Russia

Like a reckless gambler whose roulette system has worked in the past, Vladimir Putin can’t resist trying to hack US elections. He’s at it once again, in the midterms, one source close to the intelligence community tells Cockburn. ‘The GRU [Russian military intelligence] is up to its usual tricks in the midterms but the NSA [the National Security Agency, responsible for electronic spying] knows and is mitigating.’ Our source says it’s the ‘usual Russian Intelligence playbook’ familiar from the presidential election: propaganda on social media with ‘some GRU active SIGINT [signals intelligence] collection, also known as hacking, in the mix’.

Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was oddly silent as the news came that his former campaign manager and his former lawyer were going to jail. Perhaps his staff have finally seized control of his phone. Perhaps his lawyers have convinced him that every time he tweets on anything relating to the Russia investigation, he is dancing on a precipice, with special counsel Robert Mueller just waiting to push him off. Whatever the reason, this was the equivalent of Trump entering a stunned, catatonic state, while his world spins out of control around him. The President merely tweeted to note that he was going to a Make America Great Again rally in West Virginia, slipping into a warm bath of affirmation from his most loyal supporters: ‘Thank you West Virginia!

Amid the confusion and the almost deafening cries of treachery and collusion over Donald Trump’s relations with Russia, few noticed the most tangible outcome of this week’s Helsinki summit. In the lead-up to his face-to-face talk with Vladimir Putin, senior US and Russian diplomats — in close coordination with leaders from mutual ally Israel — brokered a deal among all the warring parties (bar the Islamist terrorists) finally to end the devastating seven-year Syrian civil war. As is often the case with Trump, the hype tends to drown out the message but it was there for anyone paying close enough attention. The US, Russians and Israelis have agreed on a solution to Syria. His name is Bashar al-Assad.

History somehow isn’t moving toward its predetermined end, and this has driven Western liberals completely mad. The theatrical overreaction to Donald Trump’s joint press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki is just the latest proof. Before the Trump-Putin summit, pundits warned that Trump might recognise Crimea as Russian territory. He did nothing of the sort. But he did give Putin the benefit of the doubt when the Russian leader, in a carefully chosen phrase, said the ‘Russian state’ had not interfered in the 2016 election. Trump’s equivocation—‘My people came to me, Dan Coates came to me and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia.

At first, the Spanish marines are just a distant dot on the horizon. A few minutes later their speedboat is on our starboard side. The marines clamber aboard, disarm the irregulars who’ve seized this Romanian frigate, and secure the helicopter landing pad on the windswept stern. Watching from a safe distance, you’d never know this was just a wargame. As a Romanian sailor told me, as I struggled to control my seasick stomach, the way you fight in a real war depends upon the way you train. Welcome to Sea Shield, a naval warfare exercise involving 21 ships and 12 aircraft from seven Nato allies: Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Spain, Turkey, the US and the UK. And welcome to the Black Sea, the front line in the new Cold War.

Donald Trump's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen is playing a starring role in a riveting drama featuring the President, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Putin-connected oligarchs, shady vory v zakone-adjacent moneymen, and American and Russian corporations seeking influence with the Trump Administration. For Americans, this is a new lurid political drama, but it’s one London has seen up close for two decades. It’s the story of the inevitable consequences that result when Russian money, influence and corruption slither up on Western shores.