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I had a sense of déjà vu with Russia’s decision to kick out six alleged British spies in August. After the Salisbury nerve agent attack in March 2018, I sweated for a week in Moscow, waiting to hear if I’d be kicked out in the diplomatic tit-for-tat. Russia’s announcement was timed to embarrass Keir Starmer as he travelled to Washington last week for talks with Joe Biden. It was also a blow to the critically small pool of Russia experts in the British government. In the hostile goldfish bowl of UK-Russia relations, both sides are constantly on the lookout for ‘undeclared’ intelligence officers (i.e. spies) working covertly by masquerading as diplomatically accredited staff in the respective Embassies. We kicked out the Russian Defence Attaché earlier this year. The Russians run a huge ‘guess-the-spy’ game around the clock, with all manner of covert and overt surveillance. I was regularly followed by Russian intelligence, including a fun chase round central Moscow on the day that the post-Salisbury expulsions were announced, with my kids in the back of the car.   Russia’s domestic intelligence service the FSB gleefully revealed details about the six expelled British diplomats and their inexplicable jogging habits around Moscow’s third ring road or curious meetings in towns close to Moscow. In a strange departure from the convention of keeping the details out of the public gaze, the names and photos of the expelled Brits have been flying around social media.  That’s why Russia’s Ambassador Andrei Keilin was hauled into the Foreign Office for a tongue lashing. But there was a big dose of ‘nothing to see here’ in the revelations. Russia hasn’t caught anyone red-handed, not now, or recently, even though they’ve laid on the charm with honey-traps and kompromat. Yes, both sides work hard to gather secrets; the Head of MI6 recently called on Russians to spy for Britain.   The relationship between diplomacy and intelligence is symbiotic; UK and Russian intelligence do have ‘declared’ channels to talk when they really have to.  But the Russians are winning in the real ground game of espionage and diplomacy anyway. Much like in war, having an edge can come down to a bigger supply of the right people with the right skills in the right places. And Russia has a significant advantage over us in the number of staff they employ in the UK compared to our outfit in Moscow. It’s quite simple. Russia only employees Russians at its Embassy. Most staff at the British Embassy in Moscow are also Russian, because of the Foreign Office’s model of employing less expensive local staff. That’s a good model in friendly nations. Less so in Moscow where the FSB has been known to harass locally employed Russian staff.  When I left Moscow in February 2019, almost 90 per cent of the staff across the Russia and British Embassies were Russian.  Add to that, a community of over 150,000 Russians in the UK against a small number of British expats in Russia.   There are seldom more than a few dozen diplomatically accredited Brits at our Embassy Moscow.  After Salisbury, the loss of twenty-three colleagues cleaned out the political wing of the Embassy, leaving a few people like me, with mere months left on their postings, in a two for the price of one deal. Kicking out six political officers in August will have put a bit dent in the Embassy’s ability to function again. Where those officers liked to go jogging in Moscow is really a secondary issue. I took a lunchtime run from the Embassy once surrounded by a crowd of twenty agents, in one of the weirder stunts they pulled on me. The point is, it will take months for replacement staff to get diplomatic visas, if they ever do. So, this is really about degrading the UK’s ability to have a functioning Embassy in Moscow. Russia plays this game better than us.  Fewer Brits in Moscow, means less insight for London policy makers and weaker advice being put to David Lammy. And the UK struggles to generate officers with the right skills to fill the jobs we have at the Embassy in Moscow, as Russia expertise has been hollowed out over the last three decades. The Foreign Office has a poor record in ensuring political staff arrive in Moscow with the Russian language and diplomatic skills they need. I saw no real thought put into a strategic workforce plan to maintain a pipeline of Russia expertise over the longer-term. British universities are slowly cutting back on Russian language degrees.  When I arrived in Moscow in July 2014, the Foreign Office spoke often about the need to ‘rebuild’ after a period of post-Cold War disinvestment. This challenge has yet to be gripped with any vigour or purpose. Russia, on the other hand, has no shortage of English-speaking staff queuing up to work in London. They are generally better qualified, as their Foreign Ministry invests seriously in its Diplomatic Academy and runs a feeder Diplomatic University, which some people call ‘spy school’.   There is a wider problem, too. In recent days, Russian military bloggers have taken great delight in circulating what they claim to be detailed organisation charts of the ‘massive’ Foreign Office’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate (EECAD), following an FSB information hack. But in my experience, most staff in this Whitehall Russia machine lack real experience of working on Russia or with Russians. So, Starmer and Lammy are chest-beating their way around the world, reliant on advice from kids in London and a barely staffed Potemkin Embassy in Moscow. Little wonder they’ve brought no new ideas of their own to the table. Meanwhile, Russia is gaining friends in the global south with a systematic and well organised diplomatic charm offensive, as war rages in Ukraine. By putting insufficient emphasis on our diplomatic capabilities, the UK has rendered itself a global bit part player on Russia behind the US, China, India, France and Germany. We need a better plan for Russia expertise if we really want to outsmart Putin. This article was published by the Spectator on 20 September 2024.

