalty/betrayal are to him like stabs in the back and he has always taken revenge. I fear for this particular general. As for Prigozhin, his days must be numbered.

US eliminates its chemical weapons of mass destruction

America’s last stocks of mustard gas and nerve agents developed for a chemical weapons confrontation with the Soviet Union in the Cold War are just days away from being destroyed, US officials have confirmed. It is one of the ironies of history that as the US, Russia and China develop more advanced nuclear missiles in a new arms race, an entire category of weapons of mass destruction are close to being eliminated. Russia completed its destruction of nearly 40,000 tons of chemical weapons in September, 2017, with the help of US technology. President Putin at the time criticised the US for delaying its own destruction programme until 2023. However, provided the final stocks are destroyed as planned next month at a plant in Kentucky, the US will be fully compliant with the chemical weapons convention treaty which was signed by 193 countries in 1993 and came into force in 1997. China declared small-scale chemical warfare agent production facilities in 1997 which have since been verifiably destroyed. About 700,000 chemical munitions were abandoned by Japanese troops in China during the Second World War. A Japanese team under Chinese supervision removed and destroyed the munitions. In the 1980s America’s national chemical weapons stockpile consisted of 30,610 tons of deadly chemicals, including sarin and VX nerve agents, exposure to which can cause death in minutes. One drop of VX on the skin can be fatal. With 3,136.6 tons of the deadly agents left to destroy, two US army depots in Colorado and Kentucky had the task of completing the destruction programme. The Pueblo chemical agent-destruction plant in Colorado eliminated the last 2,613.2 tons of agents held at the depot at the end of last week. The mustard agent was neutralised through a biological process and 780,000 chemical weapons projectiles and mortar rounds were blown up. The Blue Grass plant in Kentucky which had 503.6 tons of chemical agents left is expected to carry out the final destruction by the first week in July. Ninety per cent of the US chemical weapons stockpile stored at seven other sites across America and on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific was destroyed over a period of years in order to meet the convention deadline of September 30, 2023. Following the final destruction of chemicals at the US army Pueblo plant, a senior US official described it as a milestone in America’s commitment to have a world free of chemical weapons. “We have a national security imperative as well as a moral responsibility to reduce and eventually eliminate the threat posed by these weapons of mass destruction,” said William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defence for acquisitions and sustainment. The first country to eliminate its chemical weapons stocks was Albania. Nearly 17,000 kilograms of agents were destroyed by July, 2007. Syria signed the treaty but kept some chemical weapons hidden which were used to devastating effect in 2013 during the civil war. President Obama threatened to launch punitive airstrikes until Russia intervened to ensure the remaining stocks were removed and eliminated. Four countries failed to sign the chemical weapons convention: Egypt, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan.

No, Putin is not finished

Vladimir Putin's inevitable political demise has been predicted by almost everyone, following the sort-of coup attempt by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. But Putin didn't get where he is today by surrendering as soon as there's trouble. He has had any number of bad days since he launched his war in Ukraine and yet he is still there. And the mutiny by Prigozhin, huge and dramatic though it was for 24 hours, was over so quickly it's almost as if it didn't happen. But won't the Russian people rise up and demand a new leader? People who think that don't understand the Russian people. They like Putin's tough image and his pledge to protect the motherland against the western powers. He has created paranoia and the Russian people believe him. After a time the Russian people will have forgotten the one-time chef who built up a private army, Putin will hand round a few medals to deserving loyalists and he will be back in harness before you know it. He is KGB through and through, not unlike being a mafia godfather, and he will do his damndest to survive and flourish. Putin has already had one huge boost since the so-called coup, open support from Beijing. While he has Xi Zinping behind him he can tell all of his critics and doubters, Russian or foreign, to go hang. And that's what he is going to do. Putin is not finished yet.

Who can Putin trust to win his war in Ukraine?

