Martin Ball

[Ulster Unionist Party @uuponline]

🎥 WATCH: Party Leader Jon Burrows MLA speaking in the Assembly on yesterday’s High Court ruling that Police Ombudsman public statements alleging "collusive behaviour" by RUC officers must now carry a formal notice acknowledging that the Ombudsman exceeded her legal powers.

[BBC Newsline @bbcnewsline]

85 years ago around 1,000 people were killed and 100,000 left homeless during the Belfast Blitz. It took place between 7 April and 6 May 1941, with the 15th April being the worst single night. Eve Rosato looks back on that time.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Magyar on Ukraine 🇭🇺🇺🇦:

"Everyone in Hungary knows that Ukraine is a victim of this war and no one should tell them under what conditions they should enter a peace or sign a peace treaty. We cannot tell any country to give up their territory.

And this is what the Fidesz politicians said. Then I would like to ask them: What would you do if Russia attacked Hungary? Which Hungarian counties would you be willing to give up?

Ukraine should receive security guarantees and territorial guarantees that can be observed and kept. Ukraine, under the Budapest Memorandum, gave up its nuclear arsenal for guarantees, but those guarantees were violated repeatedly by Russia."🔚

This is a good starting point. Hopefully, the relationship between our countries can be mended from here. I'm really looking forward to having sane neighbors.

[Jeff Eisenband @JeffEisenband]

9-year-old Rory McIlroy chipping into a washing machine on the Northern Irish talk show “Kelly” in 1999.

27 years later, he’s a back-to-back Masters champion.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

ZELENSKYY’S response to JD VANCE:

Vice President, with all due respect, isn't taking part in negotiations between US, Ukraine, and Russia.

Otherwise he would understand the difference between 'scrap of land' and sovereign territory of Ukraine.

This important territory is priority from security perspective with strong defensive structures, fortifications, and where about 200,000 people currently live.

He would understand that Russia's goal is occupation of Eastern Ukraine in order to prepare a bridgehead for subsequent offensive actions.

So, before doing anything, we need to have detailed security guarantees. For now, Ukraine simply does not have security guarantees necessary to talk about other steps.

And of course, every square meter of our land is Ukrainian land and, with all due respect to any of our partners, it is definitely not theirs.

[👑 @Cairnlodge1]

Ex-SAS and Royal Irish Colonel Tim "Nails" Collins talks about the British Army failing our Allies in the Middle East.

[Devana 🇺🇦 @DevanaUkraine]

📜 THE PRICE OF A RUSSIAN SIGNATURE: THE 2003 DECEPTION

In 2003, Vladimir Putin publicly renounced any claims to Ukrainian territories and signed the Treaty on the Ukrainian-Russian State Border. At the time, he personally assured the world that this agreement definitively closed all territorial issues between the two nations. It was presented as a cornerstone of long-term peace and mutual respect for sovereignty.

⚠️ A LESSON IN PERJURY

Fast forward to the present, and those same signatures have been trampled by the very man who set them. This history of broken treaties—from the Budapest Memorandum to the 2003 Border Treaty—serves as a grim reminder that a Russian promise is only as strong as the paper it’s written on, which is to say, worthless.

Can anyone in their right mind ever trust Russia again? To believe a Russian official today is not diplomacy; it is a clinical detachment from reality. History has taught us that for the Kremlin, "negotiation" is merely a pause to sharpen the knife.

[Robert Lyman 🇺🇦 @robert_lyman]

Fascinating letter in @Telegraph from Airey Neave’s family today.

Perhaps this lead to what the Government must surely have been hoping to avoid, a case of unintended consequences? Let’s hope so. The government’s dreadful, vindictive, one-sided, terrorist rewarding, victim blaming and history-rewriting bill may actually come back to bite them if it allows, thorough the courts, for Neave’s killers and many other murderers like them to finally face justice. @williams_rje

[Today I Learned @TodayiLearrned]

The history of the United States of America 🇺🇸

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Let me explain something to the MAGA crowd, because clearly someone needs to.

They seem to think NATO is cosmic room service. You pick up the phone, say “hello, we’re having a bit of a war here,” and thirty-one countries march to your rescue. A continental Uber for military adventures.

That is not how it works.
Article 5 is a mutual defense clause. The clue is in the word mutual. And it has been triggered exactly once in NATO’s entire history. After September 11. When America was attacked. Not Europe. America.

Every NATO member showed up. They went to Afghanistan. They fought. They bled. They died. In America’s war. On America’s behalf.

Now imagine they hadn’t.
Over 1,100 allied soldiers died in Afghanistan. British, Canadian, German, Danish, Polish. And yes, even Ukrainian soldiers, who had no NATO obligation whatsoever. Gone. Without them, those are American names on those graves. Sons from Ohio. Fathers from Georgia. Kids from Nebraska who never came home.

Then there is the money. NATO allies spent over 100 billion dollars on a war that started on American soil. Without that, Washington pays every cent. On top of the 2 to 3 trillion the war already cost.

And without allied bases across Europe and Central Asia, American supply lines collapse entirely. Without British forces in Helmand and Canadians in Kandahar, the Taliban reconstitutes in three years instead of ten. The gaps get filled one way. More American deployments. More American coffins arriving at Dover.

Afghanistan was bloody. But NATO took the hit. Without them, every single one of those casualties would have had an American name.

Trump called allies like these losers. Suckers.

