Mark 🇺🇦 🇬🇧

🤩 The contrast with the goose-stepping in #Moscow is hard to miss! An unbelievable address from #Zelensky Reminds me of Olivier playing Henry V before #Agincourt except that #zelensky wrote his own lines #Ukraine #UkraineWar

I’ve just tried to send £200 to Mexico but @remitly stopped the transfer for security checks. This included a call back from someone, allegedly from the company, who started asking me how much my salary was 😳 Completely inappropriate and impertinent. Last time I use them.

@remitly I have just tried to send £200 to Mexico and was asked to verify the transaction. Someone, allegedly from your company and with an unintelligible Indian accent started asking for my salary details!! Completely inappropriate. Please explain why this is acceptable?

@IBallantyn @blagden_david One for you @afneil We have been warned! Please pass this on. 🙏

Once the UK Govt drank the elixir of drones - a way to do without those expensive Type 26 warships, their seemingly too-hard-to-recruit people and costly weapons - and the Ukrainians 'beat a navy without a navy', it seized upon the 'hybrid navy' as the latest 'silver bullet' to avoid boosting defence properly. Yes, it is essential to have autonomous systems, but to reinforce the Royal Navy, not as a 'hybrid' means to dodge creating a proper fighting fleet. The Black Sea is not the Atlantic, a vast, mean treacherous ocean, and warships still matter. The Northern Fleet is the apex of Russian naval power, not a confined lesser force like the Black Sea Fleet. It is a tough mother that will eat you alive if it can. Norway is to get five T26s in some kind of joint operational arrangement with UK, but what if its govt decides one day that it does not agree with our defence and foreign policy? No can play UK...you are on your own! UK govts must stop contracting out sovereign defence needs. Six not eight RN T26s mean only two at sea at any one time and not until mid to late 2030s, if we are lucky. In war six is too few to sustain an effective presence in the Atlantic or absorb losses. Unless the UK thinks it can prevail with a tiny fleet too precious to deploy? But, there are the five cheaper Type 31s? Not an ASW ship, no matter its virtues. Australia is buildingng 6 x T26s - plus will have 11 Mogami frigates - and Canada is building 15 x T26s. More than the UK, the nation that created the alleged world's supposed greatest ASW ship, the as yet not in service T26. Until the UK Govt places an order for more T26s to replace those going to Norway then it is again failing on defence. The UK should actually build at least 12 T26s for the RN. And not just as a means to try and buy votes in Scotland with job creation, but because it is what the UK needs to be secure...and its navy needs a heck of a lot of other stuff too. Pronto. Stop being so timid and pathetic on defence @GOVUK

@Matteodeluca95 Thanks Matteo! Very helpful. Also very plausible re Kiev 🤦‍♂️

@MarkHW1 Hi Mark, unfortunately only unverified reports. Kiev denied it as you would expect given the implications.

Thanks. Is there evidence for this?

This is sad but hardly a surprise, Lucy. It’s been on the cards since Trump’s re-election. From the moment that Ukraine tricked the US with fake intel that then made it into Russia hands, it was confirmed without any doubt which side they were on. That puts the US in direct conflict with the UK and Europe on broad issues of continental security, and risks the stability of the entire region. It is the natural development of what Washington has been doing for months

Love in the time of Gentleman's Relish

Great stuff from Nigel Biggar. This is not about jingoism but intellectual honesty: "William Wilberforce’s surname appears only momentarily on a street sign with no explanation given. And whereas the evils of slavery take up a large part of the first episode and some of the second, Britain’s unprecedented abolition of the slave trade and slavery, and its century-and-a-half’s worth of worldwide suppression of them, are allotted an offhand twenty-five seconds."

I have decided to escalate my complaint against the BBC over David Olusoga’s Empire. Its first response was dismissive and unsatisfactory. It misreported my argument, answered straw men of its own making, and failed to reckon seriously with the Corporation’s own standards of impartiality. This is no longer only a question about one tendentious programme. It is also a question about whether the BBC is willing to confront serious criticism honestly, accurately, and in the spirit of the editorial standards it expects others to respect. Read my account at The Biggar Picture: nigelbiggar.co.uk/p/why-im-escal…

Sky reporting Labour are planning £3.5bn of cuts to Defence this year - extraordinary, with war on two fronts. Of course, lifting the 2 child benefit cap has cost Labour circa £3bn. Politics is always about what you prioritise.

The future is already on the front line – and Ukraine is building it. These are our ground robotic systems. For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms – ground systems and drones. The occupiers surrendered, and the operation was carried out without infantry and without losses on our side. Ratel, TerMIT, Ardal, Rys, Zmiy, Protector, Volia, and our other ground robotic systems have already carried out more than 22,000 missions on the front in just three months. In other words, lives were saved more than 22,000 times when a robot went into the most dangerous areas instead of a warrior. This is about high technology protecting the highest value – human life. From the congratulatory address to the workers of Ukraine’s defense-industrial complex (2/3).