With the thug boss of the Wagner Group out of the running for the moment, exiled to Belarus and neutered, politically and militarily, who will Putin turn to to make progress in his war in Ukraine? Until now the Wagner Group of mercenaries under Yevgeny Prigozhin has achieved more in terms of fighting back against the Ukrainian military than the full might of the Russian army. The Wagner troops, many of them convicts relieved to be out of jail and earning money, seemed to have more motivation and more killing ability than their often poorly trained regular army counterparts. So can Putin now rely on his regular forces under General Valery Gerasimov to adopt the same motivation and bring success against the Ukrainians who have never suffered from lack of motivation or loyalty to their cause. The bizarre deal under which those members of the Wagner Group who didn't take part in Saturday's aborted coup will be accepted into the ranks of the regulars is never going to work. The regulars will hate the mercenaries and the mercenaries will hate the regulars. I know this was Putin's plan anyway, to merge Wagner with the rest of the invasion forces, but I just don't see it working. For a start most if not all of the Wagner gang will despise General Gerasimov and the Russian defence Sergei Shoigu because their former boss now eating humble pie in Belarus told them enough times how useless and corrupt they both were. So there are going to be command and control problems. All of this is good news for the Ukrainians. However, Putin is almost bound to get tougher and more brutal and will probably start doing serious destruction to Kyiv. He will want revenge on a big scale for the humiliation he has suffered at the hands of his former loyal friend Prigozhin. Bumping him off on a dark night in Minsk might give him some satisfaction but his main revenge will be against Ukraine. Watch out, Kyiv.

A coup or not a coup, that was Putin's question

Vladimir Putin has had a helluva scare from which he may not recover fully. A convoy of mercenary Wagner Group armoured vehicles heading for Moscow and mutiny in the air. For a few hours Putin must have thought his time had come. But Russia, in the modern era, is not very good at coups. Gorbachov survived despite some devious machinations against him, and Yeltsin, too. Putin has survived, for the moment, because of the timely intervention by the Belarus dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, who persuaded the Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, to turn back to avoid bloodshed. The terms of the decision were approved by Putin which must surely mean the Kremlin boss has offered his former top friend sme sort of deal. Perhaps the sacking of the defence minister Sergei Shoigu or General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff and overall commander of the war in Ukraine? We will have to wait and see. But this guy Prigozhin is a force to be reckoned with and Putin will be even more wary of him in the future if the Ukraine war continues to go badly. Despite the turn-around I predict this is the beginning of the end of the Putin era. The bad boys of the Wagner Group, many of them released convicts, came within 200 miles of Moscow. As they advanced there were urgent meetings going on in Western capitals. Joe Biden and his national security team were all heads down wondering what was going to happen and what the US should do about it. Putin was facing the biggest shock of his life but I doubt many tears were being shed on his behalf.

Thousands of Russian landmines will reverse Ukaine's hopes of beating Putin

Thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory have been mined. This terrible fact alone explains why the Ukrainian counter-offensive has largely been unsuccessful so far. Much has been made of the recapture of eight villages, but this really is small beer. The objective of the counter-offensive is to drive the Russian troops out of eastern and southern Ukraine. For good. But with the phenominal laying of mines everywhere and the huge defences built up over the last few months, there is absolutely no chance of this happening. If it was US troops attacking the Russians, B-52s would by now have carpet-bombed the Russian trenches and minefields and MRAP mine-clearing armoured vehicles and M1A1 Abrams tanks would have ploughed their way through the Russian defences. It would all have been over by now. But the Ukrainian military don't even have air superiority, so as their troops advance they are being bombed from above, and every step they take the mines are waiting. Casualties have already been appalling. I fear for the Ukrainians.

Why does the US love impeaching presidents?

The worst job in the world is the president of the United States. As soon as the celebrations are over and the honeymoon has gone, whoever is president of the United States has nothing to look forward to but criticism, battles with Congress, snubs from world leaders, and, eventually, impeachment. Even poor Joe Biden who everyone is supposed to like as a decent bloke is now facing some mad impeachment drive by a dippy Congresswoman who wants him out of the White House for failing to control the rush of immigrants across the border into the US. You just can't win as president. It will come to nothing but if there's a Democrat in the White House the Republicans will want him impeached and vice versa. Trump faced impeachment pretty well as soon as he was elected. The fact is with politics in the US there are enough scary people elected to office that the country can never carry on like a normal nation. There is always someone plotting to cause chaos. This is Washington politics in a nutshell, with the emphasis on nut.

