Phil Caller

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

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.

Britain has limited means to fight back after years of underinvestment Read more 🔗 trib.al/HxBavEW

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

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.

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

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 youtu.be/adxGhAGxwiw

@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

Our own armed forces are currently a disaster. Sending that money to Ukraine is frankly criminal. The Royal Navy currently consists of 8 frigates, 9 submarines, 6 destroyers, and 2 carriers. Of these ships, only around 40% are operational. 7 Eurofighter squadrons are expected to fulfill the tasks for which 35 years ago the RAF fielded 40 squadrons. The army would struggle to put a force of 10,000 troops in the field if needed.

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.

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. theguardian.com/world/video/20…

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

But many don’t. Across the city, people are sharing photos of heated bricks in their apartments just to stay warm

I slept through the air alert last night, the wave of strikes that reportedly killed four people and injured many more. I haven’t had electricity since 6:30pm yesterday. For me it’s manageable: power banks, a head torch, and a camping stove for coffee, I still have heating.