Ukraine

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

Joe Biden’s gung-ho State of the Union speech

It’s arguably not the right moment to focus on Joe Biden’s verbal slips, but it is a little unnerving when the leader of the free world says ‘Iranians’ — or possibly ‘Uranians’ — when he means to say ‘Ukrainians’. These are dangerous times and we need politicians to speak clearly. Still, Biden got in his point across in his State of the Union address. He announced that he was closing US air space to Russian aircraft. He led a standing ovation for the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova. He said that Putin is ‘now more isolated from the world than he has ever been’. The president also said:

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley

No, Scottish independence is not like the war in Ukraine

Perhaps it’s the absence of any oppression of their own country that compels Scottish nationalists to latch onto the oppression of others. On Monday, Michelle Thomson, an SNP MSP, retweeted news of Ukraine’s emergency application for EU membership, adding: ‘Delighted for Ukraine. It’s [sic] just goes to show what political will can achieve. Remember this Scotland!’ The SNP’s current position is for Scotland to secede from the UK then apply for membership of the EU, a process nationalists have previously suggested Brussels would fast-track. Thomson came in for a barrage of criticism and later deleted the tweet, admitting it was ‘insensitive’. She is taking all the flack but she’s hardly

Annabel Denham

Britain is paying the price for its fracking panic

Between 1980 and 2005, the UK produced more energy than it needed. Today, we import more than a third of our energy and over half of our natural gas. Households are facing an increase in their annual tax bills from £1,500 to an eye-watering £3,000. While the Business Secretary may have tweeted this week that the current situation is a matter of high prices rather than security of supply, families already struggling to heat their homes are unlikely to tell the difference as they decide whether to heat their homes or pay for food. This was never a foregone conclusion. A decade ago, the US shale gas revolution was well

Isabel Hardman

Boris rules out a no-fly zone over Ukraine

What can the UK do to ensure that Vladimir Putin fails in Ukraine? The Prime Minister has just given a press conference in Poland with his counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki where he repeated his assertion that ‘Putin will fail’ and that the West ‘will succeed in protecting and preserving a sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine’. The Russian president, he said, had underestimated the resolve of Ukraine and its allies. He also warned that things were likely to get much worse, saying:  Johnson was confronted by a campaigner who accused him of being afraid ‘It is clear that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use barbaric and indiscriminate tactics against innocent civilians to

Steerpike

Yvette Cooper's refugee record

As the Ukraine crisis rages, Labour has chosen to focus on the issue of visas for fleeing Ukrainian refugees. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper went for her opposite number Priti Patel on it in Parliament yesterday, demanding ‘clear answers’ for those ‘urgently seeking sanctuary or to rejoin relatives.’  It looks like Patel will now be forced to give a ministerial statement today, updating the government’s position on the issue: a win for Cooper and those demanding more action. Still Mr S couldn’t help but think back to Cooper’s own record when it comes to refugees. In 2015, she was one of a number of politicians and celebrities who volunteered to

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Liz Truss is having a good war

Liz Truss gave a striking statement in the Commons this afternoon on the action the government was taking to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It contrasted to the approach taken by some of her colleagues, because it contained a number of admissions about the impact of this action. For the first time, the Foreign Secretary stated that Britain would ‘have to undergo some economic hardship as a result of our sanctions’. This has been implicit over the past few days, but Truss was the first to say it clearly. She added that ‘our hardships are nothing compared to those endured by the people of Ukraine’, and also warned

James Forsyth

'Staying Switzerland' on Ukraine is impossible

The striking thing about the financial sanctions on Russia is not their severity, but just how many countries are joining in the effort. Switzerland has today announced that it will adopt the EU sanctions on Russia, particularly significant because it has been the biggest recipient of private transfers by Russians in recent years. The fact that such a traditionally neutral country is imposing sanctions will deepen the wedge between Putin and the rest of the ruling elite. Meanwhile in Asia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore have signed on to the economic measures on Russia. Their willingness to do this is as much about Taiwan as Ukraine; they know that China is