Another Joe Biden gaffe of huge proportions

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returns from a much-delayed and super-sensitive visit to China where he sat down with President Xi Zinping and discussed getting on better. He didn't get everything he wanted. Xi still isn't ready to renew military-to-military communications but on the whole the talks were amicable and productive and Blinken seemed pleased. BUT the first opportunity Joe Biden has to talk about China he refers to Xi as a dictator. The mind boggles. Why would he say that within hours of his secretary of state returning from Beijing? I mean Biden is right about Xi, he is effectively a dictator but he WAS elected by the Communist Party apparatus to remain as president for a third term. So for the president of the United States to describe the president of the People's Republic of China as a dictator is hardly going to help in warming relations and must have seriously p....d off Blinken. It was one of those famous throwaway remarks by Biden. He also claimed that Xi didn't know one of his spy balloons had been sent to hover over sensitive military sites in the US in February. How does he know that Xi didn't know? Has Biden given away a piece of secret intelligence? The latest gaffe from the man who wants to be president until 2028 doesn't bode very well for his election campaign.

Donald Trump is definitely getting worried

Trump's latest interview with Fox News, normally his safe haven, showed a worried man. He is now trying to think of every kind of reason why he kept classified documents in boxes at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Way back he said he had declassified all of them in his mind and that as a departing president he was authorised to do that. But now that he has actually been indicted on 37 charges, including under the Espionage Act, he realises he has to come up with something a bit more plausible. So on Fox News he produced this idea: he was far too busy to sort out all the stuff in the boxes. Busy playing golf perhaps? The troube is he then went on to say that many of the boxes piled up in his shower room and elsewhere contained a mixture of documents and his personal stuff and he didn't want anyone else sorting the classified from the personal. Ok, it's an argument if you like. But he ruined it by saying the personal stuff included clothes, like old socks and pants and whatever. Well, we don't want the details thank you, but surely removing clothes could have been a relatively quick job? Did the FBI find all these personal items when they raided Mar-a-Lago and took away all the boxes? Were there boxers in the boxes? It's going to be a tough argument to lay before the jury when he comes to trial. He had a good go in the Fox News interview but it didn't look as if it impressed his interviewer. Trump realises he is in deep trouble and the boxers in boxes argument he hopes is going to sway the jury.

All charm on the Beijing front

No angry words in Beijing shock! Just when every newspaper in the world was saying that relations between the US and China were at their lowest ever, America's most senior diplomat and China's president had a good chat and were still smiling at the end of it. It goes without saying that the world is a better and safer place if Beijing and Washington are not going hammer and tongs at each other. So it's a relief that Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, and President Xi Zinping, emerged from their session with talk of a constructive dialogue and each man saying they respected their individual country's different concerns. Whether this all leads to much warmer relations it's a bit early to say but the meeting in Beijing after all that fuss over the Chinese spy balloon flying over sensitive sites in the US bodes well. These days there is not much to be relieved or happy about on the international stage, mostly because of the outrageous tyranny and aggression of Vladimir Putin. It would be encouraging if Xi gave even the slightest hint to Blinken that the war in Ukraine has to be brought to an end as quickly as possible. I'm sure he would like it to end but the big question is, on what terms and on whose terms. Xi's previous peace deal proposals fell flat and the visiting African leaders'ideas were unsurprisingly rejected.

Could/should Biden pardon Trump?

Now here's a thought. What if Donald Trump is found guilty of breaching the Espionage Act by hoarding classified documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House and is sentenced to 20 years in prison? And then President Biden pardons him? An article in The Hill publication ponders a number of reasons why Biden could consider a pardon. I think the obvious reasons for taking such action are sensible. First of all, sending a former president to prison would be so divisive the whole country would be in uproar with one side saying "good riddance, about time" and the other side saying,"a disgraceful act of revenge against a former president and an end to democracy in the US of A". If Biden pardoned Trump it could be argued that it would be in the national interest. Put America first. That slogan should please most Republicans. Also it wouldn't do Biden any harm because he would look gracious and magnanimous, although some Republicans, possibly even Trump himself, might see it as an act of on condescension. But seeing how Biden was caught storing classified documents when he was vice president but was NOT charged because he owned up as soon as they were found, pardoning Trump for the same but much more serious mishandling of documents and then allegedly lying about it could be seen as a generous and understandable gesture. BUT, if Biden were to consider pardoning Trump if convicted, there really should be a quid pro quo: Trump is banned from ever again standing for public office, let alone the presidency. That, I suspect, wouldn't go down at all well with either Trump or his supporters and there could be a backlash against Biden. Also, what if Trump is then charged with other offences, to do with the January 6 riot and the alleged false claims of miscounting in the Georgia primary? Should Biden pardon him for everything? That might be a stretch too far.