Remember, kids: Real Christianity in Ukraine is only when FSB-aligned Moscow priests openly preach the annihilation of Ukraine as a state to their parishes, receive illegal funding from the Kremlin, glorify Russian tsars, the “Russian world,” and Vladimir Putin, and bless a “holy war” against Ukraine. But when a Ukrainian church -- based in Ukraine and led by Ukrainians -- reconnects with its origins in the baptism of Rus’ in Kyiv in 988 A.D., revives traditional Ukrainian customs, speaks to Ukrainians in Ukrainian, popularizes Ukrainian historic legacy and promotes national renaissance and mutual support in a time of war -- that’s not Christianity. Don’t get it confused!

This UK government has retired two frigates, two assault ships and two minehunters to cut the fleet and its costs. This fleet and its poor ship availability is down to decisions of the present government.

MAGA calls Europe freeloaders. Here’s what they’re not telling you. ​1. Ramstein Air Base, the most important US military hub outside America, is built on German land provided rent-free, with Germany contributing hundreds of millions to its upkeep. The US couldn’t replace it anywhere in the world. 2. Every US military operation in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia flows through Ramstein. Lose it and US power projection in the Eastern Hemisphere is crippled. 3. The UK provides and maintains RAF Lakenheath used almost entirely by the US Air Force. Italy provides Aviano. Greece provides Souda Bay. Turkey provides Incirlik. European land. European infrastructure. American operations. 4. The US Sixth Fleet depends entirely on European ports for fuel and supplies. Souda Bay, Naples, 11 Greek ports. Without them the Sixth Fleet cannot operate in the Mediterranean or project power into the Middle East. 5. The majority of NATO’s intelligence and surveillance capacity is hosted on European soil and fed directly to the CIA, NSA and Pentagon. 6. Early warning radar at Fylingdales, UK. Missile tracking in Greenland. Norwegian monitoring stations near Russia. All dependent on European goodwill. 7. It would cost America MORE to bring the troops home than keep them here. European hosts subsidise roughly a third of all basing costs. 8. Europe is America’s largest arms customer. Stop buying American and part of their defence industry goes bankrupt. 9. The bases aren’t charity. They’re America using European soil, European money and European goodwill to project power across the world. 10. We’re not the freeloaders.

If Trump wanted NATO to go to war with him in Iran, maybe he shouldn't have threatened to invade and annex one ally, joked about making another 51st state, or irrationally slapped tariffs on them. He also should have asked for NATO's support before launching his war, not after.

@TomCotterillX So why loose your credibility by spreading rumours?

🚨BREAKING🚨 Unconfirmed reports from Israel have claimed a British vessel has been hit by an anti-ship missile from Lebanon by Hezbollah. Defences sources have confirmed HMS Dragon, a Royal Navy destroyer in the region, has NOT been attacked nor struck. I’m still trying to find out more information. More to follow, once I get it.

UPDATE: I’ve spoken to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) which monitors attacks on British vessels. They’ve confirmed they have recorded no such incident anywhere off the Lebanon coast and have said no British vessels have been attacked.

@VolodimirZelen1 Dude - stop spreading false rumours. Does your credibility no good

🚨 ⚓️ UN NAVIRE DE GUERRE BRITANNIQUE TOUCHÉ PAR LE HEZBOLLAH ! Un bâtiment de guerre de la Royal Navy aurait été pris pour un vaisseau israélien et touché par un missile ou drone du groupe terroriste libanais entre Chypre et le Liban. Il s’agit vraisemblablement du Dragon, un destroyer Type 45, déployé pour défendre Chypre en coopération avec la Marine Nationale et le porte avions Charles de Gaulle. Une pensée pour les marins britanniques et leurs familles ❤️🇬🇧

@AriFleischer I think you’re forgetting that. Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germsany and fought the evil ideology alone. You should be ashamed of yourself. Perhaps you should learn your history before revealing yourself to be such an ignoramus. .

When this is over, the western part of NATO will never be the same. Spain, England, France and Italy have sold us out, as they too often have a history of doing. Eastern European nations are the heart of NATO. They spend money on defense, know how to fight and love the US. France particularly deserves fault and blame. From supporting China and Russia at the UN to denying Americans overflight rights, they’re doing what they’ve always done - showing weakness, while cutting deals with terrorists. (The reason the US has a Marine Corps and Navy is unlike France, we refused to pay a ransom to the Barbary Pirates. France is always happy to cut a deal.) Wars have unintended consequences as nations show their true colors. NATO will never be the same, and Western European weakness and acquiescence is the cause.

@OlenaRohoza @MykhailoRohoza 👍 yes

Do you support Zelensky? 🇺🇦❤️‍🔥🧐💪 Yes or No? buymeacoffee.com/OlenaRohoza