I'm repeating below an article I wrote on X on 13 September, while Keir Starmer was fruitlessly asking Joe Biden for permission to use Storm Shadow missiles in Russia. The argument still holds true in my opinion, and I elaborated a little during my interview yesterday with Alex Chrstoforou and Alexander Mercouris on their Duran Podcast. I've also copied her my recent interview with the very nice Kelley Vlahos, the Senior Advisor and Editorial Director at Responsible Statecraft in the US. In this interview, filmed before Starmer's arrival in Washington, I correctly predict that he won't get the permission he sought to take the world closer to World War III. Thank God I was right (for now)! 13September 2024 The first confirmed use of ATACMS, Storm Shadow or Scalp inside of Russia would provoke a Russian military strike against a western military target. We should step back from this new missile crisis and push for a negotiated ceasefire. When Sir Keir Starmer meets Joe Biden today he will be seeking weapons free to use Storm Shadow missiles inside of Russia. That comes as no surprise. Britain has been militarily the most hawkish adversary of Russia in the Ukraine proxy war. It would, however, be a mistake for Biden to cede to Britain's demands, because it will provoke a military escalation against those NATO states that engage in the use of western weapons in Russia, including the US. Russia has warned consistently of the risk of escalation and, therefore, retaliation. Yes, Russia has been using its weapons against cities in Ukraine since the war started. But from their perspective, the war in Ukraine has remained largely a war between two opposing sides, even if each side has received materiel support from other countries. It doesn't matter if you disagree. That is how the Russians frame their rules of engagement. They would view any use of western weapons, that rely of US systems and #intelligence   in order to function, as a direct act of war by the participating countries. How Russia might respond Following the first confirmed use of a western supplied missile inside of Russian territory, I assess Russia will launch a targeted conventional strike on a US and UK military asset, including possibly in either country or in one of their overseas facilities ( #guam , #diegogarcia etc). I judge Russia would be careful in targeting a military facility to minimise the risk of civilian casualties in #NATO states. As the Russians are highly reciprocal in how they act, I consider the risk of a tactical nuclear escalation as low, at least in the short term. Russia will also fear the risk of escalation leading to a general war which Russia would not be able to win against a much more powerful NATO and which, therefore, would take us a step closer to all out #NuclearWar.   They will also worry about the impact of a disproportionate nuclear escalation on its diplomatic relations in the wider world, in particular with China. While cyber attacks are a constant risk, I judge Russia would want a retaliation that was attributable and which they could use in their communications. Why Putin will have to act It would be suicide politically for Putin to say that he will act, but then allow months to pass with inaction as British missiles rain down on Russian targets. It is a fantasy to think that he will do nothing. A weapons free signal to use Storm Shadow means that these missiles will strike Russian targets at will for the remainder of this war, and no one has a plan for when the war will end. Both the US and the UK are signalling that they are in this for the long haul. And, given the intense internal pressure he will be under - not necessarily from the Russian public - but from the hawkish parts of his inner circle, it would be politically too damaging for Putin not to respond militarily. The political risk to Starmer For Starmer, the risk is that having beaten his chest and somehow appeared more war mongering that Boris Johnson, he will look weak if he backs down now. He is gambling on calling Putin's bluff i.e. that having said he would retaliate Putin would, nevertheless, backdown. However, that is foolish, and driven by the British government's lack of Russia expertise. If Starmer succeeds in getting Biden's approval, then hot on the heels of a disastrous start to his premiership, he may have to explain why Russian missiles are hitting British military targets, potentially in the UK itself. Which may force him to escalate militarily, or back down and look weak and inept domestically. The risk for Biden Biden risks dragging the US into a direct military conflict with the world's biggest nuclear power, the outcome of which he cannot predict, just two months before an