African leaders hoping to make peace in Ukraine

Putin loves to receive visitors who believe thay have the answer to bringing peace to Ukraine. I fail to see what the latest delegation of leaders, this time from Africa, will have up their sleeves to end the war. Putin will of course listen politely but he will come up with the same answer. Fine, I want peace, too, he will say, but first, the US and Europe must stop arming the Kyiv government and promise never to allow Ukraine to join Nato. So the African leaders, with their good will, will get nowhere. Nothing will change. There is only one man on the planet who can persuade Putin to stop the war and that's President Xi Zinping but he's not going to get seriously interested until Putin tells him he has won enough territory to satisfy his objectives and I fear we are a long way from that time. So peace is a long long way away. The African leaders will get something from their trip to Moscow. Putin will promise to give them weapons and anything else they want provided they support Russia at the United Nations.

Russian military pilots getting over-macho in Syria

The Russian military are flexing their muscles whenever and wherever they can. All the focus is on Ukraine and the destruction they are causing, and misery, and inhumanity. Meanwhile in Syria Russian fighter pilots have been getting more and more hostile and irresponsible, flying over and harrassing bases in the northeast where there are US troops. It's as if Putin has put out a worldwide edict: wherever there are American troops, give them a hard time. There are still 900 US troops, mostly special operations units, teaming up with Kurdish and Arab partners to target the remnants of the Islamic State. It's a thankless and under-reported mission, and the Russians are trying to make it more difficult for the US to get on with the job of eliminating Isis for good from Syria. The Russians are also doing Iran a favour because the Iranians are hand-in-glove with the Bashar Assad regime and they want every American soldier out of Syria. Since Tehran is providing Moscow with hundreds of armed kamikaze drones to use against Ukraine, no doubt one of the quid pro quos is for the Russians to help get those 900 American troops out of Syria. Tehran and Moscow make very hostile bedfellows. So the Pentagon has dispatched some F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to the Middle East - probably Qatar - to deter Russian fighter pilots. If the Russian pilots want a dogfight with the Americans they sure as hell will regret trying to down an F-22.

Russia sounds nuclear alarm... again!

Every now and again when his war in Ukraine is not going so well, President Putin and one or other of his rent-a-quote acolytes start talking nuclear. It's the ultimate macho response from a former superpower that has only nukes left to scare the world. So Putin has made much of the delivery of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus and the leader of that pro-Moscow nation has seized on the chance to remind everyone that these weapon systems are much more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But for sheer ghoulish rhetoric, the words of someone called Sergei Karaganov have tried to outdo even those of Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus leader/dictator. Karaganov who is deputed to be honorary chairman of Russia's council of foreign and defence policy, has written an article published on a Kremlin-linked website calling for nuclear strikes on European cities if Europe continues to arm Ukraine, adding that he doesn't see the US responding in kind for its European allies. Karaganov must be one of those Russians who still dream of being in the Cold War when the Soviet Union threatened mass destruction of the planet. The trouble with dangerous rhetoric is that the way things are going at the moment, it seems to have become easier to consider the nuclear option.

Trump is losing support

With Donald Trump in court in Miami facing 37 criminal charges, the reality of it is at last getting to his rival Republican presidential candidates. They can't go on giving him their backing. The screw is beginning to turn. Even the previously loyal Nikki Haley, Trump's ambassador to the UN, is now expressing horror at the scale of the federal charges against her former boss, describing the retention of so many classified documents in his home as reckless behaviour. Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor and another candidate, is more openly hostile and says Trump should withdraw from the campaign. Depending on what happens today in court and in subsequent weeks, I can envisage a growing bandwagon from within the Republican party for Trump to put the country first and stand down as a presidential candidate. Of course he has said he will fight on regardless but there will come a point when he must see that even some of his most loyal supporters will reach the same conclusion. Not the nutters who have threatened violence if he is convicted. Hopefully they are in the minority. But the average Republican voter who loves their country and would not want it to become a global pariah. The Trump-must-withdraw campaign has started.

