This footage is from the very beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Look at that little Ukrainian boy, walking towards the border in tears, surrounded by families fleeing a Russian invasion. Now consider the extraordinary moral bankruptcy of Trump, Rubio, Hegseth and Musk, whose message to Ukraine increasingly amounts to: “Fuck Ukraine. Russia gets our sympathy.”
Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff apparently sees Putin as some sort of humanitarian. Quite remarkable. Most people can distinguish a humanitarian from a man whose army bombs hospitals and forces children to flee their homes. Apparently, this requires a level of intellectual sophistication beyond certain members of the American establishment.
It hardly takes a magnificent imagination to work out which side these gentlemen might have found more accommodating in 1939.
“Never again” was supposed to mean something. It wasn’t a decorative slogan to be dusted off once a year while making excuses for the next dictator.
And to those who admire Russia as some glorious defender of Western civilisation, perhaps try learning something about the country. Russia has millions of Muslim citizens. It is hardly the anti-Muslim paradise some of its Western admirers imagine. Nor does Putin’s dictatorship represent the democratic freedoms they claim to cherish.
But then, understanding history, geography or basic human decency does rather spoil the pleasure of having absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
That little boy understood who the aggressor was. Remarkable how many supposedly powerful adults still struggle with it.
BREAKING: Trump demands Ilhan Omar resign for allegedly using a “fake name.”
Any comment, JD Vance? Or should I call you James David Vance? J.D. Hamel? James David Hamel? James Donald Bowman?
Funny how names only matter when you’re attacking immigrants.
The failed Trump regime wants Americans to believe the United States won the war against Iran. The reality is considerably more humiliating.
Iranian strikes have devastated American military infrastructure across the Gulf, destroying hundreds of structures and damaging aircraft, radar systems, communications equipment and critical facilities.
These bases are not merely places to park soldiers. They are the logistical backbone of American military power, supporting aircraft, supplying warships, storing fuel and ammunition, maintaining equipment and coordinating operations.
Destroy that infrastructure and even the world’s most expensive military becomes increasingly difficult to sustain thousands of miles from home.
Trump can declare victory from Washington. He cannot declare destroyed infrastructure back into existence.
Donald Trump has spent forty years telling us he's the greatest dealmaker alive, and the evidence is a book he didn't write. Armed with that, he marches into century-old conflicts with the preparation of a five-year-old at a chess tournament and the confidence of a man who's never lost anything except casinos, an airline, and the popular vote twice.
The results speak for themselves. He's sold out America to Russia, pitched beachfront hotels on the rubble of Gaza, and signed a diesel deal with Moscow while the war it's funding is still going. He got Greenland, triumphantly, and never noticed he'd been handed the same 1951 defense agreement the US already had, rewritten in a bigger font.
The best bit is what the actual author said afterwards. Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter, called the book lipstick on a pig, said he'd title it The Sociopath today, and admitted he invented the phrase "truthful hyperbole" to dress up the lying. The man has a black belt in lying, and it's the only one he's ever earned. The one deal Trump ever closed was getting someone else to make him sound clever.
Tonight, fires are raging around St Petersburg after another Ukrainian drone attack. All because a 74-year-old man in the Kremlin decided that conquering his neighbours was more important than giving his own people a future.
Imagine what Russia could have been. Your children studying at universities in Paris, Oxford or Berlin. Families spending summers on the Mediterranean, skiing in the Alps, discovering Rome, Barcelona and Copenhagen. Russian scientists working alongside Europe's finest minds. Businesses flourishing, borders opening, young Russians falling in love, travelling freely and building prosperous lives in the world's most extraordinary neighbourhood.
And Russia's vast oil wealth could have continued filling the national savings account, building a financial cushion for a rainy day and securing the prosperity of future generations. Instead, that fortune has been drained by war, and the country's financial future has been mortgaged to one man's imperial ambitions.
You had an entire continent on your doorstep, ready to trade, cooperate and prosper.
Instead, you have sanctions, burning oil facilities, military funerals, censorship and a generation sacrificed to one elderly man's imperial fantasies. Children raised on militaristic propaganda, families struggling with poverty and alcoholism, and young men sent to die in Ukrainian fields.
And your great international friendship? North Korea. A miserable dictatorship famous for prison camps, hunger, compulsory displays of loyalty and children taught to march in formation.
Now Russia's future is increasingly tied to the failed Trump regime. And if you believe a man whose business empire has seen six corporate bankruptcies involving casinos and hotels is going to rescue the Russian economy, you may be in for another disappointment. Sorry, but Donald Trump is not Russia's financial salvation.
You could have shared Europe's prosperity. Instead, Putin has brought you closer to Pyongyang, with a bankrupt casino magnate as your supposed lifeline.
What a catastrophic waste of a great country's future.
Oh well, anyway.
Here in Europe we recognize what it looks like when someone at the very top is working for Russia. Many of our countries have been through it before, and once you've seen the pattern, you can't unsee it.
America under Trump isn't coming back, I'm afraid. Apologies on behalf of a shitshow of a country I don't even live in. MAGA took the United States from the inside, and they're not just fighting Ukraine. They're fighting the entire West, a billion people who used to believe Washington was on their side. Lindsey understood that better than most, which is exactly why undoing his work is such a gift to Moscow.
Sanctions relief will continue. I think the diesel deal and the move regarding the Lindsey Graham Act are not the end of it. Unfortunately.
It’s unfortunate because we all had great respect for Lindsey. He devoted his life to America. We had an excellent relationship with him. And shortly before the tragedy, Lindsey was in Ukraine. He always supported us very strongly and pushed for as much assistance to Ukraine as possible.
It’s difficult without him, I’ll be honest. I want to thank both Democrats and Republicans who supported his bill. That was a major victory: this truly bipartisan support. And now, the decision to undo all of this, to block all of it, seems wrong to me. And it definitely helps only the Russians. It only fuels their satisfaction and their desire to keep killing people. This certainly does not stop the war.
From answers to journalists’ questions. (1/3)
Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States. So dignified. So presidential. Such a credit to his country.
Trump posts AI video of himself wrestling Yorkshire tiger that killed a man
Andy Burnham has become the first British prime minister to confirm that Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Speaking on The Rest Is Politics podcast, he said he put the question to officials on arriving in Downing Street this summer and received "the clear answer that yes, there was."
It is a striking break with the past. Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee concluded in 2020 that the government had never properly assessed Moscow's role, and its published findings stopped short of saying Russian activity changed the result.
The timing is what makes it political. Burnham recently left the door open to a manifesto pledge on rejoining the EU, and the Conservatives accuse him of questioning the legitimacy of the vote. Downing Street declined to describe the briefing he received.
The Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay comes as 🇺🇸 is intensifying its campaign against the International Criminal Court. The White House will not be thrilled. It will probably see it as an deliberate affront to its policies - which it of course is.