Donald Trump blinks first

So the Big Man has blinked.Only 24 hours ago he was promising to stay the course and let every country beg for mercy and offer fancy trade deals to benefit the United States. Then suddenly, he got the message loud and clear that the US economny was heading into an abyss and recession unless he backed off. So he backed off and suspended all the high tariffs he had imposed on everyone. He made onoly one other change, he increased the tariffs against China to 125 per cent just for good measure to try and show that he was still holding the stick against his biggest rival. But everyone else went down to 10 per cent. Will this puncture Trump's bombast or will he negotiate his way out of a humiliating pullback by claiming he has got some wonderful deals. On the face of it, however, Trump has done a Liz Truss. Banked all his plans and dreams into one big pot and then found it was cracking from top to bottom. Truss was forced to resign and accept her legacy of ignominy. Trump will survive but the battering ram approach may now be put back in the cupboard where it belongs.

Does Trump want a war with China?

Two things have occurred at the same time which raises the concern that the new administration in Washington is heading for a war with China: a trade war has already started, a military war could be ahead in the not too distant future. This is scary stuff. The two things are the 104 per cent tariffs put on all Chinese goods entering the American market, and a warning from a very senior US military commander that the armed forces need to carry out a full, across-servce military exercise to preoare for war in the Pacific (with China). He says there have been lots of studies on jont-arms requirements but no proper actual exercise. So watch out for a mammoth exercise in the Pacific in the future involving every aspect of the army, navy, air force, marines and special forces. Can Trump really want a war with China? The concequences for the region and for the world would be catastrophic. If it's all bluster and just about giving China a kick in the teeth and putting them in place, then it's a dangerous gamble. China is the one country in the world unlikely to back down against Trumpian pressure. The trouble is, Trump can't afford to back down either. It's back to the bad old days of brinkmanship.

Trump vows to stick to his tariff plan

It hasn't taken long for the doubters in the Republican party in the US to start voicing their concerns about Donald Trump's world tariff war. As they see their invstments plummet in value, it's hardly surprising that even Trump supporters are beginnning to worry that the president has an obsession rather than a policy. But it seems nothing will sway Trump from his course of action. He seems to believe that at some point in the future - who knows when? - the benefits from the tariff war will start to bring benefits for the US economy and for the American people. He better be right because the reason, or one of the main reasons, why millions voted for him and not for Kamala Harris was because he promised to make America great again and that, to them, meant the economy up and the cost of living down. So far it has been the opposite. Growth in the economny has stagnated and the cost of living rises every day. How long will everyone's patience last? Trump doesn't seem remotely bothered. He has said he is enjoying what's going on and doesn't mind about the stock market dropping faster than a malfunctioning rocket. And everyone in the White House, from the press secretary to Trump's economic advisers, are pushing the same line, that all will come right in the end. It doesn't look very hopeful so far.

Trump deadline to Iran on nuke deal gets closer

Donald Trump certainly knows how to up the ante. He gave Tehran until May to start negotiating a deal to suspend or end its nuclear programme and the time is drawing fast. Meanwhile he has sent six B-2 Spirit bombers to Diega Garcia in preparation for what one can only imagine is a potential massive attack on Iran's nuke facilities. The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington today means the two men will talk about Iran and what their two countries can do together to strike at Iran. At the moment the extraordinary presence of six B-2s in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is clearly aimed at putting maximum pressure on Tehran to start negotiations....or else. With the world's financial markets in chaos over Trump's tariff war the last thing the planet needs is a new war in the Middle East. But that's the way it's being played from the White House. I can see Trump's thick pen poised for his next big venture. Joe Biden did nothing about Iran's nuke programme. Trump is not going to let it go. It's possible that the ayatollahs will get the message.

Israel cuts Gaza into slices

The Israel Defence Forces have now carved three security corridors across Gaza in the hope and expectation of finshing off Hamas once and for all. There's the Philadelphi corridor that runs on the Gaza side of the border in the south with Egypt, the Netzarin corridor that splits the territory between the north, including Gaza City, and the south, and now a new one, the Morag corridor, that separates the southern town of Rafah from Khan Yunis. These are the two towns, especially Rafah, where the IDF's 36th Division is currently focusing most of its offensive action against Hamas. The carve-up is aimed at putting maximum pressure on Hamas, and the population of Gaza has to fit in wherever it's less dangerous. But there's nowhere that can be described as safe for civilians in Gaza, as the continuing casualty rate demonstrates. Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington tomorrow, being feted by Donald Trump at the White House, so he will feel invigorated that he has the US fully back on side. He never really knew where he stood with Joe Biden. Joe worried a lot about civilian deaths and even at one point stopped supplying Israel with the heaviest 2,000lb bombs because of their indiscriminate explosive power in built-up areas. I am not aware of any such reservations expressed by the new administration, so Netanyahu will get what he wants from Trump when he has his chat in Washington tomorrow. For the Palestinian people, the war continues in a daily unrelenting way.

Putin won't back down

There is no rasson why Vladimir Putin will ever back down, even if it means annoying Donald Trump. He will see how the world has reacted against Trump over his global tariffs war and he will be happy that he can dictate the way the war in Ukraine will go whatever Trump does or says. Right now, Trump probably thinks he looks strong and unbeatable by taking on the world over trade. But Putin will feel confident that it will soon put Trump on the defensive and that that will make him weak. Once again, Putin will win. He won't budge over his demands that there will be no ceasefire in Ukraine until the so-called "root causes" of the Ukraine issue are dealt with. In other words, he wants Ukraine to become the equivalent of a territorial eunachy, a non-country with no army and no future and no friends and allies. Meanwhile he will keep pounding Ukraine every day, further crushing the will power of the Ukrainian people to fight on. Trump's grand master plan to end the war in Ukraine, bring peace to Gaza, and make America Great Again with tariffs on everything being imported into the country could all go horribly wrong.

Tariff war chaos in the markets

I don't know whether Donald Trump anticipated all the chaos that would follow his declaration of global tariffs on all foreign goods coming into the country. But if he did, then he probably thought it was fine because in the end, he hopes, the United States will blossom and bloom and be the richest nation on earth bar none. So he won't mind that China has retaliated with 34 per cent tariffs on all American imports and he won't care if the European Union smacks 20 per cent tariffs on American goods. It's all part of the disruption strategy, or turmoil tactics, which he hopes will turn the globalised world upside down and convert the US into a Fortress economy. Foreigners keep out. And he's prepared to wait for this to happen, even if companies go under, the cost of living rises, and the world's trade patterns go to pot. But, of course, he won't be able to wait for ever. Sometime in the next six months, there is going to be an explosion of resentment and anger in the US, as prices continue to rise and rise. Trump loves, in facts needs, to be popular and if the polls show he is fast becoming the most unpopular president since, say, Nixon, then he might have to to change his tune and start backing down. But right now, it's full steam ahead.

Tariffs to the left and tariffs to the right

Right now it's very difficult and confusing to work out exactly what Donald Trump's plan is. The basic goal is relatively simple. To make tariffs on imported goods so high that US businesses and industry will all be forced to buy American to survive which would encourage manufacturers to expand and employ more people to meet the huge new demand. Thus, in Trump's dream plan, the United States of America, already one of the richest countries in the world, will become even wealthier. Never mind other countries, especially the poor ones. But there are a lot ifs and buts here. What if US companies just stick with their foreign customers and pay the extra for the time being in the hope that the tariffs will go away. At the moment, the whole world is up in arms, condemning Trump's tariff war and if there is a mighty backlash against his policy, there could be a massive disruption in trade which will affect American businesses as much as anyone else's. Countries such as China, in fact especially China, as well as the European Union, are going to retaliate with their own tariffs on American goods. It's a vicious circle with no end.

Israel goes back to full war against Hamas

Exploiting what the Israeli government sees as growing antipathy towards Hamas among Palestinians in Gaza, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are to launch a large-scale expansion of its military operations to seize and occupy more territory. It’s the biggest gamble taken by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, since the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was agreed on January 17. Outlining the military plan, Israel’ Katz, the defence minister, announced that large areas of the Strip would be seized, with Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south appearing to be the principal targets. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had made their way back to their homes in southern Gaza after the ceasefire deal was announced are now being ordered to leave in a mass evacuation. They have been told to move to the town of Al-Mawasi, located along the coast, an area about nine miles long and less than a mile wide which had previously been designated as a humanitarian zone. The strategy behind the expanded military ground operation became clear when the defence minister directly called on all Gazans to join with Israel in ending Hamas rule in the enclave. “I call on the residents of Gaza to act now to eliminate Hamas and return the kidnapped,” Katz said in his statement. The aim, he said, was to clear the area of militants and their infrastructure. “This is the only way to end the war,” he said. The new territory targeted would be incorporated into what Katz called “security zones”. Netanyahu and his war cabinet have been encouraged by the recent protests by hundreds of Palestinians against Hamas in northern Gaza. However, there remain 59 hostages out of the 250 kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, 2023. Of those, only 24 are believed to be alive. Netanyahu who has been under persistent pressure by the families of the hostages to negotiate their release, is gambling that the massive expansion of the war will end the hostage crisis and bring them home. The Hostage Familes’ Forum which represents the relatives of those being held by Hamas, said families were “horrified to wake up this morning” to hear the defence minister’s statement of expanded ground operations. The Israeli government was obligated, the forum said, to free all the hostages and “to pursue every possible channel to advance a deal for their release”. After the failure of an agreement between Israel and Hamas to move to phase two of the ceasefire framework, Israel returned to bombing Hamas targets and ordered ground troops back into Gaza. about two weeks ago. A stretch of land, known as the Netzarim Corridor, separating north from south, from which the IDF had withdrawn in February, was seized back. It was the first sign of Israel’s renewed determination to focus on military action rather than peaceful negotiation to force Hamas to stop fighting and release the remaining hostages. Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the breakdown in the ceasefire talks held in Qatar. Under the ceasefire agreement signed on 19 January with the US, Qatar and Egypt acting as mediators, a three-phase proposal was drawn up. The first phase, leading to the release of 33 hostages in exchange for 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel was completed on 1 March. The second phase should have included the release of all remaining hostages and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. When the talks broke down, Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, suggested an extended phase one arrangement under which more hostages would be freed., but without any further commitment to ending the war. That so-called “bridging proposal” faltered. Hamas blames Israel for the breakdown in the ceasefire talks. Israel’s response has been to call on the IDF’s 36th Division to launch a major operation against Hamas and to return to mass evacuation of Gazans.

