Nice run-down from @russianforces.org on what we know and don't know about this failed test. Likely Sarmat. Could possibly be an SS-18, Russia's older heavy ICBM. open.substack.com/pub/russianf...

Colour probably indicates nitrates. Common in explosives and often a component in rocket propellant

Something happened in Yasnyy/Dombarovskiy. There is also a video and some NOTAMs t.me/militaryruss.... Looks like a failed ICBM launch. The color of this cloud doesn't look good. Not clear if it's Sarmat. There are other options: SS-18 or SS-19. Wait for more information.

Not great* that EU-UK defense fund talks break down the same day Trump looks to be making an end-run on a deal with Putin on Ukraine. *Understatement of the year. www.ft.com/content/22db...

The opposite of what we did for the Baltic States after WWII.

US de jure recognition of Russia's effort to change borders by force would be contrary to the Helsinki Final Act and undercut a key tenet of post-WWII European security.

If your starting point is that you are more afraid of escalation than you are concerned about Russian sabotage, then you have effectively decided that you aren't willing to run the necessary risks to deter Russian grey-zone activity.

"Europe does not want war with a nuclear-armed Russia and so has to figure out how to respond in a way that deters Moscow but does not cross any Kremlin red lines." Europe needs to change its attitude. We need to be willing to run greater risks. Moscow will only be deterred if it fears escalation.

"By June [2025], Russia had expanded industrial capacity to assemble about 2,900 cruise and ballistic missiles per year, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency." And what happens to that capacity if there is a cease-fire in Ukraine?

"Europe does not want war with a nuclear-armed Russia and so has to figure out how to respond in a way that deters Moscow but does not cross any Kremlin red lines." Europe needs to change its attitude. We need to be willing to run greater risks. Moscow will only be deterred if it fears escalation.

Takaichi joins the large group of leaders who find out that having a nice meeting with Trump doesn't mean he will lift a finger to help them if he doesn't think it serves his personal interests.

This is true for the transatlantic defense relationship. Without shared values, it is more difficult to see a US pledge to risk nuclear war for distant NATO allies as credible.

Rachel Reeves

My taxes bring all the boys to the yard. And they're like "this is bad approach to fiscal policy".

Rachel Reeves

Surprise!

Is Driscoll working with Rubio, or around him? Hard to say.

Guess who isn't there? Europe.

"I don't know what I'm doing. As usual!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!"

This is the kind of thing you would do if you had no idea how to achieve economic growth. It's a stunningly stupid move but only one of many that the government has been making over the last 10 months or so. All those years in opposition and they have no idea what to do while in office. Shameful

I fear that a lot of elements on European defense (including the nuclear component) will be viewed as politically impossible until the moment they become absolutely necessary, by which point it will be too late.

Europe has a foreign policy problem. It does need to engage in these talks and doing so as 7 or 8 leaders just doesn't work. It makes it easy to work around Europe. So the EU should pick a special envoy - perhaps the fmr Finnish president Niinisto or a Draghi type to engage on behalf of Europe.

Any government with an ounce of shame would be completely humiliated by that second sentence. An utter shambles.

Every time the Trump admin does this, US credibility crumbles a little more in the eyes of its European allies. If the latter were not so heavily invested in the United States, US credibility would have evaporated by now.

The US either wants to force this capitulation on Ukraine, or is deliberately setting the deal up for failure, giving it the excuse to walk away. Even if it backtracks, Putin will be emboldened. In any event, European security is on the line and only Europe can take responsibility for its future.

At least Munich had a strategic rationale based on Anglo-French weakness and need for time to rearm in the face of immediate escalation to a Europe-wide war. The US can easily support Ukraine and is arguably an effective cost-imposition strategy vs Russia, even in nakedly instrumental terms.

I'm not a big fan of the Munich analogy, but this is real Munich stuff -- probably worse. www.ft.com/content/f411...

For bigger profits, at least for Trump and his cabal.

It's even worse. The US is making a profit on the war right now, and apparently they are willing to give up that in order to force through this Munich thing.

I'm not a big fan of the Munich analogy, but this is real Munich stuff -- probably worse. www.ft.com/content/f411...

This is key. Europe's courting of Trump has bought only short-term benefits at the cost of any belief that EUR will stand up for Ukraine's and its own interests when the chips are down. Now here we are.

The Witkoff-Dmitriev plan is even more amateurish than I imagined. It favours Russia although does contain elements that Russia will not like. Premature leaking means that it is no more than work in progress. Here is an annotated version (This is free). open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...?

I'd translate "resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation" [presumably between NATO and Russia?] as NATO steps back from Russia's borders and the U.S. steps back from NATO so Russia can escalate....

Point 4 of Trump's 28-point peace plan: "A dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation..." Mediated by the US! The US is a member of NATO (the last time I checked).

What's Europe's plan -- another joint transatlantic trip to Washington to try to talk Trump out of it and upping support to Ukraine to diminish the potential impact of the withdrawal of US aid/US leverage?

"The draft plan wld require Ukraine to cede the remainder of the eastern Donbas region — including land currently under Kyiv control — & cut the size of its armed forces by half. "... it also calls for Ukr to abandon key categories of weaponry & wld include the rollback of US military assistance"

Story here with exclusive new details: The Trump admin and Russian officials have drawn up a sweeping new proposal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine that envisions major concessions from Kyiv and urged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept it... via @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/2353...

This is also a straightforward dynamic in Moscow. Negotiations are ~ free to engage with until an agreement is reached, and people inevitably read into them more than is there in a way they can shape. They will *always* engage in negotiations, even if privately under no expectation they are close

I wrote to Garber: I ask you to take immediate action to sever Harvard's ties to Larry Summers. His conduct violates every norm of decency and faculty conduct imaginable. And it is all there in black and white. For the sake of his students and mentees, past, present and future, please do not delay.

Have to say that my pride in Harvard's stance against the Trump administration will dissolve if they do not do what Elizabeth Warren says and stat. 👇

I simply do not understand how the govt can simultaneously believe (1) they don’t have enough political capital to breach the manifesto on tax and (2) they have enough to political capital to pick an unwinnable fight with their own MPs on immigration.

If the Parliamentary Labour Party doesn't rebel over this, then I'm not sure what the point of Labour is, really.

A sufficient buildup to make it difficult for Trump to back down, but not enough to be sure of toppling Maduro, without any legal justification or the hint of a plan for the day after. What could go wrong?

This story portrays an admin that effectively has no nuclear strategy to speak of, either on arms control or modernization. With a deficit of top-level expertise on nuclear issues, the US is just moving forward under the momentum of existing modernization and toward New START expiry.

This story portrays an admin that effectively has no nuclear strategy to speak of, either on arms control or modernization. With a deficit of top-level expertise on nuclear issues, the US is just moving forward under the momentum of existing modernization and toward New START expiry.

They could make it 100 years and Farage would just say it needs to be 120 years. When will they learn?

We're half a step away from countries just turning up at the White House with suitcases of non-sequential $100 bills.

I think the most likely scenario now is that Trump unleashes a barrage of illegal strikes against Venezuela, which changes the square root of nothing in terms of ousting Maduro. Trump will then resist Rubio et al. in escalating further, because he knows it could end up with US boots on the ground.

Friends don't help friends commit crimes.