Remarkable video report from Pokrovsk featuring drones w heavy bombs, in one case assembled and launched by a Ukrainian 18yo www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-fr...

Not subtle + legally questionable...

UK 🇬🇧 Ministry of Defence (MOD) image of Russian spy ship Yantar, presumably in or near UK waters. Note that the ROV (remote operated vehicle, a deep-sea robot) A-frame is deployed (red). It’s doing something on the seabed. Also two new radomes (yellow)

Watching a rare speech from def sec John Healey in 9 Downing St. A special outing from Labour's safest pair of hands in an attempt to short up messy budget pitch rolling, justifying boost to defence budgets. "We're getting on with the job we were elected to do," he says.

A row out of nowhere, a politicised leak, a sudden double resignation. A coup from the inside too? www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...

On another platform this user is apparently the leading poster on the Huntingdon train stabbings...

Tory spy case accusations backfiring... Rishi Sunak was sent a copy of first witness statement in the spy case says Jonathan Powell + Matthew Collins. Powell says he 'played no role' in subsequent evidence when in govt

Jimmy Buffett's deathless 'It's 5 o'clock Somewhere" ?

Waiting for the Collins statements due at about 5pm from No10 We've gone from Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 through The Who's 5.15 to....

For 28 years, NPR’s Tom Bowman has held a Pentagon press pass. Today, he is handing it in.

So Nо10 will publish the Collins witness statements in the China spy case. Clearly Downing St is confident of its position. Looks like the defence will be that Collins could not go beyond first witness statement, given under the Tories The "substantive evidence" was given in Nov 2023, Starmer says

An Iranian designed Shahed 136 drone is unveiled at the Speakers House in parliament. It has been decommissioned, guests are assured...

*Three* witness statements were provided to the CPS for the China 'spy' trial by Matthew Collins, UK dep NSA, Ruth Anderson tells the Lords. None sufficient to allow the trial to go ahead though Michael Gove asks if the Collins statements will be made public. Anderson ducks the question

Why did the CPS think it was reasonable to charge Cash and Berry with spying in April 2024 but said it had to drop them in Sep 2025 b/c of a ruling in another spy case On any reasonable reading that judgment is lowering or widening the definition of enemy...

Manchester synagogue terrorist was bail for alleged rape at time of the attack www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

UK has deployed counter drone systems to Denmark ahead of this week's EU and EPC summits in Copenhagen, defence sec John Healey says at a Labour conference fringe

Do you have information of interest to MI6? Now they are advertising that you can contact them securely online (what used to happen before?) Instructions at the end + let's hope they have a good spam filter... youtu.be/xkOUH8d8UQY?...

Met police operating live facial recognition outside Brixton tube. Three people picked up since 11.30 a sergeant tells me

British_political_decision_making_V3(FINAL)_USETHISONE.png

You'd have thought this would have happened earlier...

If nato’s interception ratio is 4 out of 19, can you imagine how they would handle an average night in Ukraine with 700 air targets in the span of 5 hours

Nineteen Russian drones cross the border into Poland says PM Donald Tusk as Warsaw asks for consultation with Nato allies. Meanwhile a Russian diplomat tells the RIA accusations of an incursion "groundless". No doubt Donald Trump will know who to believe... www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

War is not abstract. There are killers and victims. They all have names. They all have lives. This story cites two IDF snipers and the four Palestinians shot dead on one day, some trying to retrieve the bodies of other victims. Not easy reading ---> www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

This is correct. UK, Qatar and US Marine core + most of EU use probe. USAF (mostly) and IDF use flying broom. It’s physically impossible for the UK to refuel an Israeli Aircraft en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_...

No RAF involvement in refuelling Israeli jets that bombed Qatar. The RAF Voyager nearby was engaged in exercises with the Qataris. Brit sources say that UK refueling method (probe and drogue) is incompatible with Israeli fighters

Boris Johnson earned £5.1 in speech fees after leaving govt yet claimed £182k of taxpayer cash for staff, leaked files suggest. Nice work if you can get it. Extraordinary from Guardian Investigations ---> www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Why is Instagram constantly showing me this....?