America's secret war in Ukraine

The US-led “save-Ukraine” military coalition was always more than just a production line of arms deliveries to the Kyiv government. Much of what has been going on over the last three years has been secret: a covert collaboration between Ukraine and the West involving commanders at the highest level, and special forces out of uniform. How much of the clandestine activities that began almost as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine was suspected by Moscow is unknown. But the full range of the extraordinary partnership between Ukraine and the West has now been revealed after a year-long investigation by Adam Entous, a reporter on The New York Times. While the sheer detail of the covert meetings and level of high-powered cooperation provides an insight for the first time into the extent of the military relationship developed between Kyiv and the US, there is an inevitable sense of impending gloom that all this intense partnership-building is going to be thrown away because of the determination of President Trump to end the war with a deal that can only favour Moscow and undermine Ukraine’s security future. The manner in which the 20-year campaign in Afghanistan was negotiated away by the first Trump administration in a deal which favoured the Taliban, and disastrously implemented when President Joe Biden came to power, should have provided a sufficient lesson for avoiding similar humiliations. But the momentum for a deal to end the war in Ukraine, however unrealistic it might seem today, is already having an effect on US/Ukrainian military collaboration. Some elements of the partnership are being wound down. The revelations in The New York Times demonstrate how intimately the US has been involved in operational strategy, targeting policy and command decision-making. The Pentagon would always insist that operational and targeting decisions were a matter for the Kyiv government. But the US, and Britain, were as close to being fellow orchestrators of the battles with Russian forces as could be without actually having boots on the ground. Two months after Vladimir Putin’s invasion force crossed the border into Ukraine on 24 February, 2022, a convoy of unmarked cars drove the 400 miles from Kyiv to the Polish border. Protected by British special forces troops in civilian clothes, the convoy contained two Ukrainian generals. They were driven to Rzeszow-Jasionka airport, flown by C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to Wiesbaden in Germany, home of US Army Europe and Africa., and ushered into the office of Lieutenant-General Christopher Donahue, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps and a former leader of the US Delta Force special forces unit. Donahue, according to the report, proposed a special partnership, and so began what would become a remarkable cooperative relationship to defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion force and to stop Putin from fulfilling his dream of overpowering and neutralising a country whose sovereignty and independence he never acknowledged or recognised. Wiesbaden was the heart of the effort by the western coalition to feed Kyiv with the weapons they needed. After the meeting with Donahue, plans began to supply American M777 artillery batteries and 155mm shells to Kyiv to help Ukraine take the war to the Russian frontlines. Over three years, the Pentagon delivered $66.5 billion of weaponry, including 10,000 Javelin anti-armour missiles, 3,000 Stinger anti-aircraft systems and 76 tanks, all masterminded through Wiesbaden. A Polish general was appointed Donahue’s deputy and a British general was put in charge of the logistics hub. The operation was called Task Force Dragon. The key Ukrainian in this warfighting partnership was General Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi. “My mission [in Wiesbaden] was to find out: who is this General Donahue? What is his authority? How much can he do for us?” he told The New York Times. Later he sent a message back to Kyiv which said: “A lot of countries wanted to support Ukraine. But somebody needed to be the coordinator, to organise everything, to solve the current problems and figure out what we need in the future. We have found our partner.” Wiesbaden was the mission command centre and the place where the Americans provided such a comprehensive intelligence-based picture of the battlefield and the potential targets within it that one European official was quoted in the report as saying: “They [the Americans] are part of the kill chain now.” A team of 20 Ukrainian intelligence officers, planners and communicators arrived in Wiesbaden and every morning they would sit down with the Americans “to survey Russian weapons systems and ground forces and determine the ripest, highest-value targets”. However, if Ukraine wanted to attack targets inside Russia, they were told they would have to use their own intelligence. In mid-2022, using American intelligence and targeting information, the Ukrainians launched rockets at the headquarters of Russia’s feared battle groups of the 58th Combined Arms Army in Kherson, killing generals and staff officers. When the huge Russian army unit moved to another location, the US tracked them and the Ukrainians hit them again. It wasn’t always a smooth partnership. Sometimes, the Ukrainian commanders resented the advice they were being given and went their own way. Increasingly, they also became frustrated by the reluctance of the Biden administration to provide all the weapons they were demanding in the early stages of the war, especially the longer-range rockets, such as the ATACMS systems with a range of 190 miles. Gradually, the Biden administration got bolder and less fearful that Putin might turn to tactical nuclear weapons if he judged the US coalition was crossing a dangerous red line in supporting Kyiv. ATACMS weren’t delivered until October, 2023 but were barred from being used to hit targets inside Russia until nearly a year later. However, while this debate was being argued in the public domain, Washington was secretly approving covert missions to help the Ukrainian military. “Time and again, the Biden administration authorised clandestine operations it had previously prohibited. American military advisers were dispatched to Kyiv and later allowed to travel closer to the fighting. Military and CIA officers in Wiesbaden helped plan and support a campaign of Ukrainian strikes in Russian-annexed Crimea,” the paper’s report said.

Putin says he is happy to talk to Trump

Vladimir Putin doesn't want Donald Trump to be pissed off with him. If Joe Biden had been pissed off with him he wouldn't have bothered get out of bed. But with Trump it's different. This is because Putin realises it's better to keep on the friendly side with Trump to stop shimhim going ahead with his threat to impose massively tough tariffs on Russia, including heavy penalties on any country that buys Russian oil and gas. This really could harm Russia's economny and screw over Putin's plan to carry on fighting Ukraine. Whatever Putin says about agreeing a ceasefire or whatever, what he really wants to do is continue bombing Ukraine until there is nothing left to bomb. A bit like what the Israelis are doing to Gaza, except, of course, Gaza is tiny and Ukraine is huge. But if Trump is genuinely angry with him, then Putin will be in a tricky position. So he has let it be known through his Kremlin spokesman that he would be happy to get a call from Trump. They haven't spoken for a bit. This is the first sign of Putin backing down, or at least taking a softer line. He wants Trump to carry on with his deal-making even if he really doesn't want any sort of deal with Zelensky. What he needs is for the negotiations in Saudi Arabia to carry on because it then looks as if Moscow is playing ball, even if it's all a scam. So, expect a call between Trump and Putin in the next few weeks so that a smiling Putin can tell the world that Trump is not pissed off with him after all but is his jolly good friend.

Trump gets angry with Putin

It just shows how the great instant end-of-war-in-Ukraine promise from Donald Trump is slowly going to pot. Now he says he is very angry that Putin has dared to cast aspersions on the leadership role of Volodymyr Zelensky as the bona fide president of Ukraine. Putin has said there can be no ceasefire deal or eventual peace settlement if the signature on the Ukrainian side comes from Zelensky. Putin wants a temporary new leader in place who he feels will have more legitimacy, ie more pro-Moscow, and he even puts it out there that a United Nationa transition government could be acceptable. Trump sees that as another delaying tactic by Putin because it would all take too much time to bring in a new government. Trump, no friend of Zelensky, wants Zelensky in charge in Kyiv because he thinks he can force through a deal while the formker stand-up comedian is the president. Somehow, I doubt Putin will worry too much about "pissing off" Trump. It's all part of the game which he is currently winning hands down.

JD Vance gets the chills in Greenland

Apparently no one told the US vice president that it's pretty cold in Greenland. He arrived for his unofficial, unwanted visit with his wife, the Second Lady, and confessed he couldn't believe how freezing it was. A basic bit of pre-flight homework would have given him a few facts that might have includedd the average temperature in Greenland. It's in the Arctic by the way, Mr Vice President, and that means it's literally below freezing every day of the year. The highest tenmperature could be about 5.6 degrees Centigrade if you arrive on a good day. About 80 per cent of Greenland is covered in ice. I don't think Vance was aware of this and maybe he will go back to Washington and warn Trump that he's wasting his time and taxpayers' money if he wants to grab Greenland. I doubt he will be making a return trip. So, perhaps the unwelcome visit by Vance and his wife might after all have been the best thing for the islanders who, thank you very much Washington, would like to say under the venerable ownership of Denmark.

If Trump gives Putin what he wants he will demand more

The way things are going so far in the negotiations wqith Moscow, Vladimir Putin is going to get what he wants. But the fact is that if you give someone like Putin what he wants he will demand more and more. Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, has said he thinks Putin is a smart guy and he's right. This is why it's even more important to pile the pressure on the Russian president and use as much leverage as possible to force him to back down and to call off the war. But there is no incentive for Putin to back down an inch because he knows that Trump is prepared to give him anything provided he brings the deaths and destruction to an end. Putin knows Trump is desperate to fulfill his promise which was to end the war in 24 hours. That has patently failed. So, Putin's tactic is to accept or to pretend to accept little bits here and there but not giving a centimetre of movement on his key demands. Trump is so consumed by the thought of having Ukraine's rare minerals, gas and oil, that he seems prepared to concede to all or most of Putin's demands in order to sign up the business deal and leave the Europeans to work out the peacekeeping responsibilities. My fear is that if there is ever a ceasefire and the Europeans really do send peacekeeping troops into Ukraine there will come a moment when Europe and Russia will be at war with each other. Not necessarily on a grand scale but on the battlefield frontlines in Ukraine. Soldiers from both sides will die. Moscow is never gpoing to back down.

Should Europe worry about JD Vance and Pete Hegseth?