election. There won't be the time for the US to emerge victorious over Russia so that Kamala Harris gets some sort of election boost from victory. More likely, American service personnel will die. The Times has already reported that while Biden may permit the use of UK and French cruise missiles, he may nevertheless not agree to the use of ATACMS inside of Russian territory. Pro-war advocates like Jake Sullivan will believe this hedges the risk of a Russian retaliation against America. But that assessment is also false. Russia has said repeatedly that the use of British and French missiles is only possible with the direct assistance and participation of US assets. Conclusion We have entered a crisis as serious as when Khrushchev sent nuclear weapons to Cuba. Right now, lofted up by hubris and an underestimation of the risk to global peace and security, Starmer is going cap in hand to the White House. The risks to him politically, whatever happens, seem overwhelmingly negative. But right now, I'm more worried about the risk to humanity. Starmer should be pressing for a negotiated end to the fighting in Ukraine, not taking us one step closer to nuclear catastrophe.

With Turkey – a key NATO member - having lodged an application to join, BRICS is set to get bigger, and this can only be a good sign for the collective strength of developing nations in a multipolar world.  It’s also a bad sign, longer term, for US political and economic dominance. Two key moments in the acceleration of BRICS were 2014 when the Ukraine crisis started and 2022, when full blown war broke out.  The weaponisation of the global financial system by the west against Russia helped the core focus of BRICS coalesce around the need to create an alternative financial architecture for developing nations. A BRICS bank (now called the New Development Bank was established) to create an alternative to the World Bank. A Contingent Reserve Arrangement was established, providing an alternative to the IMF for countries who need access to a pool of reserves in the face of currency crises. As the Belgium-based Swift interbank communication service has become politicised, so BRICS Pay was created. Throughout, a core aim is to reduce dependence on the US Dollar for global trade and, therefore foreign exchange reserves. Russia and China’s shift to trading oil in Yuan, Saudi Arabia’s abandonment of the Petrodollar Pact, and the UAE and India’s agreement on trading in rupees are good recent examples of countries choosing to de-dollarize.  While the dollar remains the pre-eminent global trading currency, we should expect to see its share of global trade decline slowly over the coming decade.  This will pose longer-term systemic risks to the USA’s ability to service its vast federal debt, as the cost of borrowing inexorably rises.   BRICS is gathering momentum as the potential benefits of membership become clearer in the eyes of developing nations, and Turkey’s bold decision to apply for membership is a sign of that. While I was the economic counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow, I watched in slow motion as dissatisfaction in developing countries grew about western domination of the international financial system. Take the International Monetary Fund. Today, 59.1% of the Fund’s voting shares are accounted for by countries with accounting for 13.7% of the World’s population. 57.7% of the bumper distribution of Special Drawing Rights during the COVID Pandemic went to the world’s wealthiest countries. It's not only that developing countries see that the western dominated financial bodies don’t represent their interests.  They have also became increasingly politicised; for example, under pressure from the US in 2015, the IMF changed its rules on debt servicing to allow Ukraine to avoid default, even though it was at that time refusing ever  to service its debt obligations to Russia.  While IMF conditionality on its programmes is rigid, the rules can be changed quickly if the political imperative from Washington demands it. Take the G7, which was the preeminent grouping of the world’s most affluent nations before BRICS found its feet. Following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, G7 countries coordinated over 20,000 economic sanctions against Russia. There is no plan in place for sanctions relief as and when an inevitable ceasefire in Ukraine starts and a peace process begins.  The G7 froze $300bn in Russian foreign exchange reserves; they have more recently established a funding vehicle in which the proceeds of those Russian assets held in Europe are used to fund weapons supplies to Ukraine. Bodies like the IMF, SWIFT and Euroclear have been decisively subjugated by the political interests of the G7. The G20, was intended to be a more inclusive global grouping of the world’s leading 20 economies when it was set up to focus on international financial stability.  