If you are a certain kind of broken person, that probably makes sense to you. But for the rest of us, what those soldiers did has a different name. Honor. The bond between men who have been in the same dirt, under the same fire. Between Brits and Americans, Frenchmen and Norwegians, Canadians and Danes. Not a diplomatic relationship. A blood bond. Brotherhood forged in places most people will never see and cannot imagine.

In that culture, you do not mock a fallen ally. You do not sneer at the dead. It is the lowest thing a human being can do. Trump did it to a standing ovation.

If you are a MAGA supporter travelling to NATO countries, understand this. There are no friendly pats on the back waiting for you. No one will buy you a beer. The governments who share your worldview sit in Minsk, Moscow and Pyongyang. Brutal dictatorships where journalists disappear, elections are theatre and dissent is a medical condition treated in basements. Not London. Not Paris. Not Rome, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin or Ottawa.

You have abandoned the open societies, the free press, the rule of law, the places where people actually want to live. You traded the best of civilization for a very small, very dark room. Frankly, it serves you right.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[LBC @LBC]

'I'm getting a bit sick of the abuse!'

Following Donald Trump's newest attack on Britain, @IainDale gives the President a little history lesson.

[BBC Newsnight @BBCNewsnight]

“We’re dealing with a President who is a narcissist and a bully… a rebuke of some kind is necessary”

Broadcaster and journalist David Dimbleby says a US State Visit by King Charles “is a misuse of the King” and the UK is “giving Trump more than he deserves”.

#Newsnight

[UTV Live News @UTVNews]

An object left at Lurgan police station on Monday night was a “crude, but viable” explosive device, PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson confirms

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

The Ukrainian people and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Professor Dag Øistein Endsjø of the University of Oslo officially nominated the Ukrainian people and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. As a university professor, he holds the formal right to submit nominations. His argument: by defending their democracy against Russian aggression, the Ukrainian people have helped preserve peace across Europe.

The nomination is not just about Zelensky as an individual. It recognizes an entire nation that has been resisting occupation, violence, and repression since 2014, and especially since the full-scale invasion of 2022.

[Jeffrey Dudgeon MBE @JeffDudgeon]

Chagos court ruling. Stermer government increasingly trapped by judicial decisions. The irony.

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

The video shows Marco Rubio first saying that “Ukraine is not America’s war,” and then older video showing him explaining how “America promised to defend Ukraine in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons.”

Rubio has become a prime example of the MAGA cult mentality. He has compromised his own principles in order to follow the cult leader.

Rubio is now wearing shoes that do not fit, yet he is too afraid to admit it.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

When I travel outside of Ukraine, I get daily intelligence updates online. This morning, I was briefed that U.S. military facilities in the Middle East and the Gulf region were photographed by Russian satellites in the interests of Iran.

On March 24th, they imaged the U.S.–UK joint military facility on Diego Garcia located in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. They also captured pictures of Kuwait International Airport and parts of the infrastructure of the Greater Burgan oil field. On March 25th, they took pictures of the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The Shaybah oil and gas field in Saudi Arabia, İncirlik Air Base in Türkiye, and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar were all imaged on March 26th.

There are no Ukrainian facilities on this list. But who is helping whom when sanctions are lifted from an aggressor that earns daily revenue and provides intelligence for strikes against American, Middle Eastern, UK, and U.S.–UK bases and so on?

When surveillance is carried out over facilities in Ukraine, we always understand that they must be protected, since plans are in motion to destroy them – energy and water infrastructure, military facilities, and so on. Everyone knows that repeated reconnaissance indicates preparations for strikes. How can sanctions be eased if this is what the Russians are doing?

There must be pressure on the aggressor. And lifting sanctions is certainly not pressure. It looks strange. Sanctions are being lifted, while the aggressor is providing intelligence to strike facilities, including those of the countries that are discussing or have already lifted sanctions.

From my conversation with journalists (3/3).

[D.Radka, #NAFO 🇨🇿🤝🇺🇦 @DakdaR22]

"We forced Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, and strategic bombers..
We promised to protect Ukraine from Russia.
We made Ukraine vulnerable.

So yes,this is our war."

- Bill Clinton
🫡

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

About 3 years ago, Russia received “shaheds” from the Iranian regime. These are drones designed for the low-cost destruction of the expensive critical infrastructure targets. Iran taught Russia how to launch them and gave it the technology to produce them. Russia then upgraded them. And now we have clear evidence that Iranian “shaheds” used in the region contain Russian components.

So what is happening around Iran today is not a faraway war for us – because of the cooperation between Russia and Iran. And we do not believe we have the right to be indifferent – even if we are separated from human suffering or shared danger by an ocean, however big and beautiful, or by anything else. Ballistic missiles can strike at thousands of kilometers. Drones can do the same. But if evil wins, the evolution of war will cross any distance on earth – no ocean will help, no desert, no mountains. That is why it is worth helping protect life.

The regimes in Russia and Iran are brothers in hatred – and that is why they are brothers in weapons. And we want regimes built on hatred to never win – in anything.

From my address to the Parliament of the United Kingdom (2/7)

[Meanwhile in Ukraine @MeanwhileInUA]

Ukraine did not begin in 1991. And this war did not begin in 2022.

This 1-minute video runs from Kyivan Rus through empire, Soviet rule, and independence to explain one simple truth: Russia keeps trying to deny Ukraine the right to exist, and Ukraine keeps refusing to disappear.

For Ukrainians, history is not the past. It is the wound they still have to defend.