As a veteran of charting these things, that felt pretty swift and drama-free as Cabinet reshuffles go

Deadline day latest: changes to Starmer's squad into tonight

Rescue workers searching for survivors after a Russian strike on a residential block in eastern Kyiv where at least 12 were killed overnight

'It would be a terrible loss’: Ukrainian frontline troops sceptical of ceding land ---> www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

that went well

More pre-Alaska build up - aka world domination, then and now Tilsit 1807 Napoleon - Alexander I Arguing over another country's city. Something things never change Source - The Great Game, Peter Hopkirk

The pianist and the air raid alarm. Kyiv.

Kyiv. Now

Now Trump promises there will be "very serious consequences" if Putin does not agree to a ceasefire, without spelling them out - most likely secondary sanctions on oil exports to China etc.

Trump suggests there could be a second, tri-lateral meeting with himself Putin and Zelenskyy "almost immediately" if Alaska goes well - though he concedes "there may be no second meeting" if "I didn't get the answers that we have to have". Would be stunned if Putin agrees to that...

Trump is astonishingly blasé about reports of Russian hacking of the US federal court system. Says he might bring it up with Putin on Friday in Alaska, but he he sounds entirely unconcerned. "They hack in, they're good at it, we're good at it, we're better at it actually".

The stuff that, 15 years ago, would have been a screaming 72-point all-caps headline — and now appears in the sixth paragraph, almost as an aside www.wsj.com/world/russia...

Russian raiders on the loose in Donbas? Or the beginnings of a breakthrough? Kremlin efforts to convince the US that Ukraine is losing? "We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war" - Zelenskyy Maps compare Friday to Monday Source: Deepstate Ukraine war maps

Where do you go with this? Maybe when the US gets invaded the people have to have a referendum to decide whether to defend themselves, perhaps it's in the constitution somewhere...

European leaders - UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and EU - make a hopeful list of key points for Trump tonight ahead of Putin summit before he gives away more of Ukraine.. 🇬🇧 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇵🇱 🇪🇺

Radioactive water released from nuclear bomb base into sea near Glasgow because Royal Navy failed to maintain 1,500 water pipes, says watchdog - @robedwards5.bsky.social @severincarrell.bsky.social exclusive 👇🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🐟🌊 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This morning, long-range drones from the SBU’s Special Operations Center “A” struck a logistics hub storing Shahed drones and foreign components in Kzyl-Yul, Tatarstan. The facility, about 1,300 km from Ukraine, was hit directly, causing a fire, according to the SBU.

"What about the Sudetenland, Mr Putin?" "That'll do nicely; now I can consider a ceasefire, Mr Trump" Source: @thestudyofwar.bsky.social briefing Aug 8

Perhaps Trump has quietly annexed Scotland (apart from the pipers) b/c rather than Starmer hosting Trump in the UK it appeared from that press point to be the other way round. Wide ranging Trump remarks w Starmer doing his best to interject on Gaza, migration... www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Trump (after the bagpipes stopped) says he is going to reduce the 50 day deadline he gave to Putin on Jul 16 to agree to a ceasefire before imposing secondary sanctions to 'a lesser number' because 'I think I already know the answer'...

"Overwhelming evidence" US nuclear weapons are now back in the UK. CND calls for Starmer to make a statement to parliament. MoD says it will not confirm or deny the presence of nukes at a given location. The Cold War is back ---> www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

I've spent this week in and around Calais and Dunkirk, reporting on the migrant situation. Not sure I hold out much hope for the Starmer's latest one in, one out initiative. these are people escaping war and persecution + want to better their lives --> www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Journalists theoretically waiting in line a few moments ago for Mark Rutte's press conference at the NATO summit, but in fact for Donald Trump's that is expected afterwards