It's difficult to remember a time when the most senior officials in a US administration were so rude and antagonistic about Europe. Both Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth vented their dislike of all things Europe in the now notorious Signal group chat about bombing the Houthis. Hegseth said he loathed Europe. It sounds like he needs to spend time with his family in, say, Florence or Paris or Barcelona or take in a show in London and go down the Rhine in a small cruise liner, and perhaps then he might warm towards us. We're really not that bad and, as far as we can, we certainly try and do our stuff militarily to keep the world a safer place. Any time the US wants to do something with its army or navy mor air force, we, the Brits, generally join them. Ok, Harold Wilson, the long-serving Labour prime minister way back refused to send British troops to Vietnam but other than that, the UK has served alongside American comrades all over the world. Like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. So, this driving hatred for Europe is based on a not unfamiliar ignorance of what Europe is about. As far as the Hegseths and Vances of this world are concerned, the US does everything and Europe are just freeloaders. It's not true but what IS true is that the US is a military superpower - we are not - and as the leading nation of the Nato alliance, does more than anyone to try and stop the world from entering a new devastating war. So, we are blessed to have America on our side and long may it last. But we really don't need the Americans, any Americans, to loathe us and disparage us all the time. We're allies and friends and comrades-in-arms.

Putin winning all the way

Whatever way you look at it, Vladimir Putin is winning the Ukraine war debate so far. The tewmporary partial ceasefire stopping attacks on energy facilities and the so-called ceasefire to end strikes on the Black Sea suit Putin as much as Zelensky and in return the Russian president is going to get more goodies, such as a lifting of some economic sanctions. Win, win, win. No details yet but it will be making Putin smile. And he has effectively been promised by Trump and his negotiators that if the war ends, Ukraine will never be a member of Nato and will be so reduced in size as a country that it will be like having a sovereignty-lite existence. Trump has now been in office for eight weeks and with two mini ceasefires under his belt, it could take months and months to finalise the end-of-war deal, if it's going to happen at all. But at least the show is on the road, even though it doesn't give Zelensky and the Ukrainian people much hope for the future. What we can't have is what is happening in Gaza, with full-scale war back again after the brief ceasefire and release of some hostages. More and more Palestinians are going to be killed. With the focus on the war in Ukraine, the efforts to stop the killing in Gaza seem to have run out of steam.

Journalist listens in on top secret Trump administration discussions about Houthi bombings

It was the invitation all journalists would die for: please join our Signal encrypted discussions about how and when we are going to bomb the Houthis. It seems beyond belief but this is what happened with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic magazine in the US and his initials, JG, were duly included in the long list of top Trump officials, including Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, Michael Waltz, national security adviser, Marco Rubio, secretary of state, and JP Vance, vice president. Oh my goodness, was this going to be an eye opener for the innocent journalist sitting back and getting a flow of highly personal and classified and insightful texts from the other participants, including all the details about the planned bombing, what type of weapons would be used, timings and targets. JG sat silent throughout, imagining for much of the time that it was all a hoax or a giant piece of comic theatre to somehow undermine his magazine. But no, it was all authentic. JG knew everything about the Houthi bombings two hours before they happened. Trump, meanwhile, was in ignorance of these unwise chats and when asked to comment on the huge breach of security admitted he hadn't read the Atlantic article and knew nothing about it. Oh my goodness, whoops indeed!

Trump goes full throttle for Houthis

Trump has now sent a second aircraft carrier to start hitting the Houthis big time. While the Houthis deserve everything they get for literally disrupting the world's container-ship deliveries around the globe with drone and rocket attacks, even two mighty US carriers will prtobably not be able to eliminate the Houthi threat. This rebel group in Yemen have managed to construct an underground empire of arms manufacturing which cannot be reached by ordinary bombs. How they have done it is not clear but I guess with Iranian construction assistance. Iran has likewise buried all their most sensitive and lethal weaponry under mountains, including of course their clandestine nuclear programme. So, however many bombs dropped by the aircraft on board the two carriers, the bunkered drone and rocket building production lines will probably survive the onslaught. Only a full-scale ground operation could eliminate the Houthis and that's not going to happen. Bombing from the air is always the favoured option but as past operations by the Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states have shown, airtsrikes never win victories, they just cause massive damage and, inevitably, civilian deaths. Unfortunately, groups like the Houthis have learnt to become super-resilient. And with continuing help from Tehran, they will carry on their attacks on shipping.

Elon Musk at the Pentagon

Elon Musk is getting a bird's eye view of pretty well everything to do with running the government, including it seems how the Pentagon would address a war with China, according to the New York Times. If accurate, it would be a highly unusual development for someone who is unelected, despite his closeness to Trump, getting a classified briefing on such a controversial and need-to-know subject. Of course Musk is boss of Space X and his low-orbiting satellites are a brilliant addition to the Pentagon's surveillance and early-warning networks. But to present him with the plan for going to war with China, if that is what happens at the meeting in the Pentagon today, he will be one of the privileged few to be trusted with such information. It demonstrates the extraordinary role Trump has given Musk. He's a roving right-hand man, keeping watch on behalf of the president,on every aspect of the government machine. I guess his next visit will be to the CIA and the other intelligence services. Every government department and agency will at some stage have to be "Musked". That's the way Trump wants it.

Keir Starmer sticks to his peacekeeping plan for Ukraine

You have to admire him. Keir Starmer, along with President Macron, came up with this idea of having a European peacekeeping force ready to go to Ukraine in the event of a Trump/Putin peace settlement and has been pushing it as if it's almost a done deal. Today a whole bunch of political and military types from Europe are assembled in London to talk logistics, operational rules of engagement, troop numbers, back-up support etc etc. Starmer himself has talked about reaching the operational stage of his peacekeeping plan. But first, there is no sign of a longlasting peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, and second, Putin has said he will never agree to a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine. So, which part of "will never allow" does Starmer not understand? But Starmer is just ignoring what's going on in Washington and Moscow and Jeddah and focusing all his efforts on preparing the ground and the politics for a largish-scale force that will hopefully a defined mission although I fail to see what the mission could be. There won't be enough troops available to stand side to side along the Ukraine/Russia border, and there won't be enough troops to guard every town and city, and there will never be enough troops available to go to war with Russia if Russia decides to take on the peacekeeping force. So, the whole idea is filled with dangers and unknowns and huge risks. But Starmer is carrying on doing his thing and good luck to him.

Trump's blunt-force diplomacy

There's a new type of diplomacy around and it belongs to Donald Trump. It's called blunt-force diplomacy. To diplomats it's anathema because diplomacy is what it says it is, behind-the-scene, gentle wooing and intellectual persuasion. The Trump approach which Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, is trying to echo but it doesn't look easy for him, is in-your-face-stuff, like when he turned on Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House and tore him apart for daring to question his motives for ending the war in Ukraine. It wasn't even a stick-and-carrot situation, or a soft-cop-hard-cop scenario because the other protagonist in the room, Vice President JD Vance, gave Zelensky the third degree as well. So blunt force is the way ahead, although how much tough talking was involved in the Trump chat with Putin we will never know. It sounds like the two were very amicable. Trump probably never once raised his voice, let alone delivered any blunt-force questioning. This means Trump reserves his tough talking for people who are vulnerable like Zelensky and observes the more traditonal form of diplomacy for people like Putin. Now it seems Trump is trying to get the Chinese leader, President Xi Zinping, to meet him. I doubt he will use the blunt-force approach with him because if he did, he wouldn't get anywhere.

Potentially an historic day but not for Ukraine

Two hours have been set aside for the phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin today to try and weave some sort of deal to end the war in Ukraine. From remarks made by Trump so far it could be a carve-up of territory a la the Yalta agreement after the Second World War. Ukraine at present doesn't have a voice. Zelensky won't be sitting in on the phone call. He will remain in ignorance of the jousting that will go on between Trump and Putin, and when it's all over, it will be presented to him like a done deal. Russia can have this piece of territory and that piece of territory and this nuclear power plant and that hydroelectic plant and this city and that city and Ukraine can have what's left. That's about it. Whether this brings the war to an end is another matter. If it really is going to be this sort of carve-up then Zelensky will never give it his blessing and the whole of Europe will be up in arms. However it comes out I don't see Britain and France being allowed to send in troops to monitor the so-called peace deal. If every European leader rejects the Trump-Putin deal, how could they possibly oversee a peacekeeping force in Ukraine? It would just add to Europe's humiliation. Theoretically it could be an historic day today in terms of bringing the terrible three-year war to an end, but it could be the worst possible day for Zelensky and for Ukraine and for the thousands of people living in the "annexed" regions in eastern Ukraine who will have to live under Russian occupation for the rest of their lives.

Donald Trump 1, Judge James Boasberg, 0

It was a close-run race but Donald Trump and his Justice Department just managed to get hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gangsters out of the country heading for El Salvadore before Washington District Judge James Boasberg issued his suspension of all flights containing deported Venezuelans. By the time the court order was signed and ready to go, Trump's deportees were within about an hour and a half of landing in El Salvadore. Too late to turn them around even though the judge declared that any flights already in the air should turn back to the US. That was never going to be enforceable, especially with an administration determined to push ahead with its mass deportation programme, irrespective of what federal judges try to do to stop the flights. The basis of the confrontation between Trump and the courts is the president's use of an ancient war act to justify the deportations. The 1798 Alien Enemies Act was introduced specifically to deal with unwanted alien migrants during a war or invasion. Judge Boasberg said the US was not facing a war and, therefore, the deportation of the Venezuelans, albeit suspected members of drugs gangs, was not legal. A White House statement said otherwise and said an appeal would be made to a higher court. Either way, the judge lost this one. The near-300 Venezuelans, criminals or not, are now housed in El Salvador's notorious maximum security prison which can house up to 40,000 gang members for an indefinite time. There is no chance the president of El Salvadore, a fan of Trump's, is going to send them back to the US. There's not a lot Judge Boasberg can do, except fume.