William Barr says Trump is toast if convicted

Washington is all about politics, so when Trump's attorney general William Barr says the former president is "toast" if he is convicted of all the charges against him, one is never quite sure whether he is speaking as a lawyer or as a former member of Trump's cabinet who became disillusioned with his boss. But assuming he was speaking from his experience as the country's former top lawyer, he surely has to be right. All this talk about Trump winning the election and serving as president behind bars is so ridiculous it needs to be quashed right away. For the reputation of the United State around the world it would be demeaning, impractical, embarrassing, exploitable by America's enemies, and downright shameful. So, right now Trump is innocent of all charges full stop. But if he were to be convicted and sentenced to a term in prison, someone in high authority, even if it has to be the Supreme Court, should make a ruling that it bars him from becoming president. Otherwise the United States will become a laughing stock.

Trump says he will never drop out of the presidential campaign

Donald Trump who wants to be the 47th president of the United States of America says he will never leave his campaign bid for the White House and he is innocent of all charges. He is innocent of keeping piles of classified documents in boxes in his shower room and elsewhere in his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. He is also presumably innocent of leaving the boxes available for opening by any guest at his residence who needs to pop in to use the washroom facilities. In the pictures taken by the FBI the boxes are just the usual cardboard office boxes you fill up when you are sacked from your job and you stuff them with all the rubbish you have accumulated over your career. Only in this case, the take-away boxes were stuffed with documents marked secret and top secret and Not To Be Seen By Anyone Using a Shower. So whatever happens between now and when Trump comes to trial, he will carry on as if nothng has happened. Except he will no doubt do everything he can to persuade all his supporters that the world is against him - well the Washington establishment anyway - and that he and only he can be in charge of America's future.

Trump is in serious serious trouble

What a difference a day makes. First it was reported that Donald Trump faced seven charges and now it's 37 and the detail of the alleged crimes is so staggering I am forced to change my mind and come to the conclusion that the 45th president of the United States, if found guilty, could be sent to prison for a long time. Accused of keeping incredibly sensitive material about America's nuclear weapons in a box in the shower at his residence in Florida? It beggars belief. If true, what on earth was he thinking and why did he do it? What was his plan? And documents that highlighted America's military vulnerabilities? In the bad old Cold War days, the KGB would have had those boxes out of the shower before you could say Niet. How his lawyers will find a defence to counter all this physical evidence is hard to see. OK, lawyers are clever people. The best can cast doubt on whether a man murdered his wife even when there are photographs of him doing it and a confession in writing signed in her blood. But Jack Smith, the special counsel whose immaculate report has itemised everything Trump is supposed to have hidden in his resort residence at Mar-a-Lago, is going to be hard to beat. Good luck Trump lawyers but the odds on the former president ending up in jail have dramatically shortened.

Could Trump really be sent to prison?

When Donald Trump appears in court next week for the second time in about two months, the only question that will be in the minds of every single person inside the courtoom and outside in the big wide world is this: is the US prosecuting system going to send the 45th president to prison? Well, of course, first they have to prove their case and there are innumerable arguments Trump's defence counsel will come up with that will try to justify why the former president removed several hundred classified documents from the White House to his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. So even a prima facie case against Trump - ie he did remove the documents because the FBI found them - will be undermined by the reasoning that it was ok to have done so, that Trump didn't endanger national security in so doing, that the documents were declassified in the former president's mind (!), that the FBI had no right to invade his home etc etc. But if, despite all this effort by his defence counsel, Trump is convicted, would he actually be sent to prison? Would they, could they, do that? To a former president and a man who is determined to be president again in 2024? The answer is, yes of course they could but I don't see it happening.

