Lisa Haseldine is The Spectator's online commissioning editor - foreign affairs.
One of Russia’s top military generals, Vladimir Alekseev, is in a critical condition after being shot while leaving his Moscow apartment earlier this morning. Lieutenant General Alekseev, a deputy director in Russia’s military intelligence agency – still best-known by its former acronym, the GRU – has been taken to hospital following reports he was shot
European politicians had little rest this weekend after Donald Trump’s announcement on Saturday that he would be imposing punitive tariffs on the eight countries that had sent troops to Greenland last week. From 1 February, 10 per cent tariffs will be slapped on goods entering the United States from Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany,
When Donald Trump sets his sights on something, it’s hard to prevent him getting what he wants. That hasn’t, however, stopped Greenland and Denmark from trying. The Danish army has announced that, from today, it is boosting its presence on Greenland. It will be backed up by a cohort of European troops, arriving over the
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Justin Marozzi analyses what Trump’s coup in Venezuela means for Iran; Lisa Haseldine asks why Britain isn’t expanding its military capabilities, as European allies do so; William Atkinson argues that the MET’s attack on freemasonry is unjustified; and, Toby Young explains why the chickenpox vaccine is a positive health measure.
Following America’s extraordinary raid on Venezuela last week, Donald Trump has pointed to Greenland, which belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark, as the territory he plans to turn his attention to next, staking a claim he has made repeatedly since his return to the White House. Trump said this week that America needs Greenland ‘for
Britain should prepare for more rape cases involving illegal migrants, Dominic Cummings has warned. Speaking on The Spectator’s Quite right! podcast, the former advisor to Boris Johnson referenced the case of two young Afghan asylum seekers who were jailed earlier this month for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Leamington Spa. Places like Leamington ‘better get used
Ukraine – not Russia – is ‘refusing to end this conflict using peaceful means’, Vladimir Putin claimed this morning. The Russian President chose to open his traditional end-of-year press conference in Moscow with the subject of Ukraine, rehashing lines Kremlin-watchers have heard many times since he launched his full-scale invasion almost four years ago. The
Keir Starmer will travel to Berlin this afternoon to join European leaders for a ‘mini-summit’ in support of Ukraine following two days of talks between president Volodymyr Zelensky and American officials. Zelensky has been in the German capital since yesterday, locked in talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner
Vladimir Putin is ‘morally responsible’ for the death of Dawn Sturgess, a public inquiry today has concluded. The mother of three died in Salisbury in June 2018 after unknowingly spraying herself with the nerve agent novichok, which had been discarded three months earlier by two Kremlin agents sent to kill the former spy Sergei Skripal.
Steve Witkoff’s sixth visit of the year to Moscow seems to have ended again with very little to show for it. The US special envoy was in the Russian capital with Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, to meet President Vladimir Putin and present the latest version of a peace plan to end the war in
Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting US officials today for the first time since the news of a US-Russia peace plan for Ukraine emerged yesterday. The Ukrainian president, fresh from a trip to Turkey, is due to meet with the American army chiefs Dan Driscoll and General Randy George – the most senior Pentagon representatives to visit
With fresh wind in his sails after his success brokering a somewhat fragile peace in Gaza, Donald Trump has once again turned his attention back to Ukraine. According to reports, the US President’s team has secretly been working on drafting a new plan to end the war. Concerningly, though, once again that confidential plan is
It’s finally crunch time for Boris Pistorius’s plan to reintroduce military service in Germany. Following a delay of several months thanks to the country’s snap federal election campaign at the start of the year, the defence minister’s new ‘Modernisation of Military Service’ draft law is currently being debated in Berlin. Under Pistorius’s proposals, all 18-year-olds
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Tim Shipman says that the real war for the right is yet to come; Ian Williams examines the farce over the collapses China espionage case; Theo Hobson argues that the Church of England is muddled over sex and marriage; Lara Prendergast reads her letter from America; and, Lisa Haseldine
Hamburg What would happen if Russia was planning an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – and the threat was sufficiently great that Nato felt the need to send troops east across Europe to face off against Moscow? This was the scenario the German Bundeswehr spent several days rehearsing last month, working out how the
The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party continued its westward march in popularity across Germany yesterday, securing third place in the local elections in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Preliminary results show that, alongside the outcomes of mayoralty and district administrator elections which took place in the state, the far-right party won 14.5 per cent
As Donald Trump presses on with his breathless efforts to secure an end to the war in Ukraine, the leaders of Europe face a task of their own. In the event of a peace deal with Russia, how will they – in place of an America that can’t be trusted as a reliable ally –
Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today to debrief with Donald Trump following the US President’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. The purpose of today’s meeting at the White House will be to discuss the parameters of a potential peace deal in Ukraine. The last time Zelensky came to Washington was in February,
And just like that, the highly-anticipated summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska has been and gone, seemingly without very much at all to show for it. The two presidents met in Anchorage yesterday for what Trump had touted as a ‘feel-out’ meeting to lay the groundwork for negotiations to discuss an end
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First: how Merkel killed the European dream ‘Ten years ago,’ Lisa Haseldine says, ‘Angela Merkel told the German press what she was going to do about the swell of Syrian refugees heading to Europe’: ‘Wir schaffen das’ – we can handle it. With these words, ‘she ushered in a new era of uncontrolled mass migration’.