Rubio and Lavrov in phone chat get-together

For nearly three years there was almost no communication between Washington and Moscow. Now it's becoming a regular ocurrence. Trump talks to Putin, Marco Rubio chats to Sergey Lavrov, his counterpart, Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, meets up with Putin. It's all going on and one can only hope that out of all this communication something will emerge which will benefit mankind, as well as the Ukainian people. It's a big hope which right now looks unrealistic. But you never know, it might make all the difference just for the fact that the two adversaries are actually talking to each other. Even better, if they get on and get friendly, then good things might materialise. The bugbear is not Trump but Putin. The Russian leader has been around so long that he knows all the tricks. He knows that if he plays along he will probably get what he wants in the end. Trump wants quick action to end the war in Ukraine for starters and it's in Putin's hands to deliver. But it looks like it's going to taken a helluva lot more phone chats and meetings before this is going to happen. In fact it will only really be when Trump and Putin meet for a summit that a deal might be brokered. It all seems pie-in-the-sky at the moment becusue Putin is not budging from his position of wanting Ukraine neutralised, demilitarised and without any form of US or Nato security backing. But you never know. Trump claims to be the world's best dealer. This is his biggest challenge.

Putin believes, like Trump does, that he has all the cards

It's clear that Vladimir Putin is not in any hurry. All he has to do is say he supports the US-proposed 30-day ceasefire and then get on with what he wants to do which is to push ahead as far and fast as he can to grab more territory in eastern Ukraine and drive the Ukrainian forces out of Kursk in western Russia. He thinks he is - and he IS - in a much stronger position than Zelensky who is now desperate for a peace deal. Putin's troops are successfully hammering away at the Ukrainian troops who seized a large chunk of Kursk last August and are in the process of forcing them back over the border. Until a ceasefire agreement comes into play, if it ever does, Putin will do his best to seize more territory and destroy more of Ukraine's energy power plants. The only real pressure he is getting is coming from Trump, not Zelensky or Zelensky's army, and at some point he will have to make up his mind whether to stay friends with Trump abd therefore meet him half way over stopping the fighting or break from the Americans altogether and plough on as before. But Putin is a clever calculator. He will want to keep Trump on side but without doing any favours to Zelensky whom he loathes. On the surface it doesn't look as if Putin is remotely interested in a peace deal, at least not now. He has too much to sort out in Ukraine before he is prepared to really start negotiating. Yet at the same time he doesn't want to enrage Trump who might do what he is threatening to do which is to strangle Russia economically. But, again, Putin has all the cards because he knows full well that Trump's threat is bluster. Trump doesn't want to act against Moscow, not while there is even the remotest chance of a peace deal to end the war. So Putin will bide his time and see what happens.

Why does Poland want nukes?

Nukes are becoming a big issue for Poland. One way or another, both the Polish president and prime minister want their country to host tactical nuclear weapons as a deterrent to President Putin’s Russia. In the latest, but by no means the first, statement on this question, President Andrzej Duda has revealed he recently discussed locating American tactical nukes in Poland with Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine. In an interview with the Financial Times, Duda said:”I think it’s not only that the time has come but that it would be safer if those weapons were already here.” At the same time, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister and former President of the European Council, has indicated an interest in Poland developing its own nuclear weapons as well as building an army of half a million soldiers to stand up to potential Russian aggression in the future. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, nuclear rhetoric has become increasingly escalatory. Putin has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, most recently justifying such use if long-range conventionally-armed missiles supplied by a western nuclear power - the US, France or the UK - posed an existential threat to Russia. (Tactical nukes are short-range and designed for the battlefield, as opposed to strategic weapons with a range of thousands of miles and capable of annihilating cities). Putin, in making his case for why he invaded Ukraine, has blamed Nato for its expansion programme which absorbed all the eastern European countries that were formerly part of the Warsaw Pact. Two of his demands for a resolution to the war across Russia’s border is for Ukraine to be demilitarised and barred from ever joining the western alliance. This is where the nukes issue comes in. Poland has adopted the most ambitious and, from the Kremlin’s point of view, most confrontational approach vis a vis Russia with a number of significant proposals to Washington: building a base in the country for the permanent deployment of a US armoured division, hosting an American Aegis Ashore missile defence system (operational since December 2023 at Redzikowo in northern Poland), and, now, housing US air-launched tactical nukes. The sense of urgency in the Polish president’s oft-repeated plea for American nukes gathered pace after Putin, without so much as a by-your-leave, deployed Russian tactical weapons to Belarus in the summer of 2023. Belarus is Russia’s strongest and most loyal ally which provided an additional launch pad for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. When Poland first raised the possibility of deploying US tactical nukes on Polish territory, President Joe Biden reacted without enthusiasm. His whole approach was not to make any move that might seem dangerously escalatory. This was why he delayed for so long sending long-range missiles to Ukraine and then, even when he changed his mind, imposing a limited use of them for striking targets inside Russia. President Trump’s strategy is focused on ending the war and it seems unlikely he would announce he is contemplating installing tactical nuclear weapons in Poland as an added incentive to Putin to agree a peace settlement. In any case, it’s President Duda advocating this proposal, it’s not the official policy of Prime Minister Tusk’s government. As a member of Nato, Poland is represented on the alliance’s Nuclear Planning Group. Warsaw is, therefore, signed up to the nuclear-sharing strategy under which the US locates bomber-armed tactical nuclear weapons at installations throughout Europe. An estimated 100-150 US B61 nuclear bombs are stored in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. There is one nuclear base in each country, with the exception of Italy which has two. Under current policy, enshrined in commitments made to Moscow in the Nato-Russia Founding Act, signed in Paris on 27 May, 1997, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the alliance has pledged it has “no intention, no plan and no reason” to deploy nuclear weapons on the territories of member states which joined the alliance after 1997. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were the first former Warsaw Pact countries to be accepted in the alliance, in 1999. They were followed five years later by another seven countries, including the three Baltic nations of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Allowing Poland to host US tactical nuclear weapons would abrogate that commitment, although the invasion of Ukraine and the fears of further Russian aggression in eastern Europe, have potentially created a new “reason” for expanding or revising Nato’s nuclear-sharing strategy. Sixty-three years ago, the attempt by the Soviet Union to station medium- and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles in Cuba led to the gravest confrontation between Moscow and Washington. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis has served as a benchmark ever since for the risks posed by nuclear brinkmanship. Today, the confrontation with Moscow is not on such a world-threatening scale, in spite of Trump’s warning to Kyiv that it’s potentially provoking a Third World War. However, for Poland, on the frontline, the role of nuclear weapons as a deterrent has increasingly become a highly personal issue.

Putin's Ukraine war dilemma

With all the positives coming out of the Jeddah talks about a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, there is only one question that needs to be answered: will President Putin be interested in any sort of deal right now? President Trump is convinced that Putin wants peace. But if the Russian leader really wants to bring his war to an end, will he do so on America’s terms or wait until he has fulfilled one of his main objectives which is the total subjugation of the four provinces in eastern Ukraine that he claimed he had annexed in the first seven months of the invasion. At a ceremony in St George’s Hall at the Kremlin in September, 2022, Putin declared that Russia now had four new regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The residents of these regions, he said, were “our citizens for ever”. Even though the Russian invasion troops had only partially occupied these regions, Putin made it clear he considered the annexations were a fait accompli and demanded Kyiv agree to an immediate ceasefire. Nearly 30 months later, Putin has still not won control over every scrap of land in these four regions. For example, Russian troops have failed to hold on to the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Kherson, a gateway to Moscow-annexed Crimea, fell to the Russians in March, 2022 but was liberated by Ukrainian forces on 11 November, the same year. Ukraine controls Zaporizhzhia but the Russians seized and occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. This is unfinished business for Putin. When Trump became president and the two leaders, “old friends”, had a relationship-warming 90-minute chat on the phone, Putin must have concluded that his plans for eastern Ukraine might actually bear fruit. AfterTrump fell out with Volodymyr Zelensky last month and announced a suspension of military aid and partial withdrawal of intelligence-sharing, the Russian leader will surely have instructed his commanders on the battlefield to go all out to seize back Kherson and fully occupy the four regions he already considered Russian territory. So, does he have any incentive to play ball after Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, emerged from the nine-hour discussions in Jeddah with Zelensky’s negotiators armed with the 30-day ceasefire offer, and throwing down the gauntlet to Moscow? “The ball is now in Russia’s court. It’s going to be up to them to say yes or no,” Rubio said. Putin won’t have much time to make up his mind. Trump said he would give Putin a ring this week and he is reportedly sending his heavyweight, tough-guy billionaire special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow to have a face-to-face with the Russian president. Witkoff has a reputation for never taking no for an answer. When Benjamin Netanyahu baulked at meeting him to talk about a ceasefire in Gaza because the day selected by Witkoff was the Sabbath, the Trump man just told him he would be coming and that was it. Netanyahu caved. The chances are that Putin will play along with Trump’s quest for peace in Ukraine because there is an unstoppable momentum to end the fighting, and his strategic partner in Beijing is supportive of a deal. However, what will rub Putin the wrong way is if the 30-day ceasefire agreed by Zelensky’s negotiators in Jeddah is followed by a proposal to freeze the battlefield frontlines as they stand today. Russian troops have been making territorial gains in the east, albeit limited, in recent weeks. Had Trump’s suspension of military aid and intelligence-sharing been maintained for any length of time, Putin might have had the opportunity to attempt a spring offensive to occupy more if not all of the four “annexed” regions. This is where Trump has played an astute card. The 30-day ceasefire proposal came with a promise to reinstate both US military aid and intelligence-sharing for the Kyiv government, effectively telling Putin that America is back on side with its European coalition partners and Zelensky will get what he wants to defend against Russian aggression. That just might make a difference in Putin’s calculations. Important, too, for him is the transformation in relations with the White House, a dramatic change in opportunities for Moscow after years of enduring a Cold War-style freeze. Putin is never going to break his partnership with China, whatever Trump is hoping for by wooing the Russian president. But it makes eminent sense for Putin to have a pick-up-the-phone relationship with Trump to give him the world-stage status he lost after ordering the invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022. So, all in all, Putin will gain more by accepting the 30-day ceasefire offer, provided the terms of any future peace settlement follow to the letter the demands he has been making repeatedly over the last three years. He may not persuade Trump and Zelensky to hand him the four regions he has painted red on his map of Ukraine . But if can get Trump to scrap all thought of Ukraine joining Nato and see even a limited pullback of alliance forces from eastern Europe, perhaps he might be tempted to place his signature on a settlement document. However, there are many unknowns: will Putin compromise on those four regions in eastern Ukraine? Will he even consider doing a deal while Zelensky is the leader in Kyiv? And would Nato ever agree to withdraw any of its forward-located forces from the alliance’s member nations closest to Russia’s borders?