Zelensky's F-16 dream will have to wait

Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky appears to wake each morning with one priority question in his mind: when will the F-16s arrive? Following the flood destruction caused by the explosions at the Kakhovka dam in Kherson, Zelensky overnight contacted US coalition allies to ask about timing for the first F-16 fighter aircraft. Nothing he has been told will have boosted his hopes that one of America’s most effective combat jets will be ready for operations against the Russian invasion forces before the end of the year. Denmark which is playing a key role in the provision of F-16s and training of Ukrainian pilots has warned that the programme will not begin until early next month and that it could take another six months for the aircraft to be ready for operations from bases in Ukraine. Could this be accelerated? US defence officials make it clear that the objective of the F-16 project is not to provide Ukraine with a war-fighting capability to back up the newly-started counter-offensive against Russian positions in the south and east of Ukraine. They say the aim is to reinforce the country’s long-term defences vis a vis any future aggression from Moscow. While this is undeniably a more realistic proposition it doesn’t satisfy Zelensky’s urgent needs for a bigger and better air force to strike at Russian defensive forces. Underlining his personal priorities for his country’s security, there is now every prospect that Australia, with US agreement, will transfer 41 mothballed F/A-18 Hornets to Ukraine. Negotiations are underway. The aircraft are updated versions, are in good condition and are stored in a hangar at an Australian air base because they are being replaced by the new-generation F-35A stealth fighter. However, Zelensky’s favoured western fighter aircraft is the F-16 Fighting Falcon because it’s faster, more agile, more manoeuvrable and smaller than the F/A-18. Both aircraft can carry a range of weapons – the Hornet more than the Fighting Falcon – and it’s the type of payload which could make a significant impact in the war in Ukraine. General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joints chiefs of staff, has warned that no aircraft, whether F-16 or other system, will be a “magic weapon” for Ukraine, pointing out that Russia has 1,000 fourth-generation fighter aircraft to confront the Ukrainian air force. However, even if the F-16 might not be a dramatic game-changer, it’s easy to see why Zelensky wants it delivered sooner than the West is promising. The F-16 can carry America’s small diameter bomb, the precision-guided GBU-53/B StormBreaker with a stand-off range of about 45 miles. The range does not compare with the UK’s Storm Shadow cruise missile (155 miles) already in service in Ukraine. But there are far more StormBreakers in stock and they are effective against semi-hardened targets. Zelensky wants these capabilities now but he knows he is going to have to wait.

Why was the Kakhovka dam destroyed?

It is difficult to understand the thinking behind the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. On the surface it would seem to be a Russian operation. They were in control of the dam, so they had the means and opportunity to detonate mines or explosives to breach the dam and cause the region to be flooded. In the short term, there is a rationale because in the Russian view it would hamper the Ukrainian counter-offensive by making it difficult if not impossible for enemy armoured brigades to cross the Dnipro river to attack the Russian positions on the other side. But it also meant Russian troops were affected by flooding and in the longer term it could be disastrous for the Russian military in Crimea because they rely on the reservoir for providing water supplies to the peninsula. And if it somehow was the Ukrainians who broke the dam - not sure how - then it flooded the very region they wanted to advance rapidly through to take on the Russians. It makes no sense. The Ukrainians claim the flooding will make no difference to the counter-offensive but even if that were true, it would still be an outrageous thing to do if it was Kyiv-approved. So it's much more likely to have been a Moscow decision without too much thought given to how it might affect Crimea. That's hard to believe but this is an outrageous Moscow war and perhaps the people in the Kremlin and the ministry of defence are thinking blindly. Either way, this war is getting worse and more destructive and the risks of it turning into a wider regional war are getting more likely as the weeks go by.

Why are Mike Pence, Chis Christie etc bothering?

It is difficult to fathom why people like Mike Pence and Chris Christie and other Republican would-be presidents are going for it this time round. I can see why Ron DeSantis decided to have a go because he at least has a sporting chance of unseating Donald Trump from the throne - though pretty long odds - but the others really have no chance at all. Pence has put in the paperwork for the presidency which is the first step before the formal announcement. But does he really think he is going to get any more than, say, 5-10 per cent of the nomination vote at the end of the day? And Chris Christie, also due to make his play for the White House, is pretty much a busted flush. He will attract some Republican votes because he generally makes a lot of noise but if he starts to bash Trump he will get nowhere. Mike Pompeo sensibly decided to postpone his bid for the White House until 2028 because he presumably recognised that for 2024 it would be a waste of his time, energy and money and other people's money. Pence never had a national following but will probaby attract the very conservative voter who lives by the Bible but he will never have the mass appeal needed to win the Republican nomination. Nikki Haley will have her moments but the former US ambassador to the UN is also very unlikely to appeal to enough voters to make any more than a scratch on the nomination papers. Despite all the odds against them I guess all these candidates have a yearning to know how close they might get. But I can tell them now. All that money and publicity and ego will get you nowhere. It's going to end up Trump versus DeSantis, with Trump winning.

