#Russia-Ukraine war

#Russia-Ukraine war

Speaking ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion, Johnson suggested the West could 'flip a switch' in Putin's thinking by demonstrating military commitment, emphasizing the significance of timely action for global stability. He said the UK and its allies were working within a 'coalition of the willing' framework, but argued deployment should not be delayed until after a peace agreement, inviting readers to consider their role in shaping future decisions.

A top Russian military official has been taken to hospital after being shot in Moscow, state media reported. Lt Gen Vladimir Alekseyev was shot several times on the stairwell of his apartment on Friday by an unknown gunman in the north-west of the city and remains in critical condition, according to early reports. Alekseyev is a deputy director of Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, a unit in the defence ministry known for organising covert operations abroad, including assassinations, sabotage and espionage.

UNESCO expressed "serious concern" about recent Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities "that have caused damage to civilian infrastructures, including heritage sites" in Odesa, Lviv, and Kyiv.

The Time reported that Russia used chemical weapons 6,540 time in 2025 and since the start of the war on 24 February 2022 they have been used more than 9,000 times. European and Ukrainian officials have said Russia has used chloropicrin which is a choking agent, this has not been used since World War I. The Time reported, "The concern, voiced quietly in allied capitals, is that a prolonged or stalemated war in Ukraine could tempt the Kremlin to resort to more dangerous battlefield weapons."

But the echoes of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin's imperial land grab of the waiter's own country are clear to him. They're crazy. The pair of them. For those paying more attention in Ukraine, amid Russian airstrikes, the freezing cold and power cuts, the correspondences are not only clear, but often alarming even if for now Trump has switched from sabre rattling to trying to rationalise a vague and incoherent deal he thinks he struck for the territory with Nato.

This morning, the French Navy boarded and searched an oil tanker from Russia, subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag,

Donald Trump is threatening to take over Greenland, the territory of a Nato ally, possibly by military force, as Vladimir Putin is trying to take over Ukraine. Even if he doesn't actually do it, this is a new era: a post-western world of illiberal international disorder. The task now for liberal democracies in general, and Europe in particular, is twofold: to see this world as it is and to work out what the hell we're going to do about it.

Putin, confident in his strategic calculus that the West would provide only token assistance to Ukraine, which would quickly fold under the weight and violence of Russian military might, fatefully launched his attack days later with disastrous consequences for Russia. The country he leads is now even poorer, more isolated, brittle, and dependent (on China) than before. Putin grossly underestimated Ukrainian will, overestimated the competence of his own military and intelligence apparatus, and misjudged Western cohesion.