This is Marco Rubio's moment

Strangely, all the pressure this time is not on Zelensky's "peace" negotiators now in Jeddah but on Marco Rubio, US secretary of state,,who has been given the task by Donald Trump of fixing some sort of settlement to end the war. Rubio, with two tough co-negotiators, Mike Waltz, national security adviser, and Steve Witkoff, special bruiser envoy for the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine, has to come away with something really positive. Not necessarily a wrapped-up agreemenbt, it's too early for that, but a strong pointer for Trump that the negotiating is going to achieve what he expects, a signed deal to end the war. Trump doesn't like failure and he is anticipating that Rubio will deliver. In a way, Rubio is the nice guy here and the other two, especially Steve Witkoff, are the heavy-duty ball-breakers who will apply blunt pressure on the Ukrainian delegation to offer meaningful concessions. Rubio told reporters travelling with him on the plane to Saudi Arabia that Ukraine would have to concede land but he did add that Russia should also be ready to make concessions. In the end, it will be a get-together between Putin and Trump, probably in Saudia Arabia, which will get the fine detail sorted out. But for the moment, it's Rubio's chance to make a name for himself. If he fails, Trump will not be best pleased, and Rubio could be on a short lease.

Zelensky's mission in Saudi Arabia

President Volodymyr Zelensky needs all the advice he can get, as he prepares for talks with American negotiators in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. A statement over the weekend from the Ukrainian presidential office disclosed that the latest western visitor to make the long train ride into Kyiv was Jonathan Powell, Sir Keir Starmer’s national security adviser and veteran crisis negotiator. The meeting between Powell and Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, provided further evidence that the UK is currently attempting to play an influential role in moderating what might seem, at present, to be a one-sided effort by the US to bludgeon the Ukrainian president into signing a deal to end the war with Russia. The selection of Powell to whisper diplomatic words into the ear of Zelensky’s top official is notable. When he was appointed national security adviser, the focus was inevitably on his past function as Tony Blair’s longstanding chief of staff. However, more interesting was Powell’s extraordinary experience as a primary negotiator in the Good Friday Agreement talks with the Provisional IRA, and from 2011 in a private capacity as founder of an international conflict-resolution organisation called Inter Mediate. His organisation became involved in secret, back-channel negotiations with other terrorist groups, including ETA which helped to end the 50-year campaign of violence by the Basque separatists in Spain. Powell has a good pedigree for finding the right formula of words and action to resolve seemingly indestructible barriers. And it’s that sort of diplomacy which is now desperately needed to bring Ukraine and the US closer together to end the three-year war launched by Russia in a way which will not be judged as an outright victory for President Putin. Starmer has taken on this mediating role in the belief that the UK has a unique opportunity to join France in guiding Kyiv towards an acceptable deal, first with the US and then with Russia. That’s the reality of the situation since Donald Trump became president on January 20. Trump wants to end the war and seems convinced his past and present personal relationship with Putin will make it happen. Zelensky, in that sense, is just a bit -part actor given a very brief and unchangeable script to follow. This is where the UK government, and its representative, Jonathan Powell in Kyiv over the weekend, have stepped in. Powell will, unquestionably, have advised Kyiv to adopt the sort of language during the talks with the Americans in Riyadh which will somehow bridge the gap between Trump’s demands and threats, and Zelensky’s plea for a fair and just settlement which will guarantee Ukraine’s future as an independent sovereign nation. Shocked by the eruption of anger from Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the infamous White House meeting on 28 February, Zelensky made it worse by casting doubt on what the US diplomatic efforts with Moscow would achieve for Ukraine. Ever since, the Starmer government, and President Emmanuel Macron of France, have tried to ensure Europe has a voice and that it will be heard and respected in the White House. There are now 20 European countries offering some form of help, if not troops, to boost Starmer’s coalition of the willing to set up a peacekeeping force in Ukraine in the event of a war-ending deal. Moscow has rejected the idea, but it’s effectively on the table for discussion and could be raised in the Riyadh talks tomorrow. Zelensky is in Riyadh today for a state visit with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman but will leave the negotiating tomorrow to his chief of staff Andriy Yermak, foreign minister Andriy Sybiha and defence minister Rustem Umerov. It has been a difficult transition for Zelensky. For nearly three years he had President Joe Biden and every European leader pledging military, financial and humanitarian support against the Russians for as long as it took. This was the mantra ringing in his ears every time he met with his American and European partners, although towards the end of Biden’s administration, a degree of reality was introduced. The Biden White House acknowledged that only diplomacy would end the war and that the objective of the western coalition was to make sure that Kyiv was in the strongest possible position on the battlefield to give Zelensky leverage over Putin. Trump has thrown that policy formula out of the window. Now, it’s peace at all costs and the quicker the better. He also says Putin has all the cards. So, not much room for Ukrainian leverage, as far as Trump is concerned. With the weekend advice from Powell in his head, Andriy Yermak, chief Ukrainian negotiator, will sit down with the American delegation headed by Marco Rubio, secretary of state, and will have to find the right balance between demonstrating Kyiv’s unquestioned enthusiasm for peace while underlining the suffering caused by Russia’s brutal invasion and the need for some form of security framework for the post-war future. No angry words this time. The UK won’t be sitting back and watching from afar, leaving Washington to do all the running. Judging by the efforts already made by the Starmer government to woo Trump and rouse Europe into a more determined state, the back-channel moves will continue, to try and help Zelensky and his negotiators reach a just settlement. Here are the words of Jonathan Powell in December 2014 in an interview with the University of Liverpool after the publication of his book, Talking to Terrorists: How to End Armed Conflicts: “Getting people to talk to each other makes the biggest difference and so I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life doing it.” Today, with a US president who seems more interested in talking at rather than talking to people, the UK may have found its natural role as mediator.

Is the rare earths mining project going to save Ukraine?

To put it another way, is the minerals deal Trump wants Zelensky to sign up to, everything it's cracked up to be? On the surface it sounds like Ukraine has a treasure trove of much-in-demand rare minerals and metals which could help Ukraine's future, give a huge economic and industrial boost to Trump, reduce the domination of China in this field in the process and generally bring the war to an end. But the reality is very different. As Ed Conway of Sky News writing in the Sunday Times, points out in a brilliant article today, it's going to be a fantastically expensive business to get going and when the minerals are extracted, the massive task of refining the stuff dug up will take another huge chunk of money. And, as is well known, a large proportion of the best stuff is under ground occupied and "annexed" by Russia. Will they let American companies cross the line and start digging in what Putin regards as Russian land? Althougbnh ones instincts are that Putin will say 'keep out', I am wondering whether in all these talks going on between the US and Russia, someone has come up with the suggestion that if Putin lets US companies extract the minerals under xhe earth in eastern Ukraine, there could be a jont arrangement under which Putin will share in the profits. Maybe that's what Trump was hinting at when he said the other day that Russia was prepared to make concessions to get a peace deal. Could this be it?

Putin is going to offer concessions to Ukraine, says Trump

Well, here is a turn of events. Someone has been talking to Putin, either Trump or one of his envoys, and the Russian leader has apparently suggested that he is prepared to be kinda nice to Zelensky. I simply don't believe it. Is Trump really hinting that Putin who by the way is continuing to kill and maim in Ukraine right now, is going to give back some of the territory his troops have seized in order to forge a peace deal? Really? That would be against everything Putin has ever said in the last three years. He believes he is winning on the battlefield at the moment, so what could Trump or Zelensky offer him in retun if he gives up a square mile of seized territory? Trump is extraordinary. He loves to have these little chats in the Oval Office with selected reporters and hints at all kinds of things going on but never really gives anything away. He just says it will be beautiful whatever it is. What it does seem to suggest is that there is a helluva lot going on behind the scenes in phone calls and meetings which at some stage might bear fruit. Beautiful fruit, as Trump would say. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine carries on unabated, thanks to Putin's rockets, missiles and drones. It's a cruel and tragic business.

Putin's response to Trump's peace moves - bombs Ukraine

It's not exactly surprising, but the former KGB lieutenant-colonel who is president of Russia had only one response to Donald Trump's appeals for peace and a cessation of fighting. He ordered his invaders to attack Ukraine's energy grid, cause death and destruction and set buildings on fire. Presumably all in the name of the search for a negotiated settlement to end the war. Even Trump got angry about it, threatening more sanctions against Russia, not that that will mean anything. The reality is that this is the way war is fought in the lead-up to a potential peace deal: cause as much destruction as possible to weaken the case of your opponent. It's cynical, it's brutal, it's the opposite to peace-seeking but it's the way Putin does business. Most people., apart from Trump, say Putin cannot ever be trusted. He's not really interested in developing a love relationship with Trump. He is already bethrothed to China's leader, Xi Zinping.

The worst thing to be right now in the US - a probationary

Thousands and thousands of people in the US are currently being fired. The hardest hit are the so-called probationaries, young men and women who have qualified academically with pretty smart CVs and have started to learn their profession, whether in the Pentagon, the State Department, the education department or the CIA. If they have only completed a couple of years or so, they are getting summarily fired. It's the most devastating time for these young people who got their jobs with stars in their eyes and dreams of a wonderful career. All they have done wrong is to get their foot on the first rung and then they have been shoved off. Every profession, whether it be in the intelligence world or other government work, needs a new influx of the next generation of recruits to keep ideas fresh, to give new energy and vision and enthusiasm and to learn from their more experienced colleagues. It's a natural and vital process. But Elon Musk and Donald Trump - yes, that way round - are just carving the federal workforce into ittle bits to save a huge amount of money, never mind the disillusion they are creating among young Americans. It's both short-sighted and cruel.

