Phil Caller

News & Documentary Self-Shooting PD / Camera Op / Editor
Dyslexic. Former electrician. Freelance camera tinkerer.
Visual thinker. Mostly field-based.

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

@GigaBeers Best practice for copper pipe buried in the ground is to sleeve it in a plastic ducting & insulation. But if that’s not possible without re-soldering everything again, you can wrap it in self-amalgamating (self-fusing) tape as a practical alternative

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

That’s the absurdity: billion-dollar, 20th-century hubris parked in the open, within reach of cheap 21st-century warfare

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Watching B-1s being loaded up at RAF Fairford for operations against Iran, you realise they’ve learned nothing from Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb. In 2026, a handful of cheap FPVs could potentially cripple the crown jewels of the US bomber fleet.

[Sky News @SkyNews]

Britain has limited means to fight back after years of underinvestment

Read more 🔗 https://t.co/8P4MKYtjux

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Both assumed today would always look like yesterday, until it doesn’t

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Dubai is marketed as a tax-free paradise in the desert, insulated from the region’s forever wars.

People held the same assumption about Beirut in the early 1970s the ‘Paris of the Middle East’ cash-rich, packed with tourists, and convinced it sat above Cold War proxy conflicts.

[Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 @bayraktar_1love]

Dubai: The aftermath on the ground following a new wave of Iranian strikes.

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

One thing many people don’t realise about the war in Ukraine is that an estimated 80,000 Ukrainians are still reported missing killed, captured, or unaccounted for. Tens of thousands of families are still waiting for someone who never came home https://t.co/oyrZrBJx2J

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

@54JohnBull Utter nonsense. Right now Ukraine is fighting Russia so the rest of Europe doesn’t have to. If support is cut and Ukraine falls, Europe doesn’t get peace, it gets a larger, battle hardened Russia on its eastern flank, operating on a war-economy footing & emboldened by victory

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

When the buses arrived, you could feel the tension, hope, disbelief, joy. Some families received the news they’d been waiting for, others did not. An estimated 80,000 Ukrainians remain reported missing, lost on the frontline or in captivity.

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

On 5 February, 157 Ukrainian prisoners of war were reunited with their families, one of the few tangible outcomes of last week’s US-brokered talks. I filmed the exchange in Chernihiv for The Guardian. https://t.co/j3AGb7yZRD

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Air raid sirens, then explosions, another noisy night here in Kyiv. These peace negotiations don’t look like de-escalation. They look more like the Kremlin playing for time

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

My morning ritual like that of many ordinary Ukrainians and journalists here is waking up and checking Telegram to see what was attacked overnight

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Some Russian drones are now controlled via Starlink, giving Moscow cheap, long-range, satellite-guided attack drones with real-time control. After talks with Starlink, Ukrainian government spokespeople said all terminals will be disconnected except verified, registered units

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Russian forces have reportedly carried out dozens of drone strikes in the past 24 hours targeting civilian vehicles along the strategic Dnipro–Pokrovsk road, east of Pavlohrad. These deep strike drones seem to be guided in real time by Starlink. Footage circulating on Telegram

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

This is not a technical fault but the result of sustained Russian strikes on civilian energy infrastructure across Ukraine

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

In my area of Kyiv, electricity has been off for roughly 18 hours at a time, briefly restored overnight from 12:15 AM to just before 7 AM, with the next window expected around midnight.

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Crisis averted, for now. Europe / UK can return to its default setting: outsourcing its security, avoiding difficult strategic decisions, and deferring independence, until the next external shock, already visible like the headlights of an oncoming train

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Much of the UK’s energy infrastructure is over 50 years old, with nowhere near enough redundancy or backup capacity.

[Phil Caller @Phil_Caller]

Watching these attacks in Kyiv, I can’t help thinking: could Britain cope? Energy infrastructure would be the obvious target. One substation goes down and the knock-on effects are huge, as we’ve already seen, even Heathrow isn’t immune.