But it has also become increasingly dysfunctional as powerful G7 nations try repeatedly to politicise its agenda. So, BRICS has emerged as a more appealing meeting point for developing countries. Its values of non-interference, equality and mutual benefit mean countries with troubled political relationships can come together to strengthen relations through economic ties.  Hence the China, Russia, India triangle, which over history has been beset by tension and conflict. Iran and Saudia Arabia joined BRICS in 2024, almost unthinkable a few short years ago, but made possible by a gradual thawing in their relations brokered by China in 2023. Pakistan is now looking to join BRICS, despite India’s prominent founding role in the group. This gradual rapprochement through trade should be applauded. When it was first convened in 2009, BRICS was seen as a developing nations’ counterbalance to the rich countries’ club of the G8 (now G7). Today, three of the BRICS founding members rank among the world’s top ten economies. Six are members of the G20 group.  The group accounts for 45% of the global population and 28% of its economic output now. Set free from the need to fit within a west-leaning normative set of rules and values, BRICS collaboration has been unleashed by putting the economics first, and letting the politics follow. It’s therefore no surprise that Turkey – which is also a G20 member - has turned to BRICS. After decades of trying to join the European Union, it’s clear that road is permanently blocked. I don’t see Turkey’s future membership of BRICS and its NATO membership as mutually exclusive.  Indeed, straddling Europe and Asia, I think it’s very much to be encouraged that a prominent NATO member state should enjoy a less antagonistic relationship with the developing world. The very point of BRICS is that countries aren’t required to choose one side against another.  There is a long list of other countries who wish to join BRICS, including Mexico, Nigeria, Bahrain, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam. Before the end of this decade, BRICS will represent a majority of the global population. The USA, the EU and the UK will continue to be powerful players, but their influence on developing countries and their dominance of the global financial system, seems set to wane as BRICS forges a more multipolar world over the longer term.

Ukraine has occupied more territory in Russia this year than Russia has occupied in Ukraine, but the margin of difference is relatively small. What drove Zelensky’s bold gamble and will it, ultimately, succeed? In a Telegram post on August 16, Zelensky referred to captured land in Kursk as an addition to his "exchange fund." Kursk is less about overall military victory, than about gathering bargaining chips to trade in future peace negotiations with Russia. But that trade will only work to Ukraine’s benefit if its military can hold on to more territory than Russia gains over the period prior to formal negotiations starting. Only then would Zelensky be able to claim that the loss of men and materiel had been worth it. But his profit margin in any future land-for-land trade is narrowing. And all hope of the reported ceasefire talks that had been planned, reportedly, in Doha shortly before Kursk has evaporated. Instead, we have seen a hardening of Russia’s position. In a Telegram post on August 11, Dmitry Medvedev channelled the outrage in the Kremlin that Ukraine blindsided and humiliated Russia. He called for Russia eventually to take Odessa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Nikolaev, Kyiv and further on. "And let everyone, including the English bastards [he hates us even more than the Americans], be aware of this: we will stop only when we consider this acceptable and advantageous to ourselves." That represents a significant escalation, at least in terms of rhetoric. Of course, this is standard Medvedev, playing his role in the Russian apparatus, with splenetic pronouncements that are to the right of where Putin may be willing to settle. His comments probe sentiment, both internationally and at home. And they shape the narrative of Russian nationalist bloggers, for example, in the use of phrases like "the former Ukraine." i.e, the idea that Ukraine no longer exists as a sovereign nation state. In reality, taking just one of the cities Medvedev has mentioned would require a level of death and destruction far above anything we’ve seen to date. And I don’t assess, right now, that Russia would risk alienating the