American and Russian shadow cyber war put on hold

The fighters of America’s invisible war rarely emerge from the shadows. And almost never get caught. Unlike the Kremlin’s cyber-army, which has carried out high-profile efforts to disrupt the West with seemingly little care for the repercussions, the military unit based at Fort Meade, Maryland, takes pains not to get discovered and even more pains to avoid ending up in the headlines. However, on Monday it is in the spotlight after Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s defence secretary, ordered them to “pause” operations against Russia amid warming ties between the White House and the Kremlin. Hegseth’s order appears to be another sweetener to Moscow to encourage President Putin to come to the negotiating table and bring the war in Ukraine to an end. The directive is said to have been made even before President Zelensky’s disastrous meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday. No public explanation has been given for the instruction and it is not clear how long the moratorium may last. The US defence department declined to comment. According to The Record, the cybersecurity publication that first reported the news, hundreds or thousands of personnel could be affected. Operations aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s digital defences are likely to be among those to be halted. Former officials told The New York Times that it was common for leaders to order pauses in military operations during sensitive diplomatic negotiations to avoid derailing them. The decision has provoked condemnation from Democrats who accuse Trump of going soft on Moscow. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said Trump had given Putin “a free pass” to carry on launching cyberoperations against the US. “Russia continues to be among the top cyber-threats to the United States,” James Lewis, a former diplomat in the Clinton administration and a former UN cyber-negotiator, told The Washington Post. “Turning off cyberoperations to avoid blowing up the talks may be a prudent tactical step. But if we take our foot off the gas pedal and they take advantage of it, we could put national security at risk.” Officials said the operations being paused could include exposing or disabling malware found in Russian networks before it can be used against the US, blocking Russian hackers from servers that they may be preparing to use for their own offensive operations or disrupting a site promoting anti-US propaganda. “I have seen many times when we are in some type of negotiation with another nation, especially if it’s one that is considered an adversary, that we stop operations, exercises, we even cancel speeches sometimes,” said one retired general within Cyber Command. Officials suggested one risk associated with reducing operations was losing track of adversaries. However, a former senior British intelligence operative told The Times that as long as the pause was not too long, it would not have an impact on the US’s ability to remain vigilant towards Russian cyberattacks. “It’s understandable that the US has imposed a temporary pause in its own offensive operations against Russia because of the intensive efforts now under way to get Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. For that reason, the move is actually sensible,” the source said. “But that will have no impact on the US Cyber Command’s ability and determination to counter cyber-threats directed at America from Russia,” the source said. America’s cyberoperations, linked to similar capabilities developed in the UK as part of the special intelligence partnership between the two countries, have played a crucial role in stemming a multi-agency state-funded programme by the Russian government to spy on and deliver malicious damage to computer networks, energy grids, transportation systems, personnel files and businesses in the US, Britain and other western allies. The former official said cyberoperations between the US and Russia had proliferated in recent years, making it likely that the temporary suspension would not last for a long period. Both the US and the UK reserve the right to counter foreign cyberattacks with an offensive capability that has been rapidly developed over the years. There is little doubt that the threat from Russia is malevolent and one that, on occasions, has caused extensive disruption in the US. The Russian agencies involved include the Federal Security Service (FSB), the foreign intelligence service and the general staff main intelligence directorate (GRU). The FSB’s “Centre 16” cyber-unit was behind a malicious intrusion programme codenamed Berserk Bear that targeted critical infrastructure facilities in western Europe and North America. Although its agents lurk in the shadows, the US is heavily involved in the invisible war. The most notorious example was the infiltration in 2010 of the Stuxnet malware into Iran’s gas centrifuge systems, severely disrupting its uranium-enrichment programme. In 2019, after Iran shot down an American military drone over the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf waterway, Trump, in his first term of office, ordered a retaliatory cyberattack against Iranian missile and rocket forces, putting them out of action. The cyberoffensives taken against Russia are highly classified, but officials have never denied they take place. A special unit, “Russian small group”, was established when there were fears of Russian interference in the midterm elections in 2018. It consists of intelligence analysts and cyberspecialists from Cyber Command and the NSA. The unit was maintained to watch for Russian cyberoperations aimed at disrupting the 2020 and 2024 elections. Details of their work, however, remain secret.

Zelensky should choose his words more carefully

It seems that whatever Volodymyr Zelensky says it somehow enrages Donald Trump. His latest faux pas was to predict that the war in Ukraine was going to go on for years. But Trump has made it clear he expects the war to end in a few months after a peace settlement with Putin. Trump and Zelensky are going along on parallel lines, never to meet at the end. Trump was furious with the remark, saying that it showed the Ukrainian president was not interested in a ceasefire or peace. Zelensky has got himself in a trap. He can't say the right thing, which, in the view of Trump, should be: "Thank you so much, Mr President, for all you have done and now where do I sign your peace deal?" Instead, he has reminded Trump that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014 and got away with it because no one in the West did anything about it, apart from a few meaningless sanctions. Naughty boy stuff, in other words! Now, after three years of fighting the Russians in a war that no one can win, he wants Trump to produce a deal which will guarantee the security of his country for ever. But Trump is simnply not interested in that, unless it's the Europeans providing it. So Zelensky is doomed. However much support he gets from Keir Starmer and co, it's never going to be enough to save Ukraine's future. So, it really is time for Zelensky to choose his words more carefully and to sound the bell for peace. Of course he wants peace more than anyone, but he can't bear the thought of giving into Trump's demands which would inevitably give 20 per cent of Ukraine to Putin. So every time he opens his mouth he says something which infuriates Trump. Now all US military aid to Ukraine has been suspended. This is a disaster for Zelensky and for his loyal troops trying to protect Ukraine's sovereignty. For example, Patriot missiles, vital for defending the country from Putin's missiles and rockets, will soon run out. Zelensky has to find the right formula of words to show support for Trump without resorting to sycophancy. Good luck with that.

Sign the minerals deal, Trump/Zelensky

In hindsight, Volodymyr Zelensky got it all wrong in his session with Donald Trump. What he shoyuld have done was bite his tongue and not leave the Oval Office until he had signed the rare earth minerals deal. That would have transformed relations with Trump. Instead, understandardably however, he got all mixed up emotionally when he was literally attacked by some awful so-called reporter representing a far right media organisation who berated him for not wearing a suit and tie and by Vice President JD Vance who showed how much he loathed Zelensky personally by scolding him for not saying thank you every two minutes. Ben Wallace, the former Conservative British defence secretary, made the mistake of saying Zelensky didn't show enough gratitude for all the help he had had from the UK to fight the Russians and it wasn't long before he resigned. But with Vance, it seemed very personal and it provoked the angry words from Trump that overwhelmed the poor Ukrainian leader. So he left the White House without the one thing which could have saved him and Ukraine, the minerals deal. Now of course he is desperately trying to get the message across to Trump that he's ready to return to the White House and sign the deal. I don't think it's too late but Trump will probably make him sweat a bit before agreeing. If this deal is signed, a lot of other positive things might fall into place with any luck.

Will Trump want Europe to come up with a peace plan for Ukraine?

Donald Trump is a peacemaker, Donald Trump is a winner, Donald Trump wins the prize. That's basically how the 47th president operates. It has to be his idea, his negotiating, his deal-making and then he gets all the kudos. But after the bust-up in the White House on Friday with Volodymyr Zelensky, Europe has leapt into the vacuum and has pledged to come up with a ceasefire plan all of its own to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Really? Will Trump welcome this? Surely not. If Europe produces a cunning bluerprint, although for the life of me I can't imagine what it could be, and presents it to Trump as the way to go, the US president ain't going to like it. He wants to bring the war to an end, not the lilly-livered Europeans. If there's going to be a Nobel peace prize in the offing, he will want his name on the trophy, not Macron or Starmer or Georgia Meloni. So, bizarrely, any move by Europe to take over the peacemaking will go down about as well as an apple strudel covered in peanut butter. No way, he will be saying to his mates in his inner circle. And, as a result, it just might move things along between Trump and Zelensky and, of course, Putin. As long as Zelensky comes begging, as I suggested yesterday, then Trump will move fast to make sure the Europeans don't get their spoke in. Anyway, to be fair, there is no way Europe is going to be able to ring up Putin and, Trump-style, say: "Hey Vlad, we've got this great idea for a ceasefire. How about coming over to meet us in London/Paris/Rome and get it signed up." Putin will stick with Trump every day, and Zelensky knows this. So whatever Starmer, Macron and co produce, it's still going to be a Trump/Zelensky/Putin deal at the end of the day.

Zelensky hung drawn and quartered but why?

By comparison with the brutal treatment meeted out to President Zelensky in the Oval Office, Keir Starmer's somewhat touchy-feely session with Donald Trump now looks like diplomacy at the highest level. Poor Zelensky, after nearly three years of being lauded by all his fellow leaders in the West as the bravest man on the planet, he got bawled out by Trump and his sidekick, JD Vance, who seemed to have preplanned the onslaught in order to humiliate the Ukrainian leader in front of the world's media. It was painful to watch. So, what was it all about, was it just an opportunity for Trump to slag off Zelensky for not saying thank you enough times or was there some more devious strategy behind the unpleasantness? I suspect there may have been. Perhaps the idea behind the anger and insults was to make Zelensky panic and tremble to such a degree that in a few weeks or months he will come back to the White Office begging for a peace and minerals deal whatever the consequences for him and his country. Then Trump can claim total victory, keep Putin happy and stop the war. Once that's done, then he and Putin can get down to even more serious negotiating about improving relations, making further cuts in nuclear stockpiles, removing the nuclear threat from Iran and getting rid of all the nasty sanctions Russia has been enduring for years, plus, of course, lifting the warrant for Putin's arrest on war crimes charges. First has to come the peace and minerals deal but on Trump's terms, not Zelensky's. So, under this plan, Trump will be expecting a begging letter from Zelensky in the not too distant future. That, I think, is what it was all about.