Thomas Lorman

Viktor Orbán has played a perfect game with Putin

On 3 April Hungarians will have their ninth set of free parliamentary elections since the collapse of the communist dictatorship in 1989. The winner is likely to be Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition, which is leading in five of the six major polls. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will not change that dynamic even though the opposition leader, Péter Márki-Zay has called Orbán a ‘traitor’ for his long-standing friendship with Vladimir Putin. Ever since Viktor Orbán began his second stint as Hungary’s prime minister in 2010, he has repeatedly played the provocateur within the EU, tweaking the eurocrats’ noses with his cultural conservatism and hostility to mass immigration. His alliance

James Kirkup

Will Britain welcome Ukrainian refugees?

Immigration used to be the most-discussed issue in British politics. It gets less attention these days, for reasons too varied to go into here. But even though some voters have been focused on other things, there have been significant changes. Some have been good. Others bad. And the bad ones are about to collide with the Ukrainian crisis. The positive bits of the immigration story have mainly been around regulated, economically-driven migration. Britain’s post-EU migration regime is, well, not as bad as it could have been. It’s not as easy as it was for EU nationals to come here to work, but it’s a bit easier for non-EU nationals to

Katja Hoyer

Germany has rejected Merkel's military legacy

‘We are witnessing a turning point… the world is not the same anymore,’ said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz yesterday in a speech that will be remembered as the country’s biggest military shift since 1945. Staring down the barrel of Putin’s gun, Scholz announced a massive and immediate cash injection for Germany’s armed forces as well as a long-term commitment to higher defence spending. Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine has pulled Germany out of decades of complacency and misguided pacifism. Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock seemed genuinely shocked at the discrepancy between Putin’s words during her visit to Moscow last month and his actions in Ukraine. She has said she feels betrayed:

Steerpike

Six clips of Ukrainian heroism

It’s four days since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and there’s no sign of any surrender by those opposing Putin’s forces. By common consensus, the spirited fightback by both Ukrainian troops and their citizens has impressed and surprised many across Europe.  It comes amid reports that the Kremlin has misjudged the extent to which Ukrainians are willing to fight and die for their country, as the west gears up to inflict massive financial sanctions on Russia. The revolution may not be televised but in 2022 conflict is being live-streamed on social media accounts. Below are six of the best examples of the ordinary men and women of Ukraine demonstrating resistance to

Sam Leith

Has Putin resurrected the West?

I think Putin will have been surprised. I mean: I was surprised. Weren’t you? Not, necessarily, that Ukraine should have been resisting as valiantly as it is; nor even that Russia’s supposedly unstoppable war machine should have found itself out of petrol on a chilly highway from which the road signs have been removed. But surprised by the sheer force and volume and unanimity of the international cry of: no, this will not stand. That is one thing, even amid the unspeakable human cost of the war in Ukraine, to feel encouraged by. If this invasion does, as many have said, mark the beginning of a new order in European

Sunday

Mark Galeotti

War in Ukraine has divided Putin’s court

It is striking how little enthusiasm there is in Russia for Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine – but for some, it has become an opportunity to steal a march and curry favour with the boss. Thousands of Russians have been out on the streets protesting against the conflict, despite the heavy-handed and unstinting response of the security forces. Journalists and experts, sports stars and cultural icons have been making their opposition clear as well. Even those within the system, including senior diplomats and businesspeople, aren’t trying to hide how far they were blindsided by Putin’s decision to invade, and how little they appreciated it. After all, even at Monday’s fateful televised meeting