There is no military solution to the war in Ukraine

As the first reports of Ukraine's counter-offensive emerge, it is clear that there are going to be no straightforward winners and losers. In fact it's going to be pretty impossible to know who has achieved what because of the mass of propaganda, lies and fake reports that come with every shot fired. Moscow immediately claimed the Ukrainians had attempted a mass breakthrough along the eastern front and had been pushed back causing hundreds of Ukrainian casualties. But Ukraine insisted it had broken through the Russian defensive positions in the eastern Donbas region in several places and at the same time denied this was the start of the counter-offensive. So on day one of whatever we are seeing, nothing spectacular has yet occurred and I guess this is the way it's going to be for the months ahead. It has been attritional warfare since this whole crisis began and that's the way it will continue. There will be no obvious victory in Ukraine. It will grind on. I suspect most of Nato and certainly Moscow realise this but pretend that victory IS possible - glory for Vladimir Putin on the one side or triumph for the Nato-armed and trained Ukraine as well as victory for democracy over Putinesque brutality and aggression. If only life were that simple. Meanwhile it's going to be very difficult to make an intelligent assessment of what is happening from day to day, despite all the surveillance capabilities available to the US and coalition partners. To emphasise, it won't be the generals who decide how this war will end, it will be politicians. It just depends who makes the first move.

Can Ukraine win without Abrams tanks and F-16s?

Ukranian officials are still saying they don't have enough weapons and ammunition to launch their counter-offensive against the Russians. Yet Zelensky said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that Ukraine was now ready to go ahead. All very confusing unless it's part of a clever ploy to keep the Russians guessing. But the fact is Kyiv will never have everything they need to attack Russian troop positions in eastern and southern Ukraine and drive them back over the border, let alone seize back Crimea. For a start they still don't have US Abrams M1A1 tanks and won't get them for months, at least not for use in battle. There's lot of training to be done and explaining to do about using Abrams in manouevre warfare. And then there are the in-demand F-16s. They won't be ready to fly in action for months either. So the counter-offensive will have to make do without these two key weapon systems. What's more there isn't an inexhaustible supply of munitions, rockets, artillery shells, air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles provided by the UK etc etc. If the counter-offensive stalls through lack of ammunition that would be a huge blow to Ukraine and to its western partners. Putin will be hoping that that's what will happen: the counter-offensive will run out of steam. It does seem crazy that Ukraine is putting such huge effort into smashing into Russian defences and driving them back over the border when they don't have the best weapon systems to guarantee success. The Abrams tanks would definitely have made a difference. So too the F-16s.

Is it too late to moderate the impact of artificial intelligence?