Keir Starmer cap and letter from the king in hand

There probably hasn't been a more cringing moment than when Keir Starmer, prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reached into his suit jacket pocket and VOILA, like a vaudeville conjuror, produced a letter from Buckingham Palace addressed to the Lord and High Master Donald Trump, inviting him to tea and a State visit to Balmoral. If King Charles III was watching which I assume he was, he must surely have cringed, too. It was bad enough to watch all the touchy touchy, let-me-caress your arm, oh Mr President. But the letter emerging was truly awful. Trump obviously knew it was coming but he played along with the script and asked Starmer whether he should open it now before all the cameras. Starmer seemed to nod but basically he was pleading with him: "Oh yes, Mr President, now is a good moment because then the whole world can see how well we are getting on, and His Majesty back home is dying to see your reaction." Poor Charles, it has come to this. The special relationship between the US and Britain is now all about pompery and ceremony and not a lot else. Couldn't Starmer have shown a bit more backbone and told the president to stop behaving like a dictator! A truly sorry and nation-belittling White House comic opera.

Will the minerals deal with Trump save Ukraine?

When it first came out it looked like Donald Trump just wanted to snatch all of Ukraine's so-called rare earth minerals to make up for the billions of dollars the US spent on arming Kyiv to fight off the Russians. But there is a more subtle game being played here. Trump genuinely believes that if American contractors are around in Ukraine in force to dig up all these vital materials, such as graphite, titanium, lithium and uranium, the Russians wouldn't dare to interfere, let alone breach a hoped-for ceasefire and start killing Americans. So, in other words, Ukraine's greatest security guarantee for the future, bar US troops on the ground, is to have as many Americans as possible working in Ukraine to keep Putin at bay. It would be more like an economic/industrial security guarantee. It might just work, although Zelensky is never going to be satisfied with that as his country's sole security guarantee. He still wants Ukraine to be part of Nato and to have alliance troops in Ukraine as the best deterrent for stopping any further agression from Putin. He's not going to get that, and Trump will tell him so when they meet in the White House tomorrow (Friday) But if that's the case, then Zelensky should ask Trump to make sure that every US company that comes in to extract the rare minerals should be protected by US private defence contractors. Then at least there will be armed American boots on the ground, albeit not from the Marines or the 82nd Airborne Division.

French president plays the nuclear card

President Emmanuel Macron has raised the nuclear card. He has offered to provide nuclear cover for Europe as fears intensify that President Trump is moving further away from Nato and from US historic obligations towards European allies. The concept of extended deterrence courtesy of France, the fourth largest nuclear weapons power in the world, is not new. It goes back a long way. Macron is just one of many French presidents who have contemplated providing a European dimension to France’s Force de Frappe. However, today the context is dramatically different. For the first time in Nato’s history, the US sided with Russia and not its European allies when the Trump administration refused to condemn Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. Trump wants to focus America’s war-planning efforts on China and, as a consequence, the rest of Nato is fearful that the US will leave the defence of Europe to the Europeans – and that could include a less reliable American nuclear umbrella. Trump appears to believe that his rapprochement with Vladimir Putin will be sufficient to deter, or at least put off, the Russian president from considering any further aggression in Europe. Europe neither trusts that view nor feels reassured that in the event of a future Russian military attack on a Nato member, the US will rush to the alliance’s aid, as required under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. To meet this unprecedented moment in the alliance’s 76th year, Macron has envisaged a situation in which Trump becomes unwilling to guarantee American nuclear deterrence to stop the Russian hordes in their tracks. France’s president is reported to have raised the notion of a French nuclear umbrella for Europe in his seemingly fraught meeting with Trump in the White House yesterday (Mon). Specifically, according to the Telegraph, such an umbrella would consist of Rafale bombers armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles being stationed in Germany. Questions have been asked about a possible new role for the United Kingdom. Could Britain’s nuclear deterrent also be offered in a joint Anglo-French force to protect Europe in the event of what would be a dangerously risky decision by the Trump administration to withdraw all of its 100 air-launched nuclear bombs currently located in five European countries: Germany, Belgium, Turkey, The Netherlands and Italy. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the election-winning Christian Democratic Union and about to become Germany’s new chancellor, appears keen on the idea. He would like the UK to be involved, too. In many ways it’s a false premise. The UK no longer possesses air-launched nuclear bombs. The inventory of WE-177 free-fall bombs was withdrawn and dismantled in 1998. The UK is the only nuclear power to rely solely on one deterrent system, the submarine-launched Trident II D5 strategic missile. The UK’s four Vanguard-class ballistic-missile submarines – due to be replaced by Dreadnought-class boats costing £31 billion from the 2030s – are formally assigned to the defence of Nato. The UK deterrent has been intrinsically part of Nato’s nuclear strategy since 1962. The French deterrent is independent of Nato. The UK, unlike France, has been a prominent member of Nato’s Nuclear Planning Group since it was set up in 1966. However, the UK deterrent remains an operationally independent system and only the prime minister has the authority to press the button. France, on the other hand, has two arms to its nuclear deterrent capability: four Triomphant-class submarines armed with M51 missiles, and the Rafale nuclear bombers. The total number of warheads is around 290, compared with Britain’s estimated 225. Historically, France has always tried to impress on its European allies the need for an alternative Europe-led military capability to complement, or supplant if necessary, the US in order to safeguard the continent from an American president determined to pull up the drawbridge and focus on Fortress America to the detriment of allies across the Atlantic. However, even France is not as independent a nuclear power as it likes to portray. In the 1970s when Richard Nixon was US president and Georges Pompidou was the French leader, top secret discussions were held to arrange for American nuclear specialists to give guidance to their French counterparts to assist France with their ballistic-missile programme and nuclear safety procedures. There was no exchange of nuclear technology but the Nixon deal brought the US and France closer together in forging an effective French nuclear deterrent. Britain, of course, is in the unique position of enjoying a close nuclear weapons partnership with the US, following the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement which allowed for the sharing of nuclear technology information and materials; and the Polaris Sales Agreement, signed on April 6, 1963 by President John K Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in which the UK bought Polaris missiles for the Royal Navy’s Resolution-class submarines.The sales deal was amended in 1980 to enable the UK to purchase Trident missiles to replace Polaris. In each case, the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment designed the warheads for the missiles. As a result of this “very special” relationship, Britain is inextricably tied to the US on nuclear weapons strategy, technology and submarine reactor development. The prime minster may have sole authority to launch a missile, but a large proportion of the submarine-launched deterrent is US-made. (But there is no US in-built piece of technology that would enable an American president to prevent the prime minister from going solo). The idea of a “Euronuke” or an Anglo-French joint deterrent force, in the absence of the US umbrella, might seem a concept too far, although the British and French do cooperate on nuclear weapons matters, such as safety, and are involved in a joint research programme. However, the key to everything is deterrence credibility. Would Putin hesitate to order troops into Europe if he knew the European nuclear cover consisted of only a few hundred French and British warheads without the might of American firepower behind them? The accepted theology of nuclear deterrence is that if only a small proportion of nukes can get through missile defences, it would still pose a grave and, therefore, unacceptable risk, And yet, if Europe were to lose the US nuclear umbrella, might Putin take the gamble?

Keir Starmer heads for Washington with a goody bag

Talk about timing. When Labour ousted the Conservatives in the 2024 election, Keir Starmer talked about increasing the amount spent on defence. He pledged to raise the current 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent but gave no timeline. Now, with his visit to the Trump White House, he obviously thought he better enter the Oval Office with a goody bag, or perhaps it could be called the goody-two-shoes bag because he felt it necessary to give something, anything, to the new president to keep him happy. A mini boost to the UK's defence budget in 2027 is likely to make Starmer's trip to Washington a little easier. Had Joe Biden still been in office I seriously doubt Starmer would have felt similarly obliged to up defence spending. Joe was too nice. So Starmer can shake Trump's hand and say:"You see, I've done what you asked." Actually Trump wants all Nato members to spend five per fent of GDP, but 2.5 per cent is a start. But he won't be pleased with the delay of two years. But that was for poor Rachel Reeves' sake. As chancellor, she is having enough of a nightmare trying to balance the books and boost the eoonomy. Now she has to find the extra cash for the Ministry of Defence which will mean cutting into the huge social benefits budget. So, Trump will be pleased, but Reeves will be biting her nails and secretly cursing the prime minister.

Europe and Ukraine versus the United States

What a state the western world is in. The gathering of European leaders and diplomats in Kyiv to show their support for Ukraine on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion is clearly intended to send a signal to Donald Trump that he is a not-to-be-trusted leader who has screwed up what was always a tight and long-lasting alliance and friendship between America and Europe. But the most bizarre aspect of this dramatic breakdown in the Atlantic partnership is that Europe has sided with the former satellite nation of the Soviet Union against the country that is supposed to be the Great Protector of European nations. The war in Ukraine which helped to unify Europe and the US in the joint effort to stand up to Vladimir Putin is now the reason for an historic breach in the Western alliance. The difference it makes between one president, Joe Biden, and his successor, Donald Trump, has been so startling that no one in Europe has quite grasped the immensity of this change. The winner, of course, is Putin who has now pretty well achieved at least three of his main objectives in life: a significant slice of Ukraine, total division within the Nato alliance, and the effective promise by Trump that Ukraine will never become a member of the western alliance. Not bad for three years of waging war. Now he is expected to get even more: possibly a pull-back of Nato troops from eastern Europe, a lifting of many of the sanctions against Russia and, of course, reinstatement as a leader on the world stage with no one daring to consider arresting him on the international war crimes warrant if he were to land in the US or Europe. Putin rules!

Musk memo: what did you do in the office last week apart from drink coffee?