Charles Lipson

The end of the post-Cold War era

Russia’s invasion is not just an effort to retake what was once part of the Soviet Union. It is a push to use military force to overturn the post-Cold War settlement. In fact, the invasion cannot be understood without first understanding what that settlement looked like and why Russia wants to overturn it, despite the high costs. In the 1980s, when Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent in East Germany, the Soviet Union had become an arteriosclerotic state. It was unable to keep up with the US in high-technology arms, unable to legitimate its rule with Marxist-Leninist ideology, and unable to afford the cost of maintaining its empire in Eastern

Saturday

James Forsyth

A new Europe is emerging from this crisis

With every hour that Kiev holds out, the geopolitics of Europe changes more. Germany, which so values its prohibition on sending weapons into warzones, has just announced that it is sending 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles to support the Ukrainian forces. I expect that defence spending will rise considerably in the coming years Germany is also allowing other Nato members to export arms with German-made parts to Ukraine — which will make a material difference to the supplies that the Ukrainian government receives. Yesterday evening, it was announced that Russian banks are going to be cut off from Swift. The EU seems to have realised how unsustainable their position was when

Robert Peston

Expelling Russia from Swift would be a massive economic shock

If Russia is expelled from the Swift banking messaging system, that would be serious economic warfare against Putin. Because Thursday’s decision by the US Treasury to make it almost impossible for Russia’s two biggest banks, VTB and Sperbank, to do any business with US institutions or use US infrastructure to process dollar payments will potentially disrupt tens of billions of dollars of Russian financial transactions every day, much of it related to its huge oil and gas industry. This combined prohibition on international transfers by Russian banks and the US embargo on dollar clearing for them would in theory generate a massive negative economic shock for Russia, that would rapidly

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

‘This is our land. This is our history’: my appeal to the people of Russia

I come today with an appeal to all citizens of Russia. Not as President. I am appealing to the people of Russia as a citizen of Ukraine. We share more than 2,000km of border. Around it, today, is your army: almost 200,000 soldiers; thousands of military units. Your leadership has approved their movement towards us. Towards the territory of another country. This step can become the start of a huge war on the European continent. The whole world is talking about what can happen any day now. A reason can appear at any moment. Any provocation. Any spark. A spark that has the potential of burning everything down. You are

Vladislav Zubok

The post-Soviet roots of the war in Ukraine

In his hour-long speech earlier this week setting out why he was invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin blamed Vladimir Lenin, the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian nationalists and the West for starting the conflict. Meanwhile, many in the West believe that the conflict is entirely the creation of one man, Putin himself. It’s worth though remembering the post-Soviet roots of the current Russian-Ukrainian war and how close the two nations came to blows 30 years ago. After the failure of a reactionary coup in Moscow in August 1991, the victorious Russian democrats led by Boris Yeltsin wanted to dismantle the Soviet Union’s ‘totalitarian empire’ and join Nato. The main challenge to

Jacob Heilbrunn

It’s time for Germany to stand up to Russia

In his novel The Loyal Subject, which appeared on the eve of the first world war, Heinrich Mann, the brother of Thomas, satirised Wilhelmine Germany as a hotbed of chauvinistic nationalism. The servile nationalism that Mann mocked could not be further from the ethos of the Federal Republic of Germany today. So pervasive is Germany’s eirenic disposition that on Thursday, as Russian president Vladimir Putin ravaged Ukraine, Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, the head of the German army, took the unusual step of turning to LinkedIn to ventilate his exasperation at the impotence of his own fighting forces. ‘In my 41st year of peace-time service, I would not have thought that

David Patrikarakos

Ukrainians are living through a hell on earth

‘Live long enough and you watch everyone go mad,’ the man said to me gloomily. It was around 2009, and I was listening to a former senior civil servant tell me what he had learned from a life spent in diplomacy. I’m not sure even he envisioned seeing proper madness in a world leader until Putin’s televised hour-long pantomime earlier this week. Putin over those 60 minutes was a man marinating in rage and possessed of a worldview built on paranoia and ego. The performance culminated in him recognising the ‘republics’ of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. The moment he did this he smashed the Minsk peace process designed