Artficial intelligence has become the hot topic. Will it destroy our way of life, will robots take over, will science fction become reality? In the military world, AI is key to future, if not current, warfare. The three rival great powers, the US, China and Russia are spending billions of dollars on developing AI weapons that will transform the battlefield in the future both on land, in the air and on and under the sea. Other countries, including the United Kingdom, India. Israel, South Korea and Iran, are also trying to exploit the AI potential for developing unmanned “thinking” weapon systems and platforms. It is said that AI represents the third revolution in warfare, following the invention of gunpowder and nuclear weapons. The third revolution has been underway for years but now the availability of artificial intelligence both in the commercial and military research worlds has led to a new arms race. The war in Ukraine has largely been described as attritional warfare with both sides dug into trenches and firing artillery shells, more Second World War than a war of the future. And yet glimpses of what a future war will look like have also emerged in Ukraine with autonomous “loitering” drones, underwater drones and even uncrewed ground vehicles. The Kyiv government has also benefited from western-supplied AI geospatial intelligence provided by low-orbit satellites which give an instant picture of Russian positions and movements. A US AI company has given Kyiv facial-recognition software to help with identifying dead soldiers and to pinpoint suspected Russian war criminals. The AI revolution has created what has been termed “algorithmic warfare”; and it’s the sophistication of the algorithms which have led to concerns that if the human element is removed, warfare of the future will be uncontrollable. The AI weapon that turns on its supposed human operator is just one example of how robotic systems can make their own judgments and act accordingly. The Pentagon has its own advanced “lethal autonomous weapons” programme to develop what are sometimes called slaughterbots” or killer robots, which use AI to identify, select and kill human targets without human intervention. The drones used by the CIA and US special operations military to kill terrorist targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere were controlled by human operators in front of monitors thousands of miles away. If there was a risk of civilian casualties drone strikes could be called off. In the case of lethal autonomous weapons, final decisions are made by algorithms using facial recognition technology. The US, China and Russia are all researching weapons platforms that can operate independently whether they be drones or fighter aircraft or submarines. The US Air Force has already successfully tested an F-16 fighter jet flown by AI. It flew for 17 hours and was put through numerous challenging manoeuvres. The argument for more unmanned systems, such as fighter jets, which can operate without putting human pilots at risk of enemy fire, is unassailable. In February at a meeting in The Hague, more than 60 countries, including the US and China, endorsed the responsible use of AI in the military. But the agreement was not legally binding and for the moment research into AI weapon systems is being given more priority by the world’s biggest defence spenders than anything else.

CIA chief goes to China

The CIA director has played a unique role over the years as a secret envoy in all kinds of international crises. It's part of the role's CV. Whenever the president of the United States can get nowhere with normal channels, he calls for the chief spook to get it sorted out. So, in the latest foray by the current CIA director, Bill Burns, a former amvbassador to Washington, there has been a secret trip to Beijing at a time when relations with the Chinese have been worsening by the day. The Pentagon has been trying for weeks to get their counterparts in the defence ministry in Beijing to pick up their phones and have a chat. But all to no avail. Then Lloyd Austin, the US Defence Secretary, went off to Singapore for an annual international conference and tried to fix to speak to his counterpart on the sidelines. But he was snubbed. All he managed in the end was a brief handshake. But meanwhile Burns who looks like a university professor, was dispatched by Joe Biden to have words with top Chinese officials to try and get relations on an even keel. The fact that Beijing agreed to see Burns without any publicity demonstrates how powerful the CIA and its boss are on the world stage. Burns is a veteran diplomat and knows how to charm even the most stubborn of opponents and I have no doubt he did the necessaries in Beijing. His presence there was revealed by the Financial Times. So not so secret after all. But obviously effective, because Biden revealed he thought relations with China were softening a bit.

What's with Dimitry Medvedev?

Dimitry Medvedev, former president of the Russia Federation (not for long and only with Putin's acquiescence) has a way with words. He uses them to bash and sometimes threaten the West. He has become the Kremlin ogre, the one selected to make outrageous remarks which is odd because when he was the (small b) boss in the Kremlin he seemed quite mild and interested in being far nicer than Putin. He was someone the West could almost do business with. But these days, Medvedev pops up whenever the Kremlin wants to scare the West. He is the deputy chairman of Russia's security council and uses this platform to rage against the West whenever he gets the opportunity. In his latest foray he said Russia would be entitled to attack individual British officials, military or civilian, who had any dealings with the arming of Ukraine. This followed the surprising remarks by James Cleverly, the British Foreign Secretary, who when asked about the latest drone attacks on Moscow, presumably by Ukrainian or pro-Ukrainian perpetrators, said the Kyiv government had every right to carry out strikes inside Russian borders as part of their efforts to defend themselves against Russian aggression. It was surprising because the US has always made it clear it did NOT support Ukraine attacks inside Russia and insisted that US-supplied weaponry should not be used to target anywhere in Russia itself. I thought the UK was also signed up to that. But Cleverly obviously thinks differently. His comment, whether backed by the UK government as a whole or not, clearly annoyed Medvedev which is why he came out with his threat to target British officials. All pretty stupid and irresponsible in my view.