Elon Musk really is trying to rule the American federal workforce. After his email demanding to be told what each and everyone did to advance things in the office last week or resign has put the fear of Trump into their lives. He did the same when he took over Twitter and turned it into X. Every worker had to justify their existence. Did they sit around all day drinking coffee and gathering to gossip around the water dispenser or did they actually achieve something, like come up with a good idea to create efficiency or save money or Make America Great Again? Imagine over this weekend tens of thousands of people are frantically sitting in their kitchens at home trying to remember what they did in the office. Oh yes, there was that meeting with the head of diversity when I suggested all women should be allowed a longer lunchbreak because they got more tired during the way what with all their duties at home an'all. No, no, don't mention that. Musk has already abolished the diversity department. Something has to be thought up which will impress Musk or it's out on your ear. Yes, this weekend is going to be make-or-break for thousands of federal workers. Trying to justify your role in the office to someone like Musk who spends each day trying to save a trillion dollars from the federal budget, mastermind X, supervise the development of new rockets to go into space and pursue the dream of all-electric cars, vans, lorries, trucks, tanks, and motorbikes. No trouble for him to justify his existence but if he compares his workload with the average federal worker, they are all screwed.

Trump's clear-out at the Pentagon

It hasn't taken long. Everything I predicted in an analysis piece in The Times last month has now happened: the purge of employees has begun wholesale and two key military chiefs have been sacked, General Charles Q Brown, the chairman of the Joint Ciuefs of staff, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to be Chief of Naval Operations. Sacked for being too woke because they built up efforts to improve diversity and gender equality. With Pete Hegseth as defence secretary obeying every wish of his president, there is no one inside the Pentagon able to withstand the mighty purge now underway. Hegseth has announcnd an eight per cent cut in the $850 billion budget which apparently he hopes to achieve by removing waste, duplication and what they call legacy weapon systems which are no longer needed for his aim to build a ready fighting force to take on China. General Brown was a good guy and a highly respected military commander but Trump thought he was too keen to push diversity. Likewise Admiral Franchetti. And woke in all its aspects is the enemy to Trump. So, anyone connected to these same efforts, as well as weapons platforms, like warships powered by alternative energy fuels - green warships - might get the chop. The Pentagon doesn't know what is going to come next.

Starmer tiptoeing or barging his way into the White House?

Going to pay a call on Donald Trump at any time is a risky business. What sort of mood will he be in? Will he be friendly? Will he just say no to everything? But for Keir Starmer, there will be much more at stake when he visits Trump next Thursday. Trump knows what Starmer is going to say about Ukraine and his cosy chat with Putin last week. Trump will expect Starmer to be full of advice and warnings and appeals. But if Starmer has the right stuff in his head and heart, he should take a much tougher line and stand up for what's right and go for it. Namby pamby appeals for poor old Britain to be involved in the peace negoatiations or overstated admiration for Zelensky will not impress Trump. He hates whiners. But if Starmer walks in 6ft tall and strong handshake and no-nonsense presentation of the facts, and Trump might listen. He will already have heard the same story from President Macron who is due in the White House on Monday. Trump likes Macron, ever since he was invited to attend the Bastille Day military parade in Paris during his first term as president. That parade seriously impressed Trump and he returned to Washington demanding a similar parade. He didn't get it. So, Macron will lay out the worries of the Europeans about Trump's rapprochement with Putin and the deal-in-the-making to end the war in Ukraine. Trump will listen because Macron is of equal status although only in the sense that they are both presidents. Starmer is just a humble prime minister with a king as head of state, although Trump has said before he likes him. But if Starmer whinges he will get nowhere. It will have to be tough talk all the way. But he mustn't forget the importance of his opening line which has to be something along these lines: "Mr President, I want to say, thank God for your leadership. Here we are with the real possibility that you, with us behind you, can end this terrible war in Ukraine. Brilliant, wonmderful, a breath of fresh air. Bye bye Biden, hello King Trump." Then Starmer can say what he really wants to say while Trump is glowing with the praise from the Man from Blighty.

Macron and Starmer head for Washington

Both President Macron and Keir Starmer will be in Washington next week, trying to persuade Donald Trump to back down over Ukraine and stop giving Putin everything he wants. It will be a wasted trip. Trump has made up his mind that he prefers to deal with Putin if he is going to end the war in Ukraine. The Europeans - and Ukrainians - are a side issue for him but he will go along with hearing the appeals from Macron and Starmer. The only thing he will support is the idea of a purely European peacekeeping force for Ukraine but since the likelihood of this happening is about 100-1, I doubt Trump has given it much thought. Sergey Lavrov who has been around (as Russian foreign minister) longer than anyone else on the global political stage apart from his boss, Vladimir Putin, has made it abundantly clear that this concept is unacceptable. So it seems no matter how much huffing and puffing there is from Macron and Starmer, including talk of sending fighter planes to patrol the skies over Ukraine, Moscow will not sign anything with this in the small print. Trump has stated before that he likes Starmer and thinks he is doing a good job. But his opinion will have changed somewhat after Starmer rejected his description of Zelensky as a dictator and to emphasise his point he rang the Ukrainian president to give him his full support. Trump won't have liked that, so Starmer could get the cold shoulder. Macron might fare a bit better but I suspect both leaders will return to their capitals with a Trump rebuke in their ears.

Why is the war in Ukraine Zelensky's fault?

On February 24, 2022, 150,000 Russian troops with tanks and armoured fighting vehicles invaded Ukraine. I know this happened because I wrote about it at length in The Times and watched TV footage as the huge convoy wended its way slowly towards Kyiv. So, how is it possible that Donald Trump can feel it's right to accuse Ukraine of starting the war? It's like saying Britain invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. Did Trump mean that if Kyiv had just handed over Ukraine's sovereignty to Moscow, there wouldn't have had to be a war? Or perhaps he meant that if Kyiv hadn't applied for membership of Nato, Putin wouldn't have invaded? Or maybe he meant that once the Russian troops had crossed the border, Kyiv should have surrendered and no one would have been killed? There isn't any other way of interpreting Trump's words. The only remotely arguable aspect of these three choices is the one about Nato membership. Kyiv's insistence it wanted to turn to the EU and Nato and away from the Russian Federation clearly angered Putin and he resolved to stop Ukraine joining Nato by invading three years ago. But, as the US and Europe always argued, Ukraine is a sovereign state and therefore can decide for itself whether it embraces western institutions rather than be a vassal to Russia just because they are neighbours. But Putin never saw it that way. He said Nato membership for Ukraine would pose a direct threat to Russia's national security and very existence. If that is what Trump had in mind then ok. But he is still seeing it all from Putin's perspective rather than as the leader of the western free world which has spent billions and billions of dollars over the last three yers supporting Ukraine with weapons, munitions and cash to survive against the Russian onslaught. So, whatever Trump was thinking when he blamed Ukraine for the war, it's a pretty warped view.

Nato/European troops in Ukraine? Niet, says Sergey Lavrov.

The talk about putting British and other European (Nato) troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers in the event of an end to the war seems to have fallen on very stony ground. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said niet niet niet when it was raised at the US/Russian Ukraine war/peace summit in Riyadh today. It's early days but I cannot image any scenario in which Vladimir Putin will agree to having anyone from Nato marching around in Ukraine to deter him from invading Ukraine all over again at some future date. Keir Starmer boldly announced he was prepared to send British troops to Ukraine but has he thought it through? The numbers game has already started, with some saying 150,000 would be needed, Zelensky puts it at 200,000 and some of the European countries are saying 30,000, with a reinforcement capability built in. But that would mean a whole lot of troops training and readying themselves to rush to Ukraine in an emergency. The numbers are building up. But is it all fanciful thinking? If Putin says niet, then it's difficult to see how a peacekeeping force is going to be written into a peace deal. And even if it was, how long would such a force have to be stationed in Ukraine, a year, two years, for ever? There is a lot of drawing-board stuff required here.

The Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia are just the beginning

There is no likelihood of a fully-formed peace settlement to end the war in Ukraine emerging at the first meeting of Americans and Russians in Saudi Arabia tomorrow (Tues). It's more like a reunion party for top US officials and top Kremlin officials to talk about old times when the two countries were not at permanent loggerheads. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has been around long enough to start this new process very slowly and suspiciously. He will have to go back to Putin and give him some good news, so there will be no caving in to the Trump team demands. Each side will lay out their hopes for a deal but there won't be any signatures and stamps of approval. Both sides will be pushing their luck and seeing what comes of it. So, in a sense, Ukraine will not be missing out that much. A Ukrainian delegation will surely be more involved in the detail at some later stage, although one can understand Zelensky's anger and frutration. As for the Europeans, their time will come, too. All this rushing to Paris in panic mode will be viewed in the White House as the reason why Trump didn't want them all putting in their pennorth in Saudi Arabia. It would be so much blaa blaa blaa. On the other hand, if the Paris emergency summit gets the Europeans to spend more money on defence and preparing for a war with Russia without the US, then Trump will see that as a result. I would say it's all going Trump's way right now.

Who is going to Saudi Arabia for peace talks?

Talk about confusion. There is going to be a big peace-talk meeting in Saudi Arabia but do the Saudis know how many chairs and glasses of water to provide? We know the US delegation, Marco Rubio, secretary of state, Mike Waltz, national security adviswr, John Ratcliffe, CIA director, and Steve Witkoff, billionaire and Trump's special envoy for the Middle East. Witkoff is the most interesting Trump representative. He has a reputation for being a brutal, no-nonsense negotiator. He says it how it is and how he thinks and has no time for chit-chat. The Russians will get to know very quickly they are dealing with a tough nut to crack, except he doesn't crack. The rest of the Trump team will be less in the Russians' face but the combination could be quite effective. Trump said there will be a Ukrainian delegation but Kyiv says they haven't been formally invited. How can this be? As for the Europeans, they won't be represented which is why Macron has called a summit in Paris to discuss how the hell Europe, a big supporter of Ukraine, is going to play a meaningful role. But they won't be going to Saudi Arabia. Trump doesn't want them. Putin has achieved one of the major things he always wanted, division and confusion in the western alliance. But this is the way Trumps wants it. He doesn't want a delegation of Europeans getting in the way of his instant blueprint for Ukraine's future. At present the Saudi meeting looks like Trump team versus Putin team with Zelensky not sure whether he has been invited or not.