constituency of support it is building up in the developing world by doing that. But Kursk has changed the risk calculus on both sides. Ukraine had needed to inject morale into its military and civilian population with a victory of sorts, at a time when its lines in the Donbas were cracking, Western support for free weapon supplies was dwindling, and the result of the U.S. election was unclear/potentially worrying. Zelensky may have thought he had nothing to lose by throwing the dice . For Russia, the primary goal before Kursk had been to finish the job in the Donbas , overwhelming those remaining strategic towns and filling out the border of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts with Russian colors. They have shown openness to cut a deal , including after a new U.S. President took office, so long as that uses the line of contact as a starting point. Realists on the Western side, such as John Mearsheimer and others, cautioned that Kursk was strategic blunder. But Western government and mainstream media were dutifully cock-a-hoop about the Kursk offensive when it started. Ukraine contends that it now controls approximately 1000 square kilometers of sparsely populated land in Kursk oblast after all. However, Ukraine’s military chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has admitted that the advance has slowed and that the focus has shifted to reinforcing land already occupied . The opportunity to capture more Russian land therefore appears limited, although there has been a so far unsuccessful effort by the Ukrainian army to push into Belgorod . In the Donbas, the line of contact around Donetsk had been practically unchanged for ten years since 2014, with both sides dug into heavily fortified positions. Despite large territorial gains by Russia across Ukraine at the start of the war in 2022, that line didn’t budge. Look on the Institute of the Study of War’s interactive map and you’ll see that since the overrun of fortress Avdiivka in February, Russia’s main effort has decisively broken out across rivers and difficult terrain to move 80% of the way to the strategic town of Pokrovsk. Progress has been slow and steady but has gathered momentum since Kursk. Once Pokrovsk falls, there is a flat, empty road from there to the oblast border. Russia will have leveled the scorecard with Ukrainian gains in Kursk and will then focus its main effort on Kramatorsk. As Ukraine is steadily pushed out of the Donbas, Zelensky may throw increasing men and materiel into holding his patch of land in Kursk, at a terrible cost, in a desperate bid to show his gamble wasn’t a catastrophe. Let’s be clear, Kursk has been a huge embarrassment for Russia, both politically and militarily, though probably less so than Yevgeny Prigozhin’s doomed drive towards Voronezh in 2023. Medvedev provides colorful — if exaggerated — insight into the Kremlin mood. He also illustrates the level of hatred in the Kremlin directed towards Ukraine’s Western sponsors. Some commentators in the west are assuming that if Trump is elected President, he may miraculously pull a ceasefire out of a hat. On the back of mounting evidence that Ukraine is slowly losing, I don’t rule out Biden pushing for a temporary pause in fighting before November, to give Harris a hastily papered-over "Putin didn’t win" narrative for voters after a decade of failed U.S. foreign policy. But don’t hold your breath on either front. With no incentives from the West for Russia to strike for peace, Putin may not care where the new occupant of the White House wants to position U.S. foreign policy. The military, economic and demographic cards remain stacked in Russia’s favor . On August 21, Medvedev launched another verbal salvo on Telegram, saying (his capitals) ‘NO NEGOTIATIONS UNTIL THE ENEMY IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DESTROYED.'" History may record that Kursk was a pointless sideshow within a much larger tragedy for Ukraine. This is a copy of a piece I recently published in Responsible Statecraft. Will Kursk be a sideshow that turns into tragedy for Ukraine? | Responsible Statecraft

I applaud the French Government on its delivery of a fabulous Olympiad in Paris and wish the athletes and organisers success in the Paralympics that kick off today.  I have but one criticism. In 2021, the Olympic motto ‘faster, higher, stronger’ was changed with the addition of one word – ‘together’.  Excluding Russia from Paris 2024 eroded the sense of togetherness. It also breached the noble Olympic ideal of keeping sport and culture out of politics.   Banning Russia from the Olympics won’t turn Russian people against Vladimir Putin; he remains as strong as ever, two and a half years into a grinding war in Ukraine. The ordinary Russians that I came to know when I served at the British Embassy in Moscow loved sports, the opportunity to meet and compete with people from different countries, and welcomed me as an equal.  A ban merely confirms to them what Putin has been saying for many years, that the west is intent on Russia’s isolation and destruction.  It increases the sense of resentment towards the west, which is helping to replenish the Russian military with new recruits.   Banning Russia from sport won’t end this needless war in Ukraine. Rather, it will elevate Russia’s determination not to give ground. The US and UK governments in particular need to depart from using sport and culture as a diplomatic tool to isolate Russia and get back the tough diplomacy of negotiating a resolution to the huge challenges and dangers we face through confrontation. It's worth recalling that the origins of an Olympic Truce go back to Ancient Greece, with warring countries setting aside their weapons to compete with their skills and abilities.  It evokes remembrance of British and German troops laying down arms late on Christmas Eve 1914 to exchange gifts, play football, and recover casualties.    With the exception of pauses to the Olympic Games during World Wars I and II, Olympiads have taken place every four years since 1896.  Over that period, the world has seen hundreds of conflicts, uprisings, wars and genocides. Since 1945, there have been inter alia  devastating wars in China, Korea, Vietnam, Greece, Israel, India, Pakistan, the Falklands, the Balkans, terrible genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, and two wars led by a US coalition in Iraq, the second of which many in Britain consider to have been illegal.   Yet, the banning of countries from sport has been extremely rare. Germany, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey were banned temporarily from the Olympics after World War I and Germany and Japan were banned from the 1948 Olympics.    Russia (with Belarus) is the only country ever to have been banned for its role in a regional conflict, making it the exception to the rule.   Yes, Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022 breached the notion of an Olympic Truce.  However, that doesn’t explain why Russia was excluded from competing in Paris more than two years later.  During the Paris games, Israel’s offensive in Gaza continued which to date has killed, according to the United Nations, over twenty five thousand innocent civilians including children; calls for Israel to be banned from Paris were brushed off.  There have never been calls for the US or UK to be banned for their role in overseas military adventures.   Since the onset of the Ukraine crisis, there has been a concerted – and highly successful – effort by the US-led west to edge Russia out of all global events in a massive, and in my view, disproportionate politicisation of sport and culture.  No more Football World Cup, Formula One, World Athletics, and for a brief period, Tennis.  Russians can’t sing in Eurovision or go to their local parks to compete in a Saturday morning 5k Parkrun.   All of this departs from the very point of the Olympic games and wider international events; to bring people together in a spirit of solidarity, non-discrimination and peace. In an interview in 2020, IOC Chair Thomas Bach reflected on the sense of powerlessness individual athletes felt as western governments applied pressure for a ban on attendance at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He spoke about why this drove him to join the West German National Olympic Committee, ‘to give all the clean athletes of the world chance to compete in Olympic Games’.   He said, ‘anybody who is thinking about a boycott should learn this lesson from history; a sports boycott serves nothing. It’s only hurting the athletes, and it’s hurting the population of the country because they are losing the joy to share, the pride, the success, with their Olympic team.’    I hope that when Los Angeles lays out the red carpet in 2028, we will see a return to the Olympic ideal of putting aside our weapons so that every country can compete.   This article repeats and adds to a piece I recently posted on the Strategic Culture Foundation Website. Let Russia compete in the next Olympics — Strategic Culture ( strategic-culture.su )

With thanks to Lord Robert Skidelsky for his coordination, the following letter has now been published in the Financial Times, to which I added my signature.   https://www.ft.com/content/90185a02-8107-47c0-ae6f-b06e88b796b5 Russia’s latest military gains in the Donetsk region (Report, July 5) reinforce the case for a negotiated settlement of the war in Ukraine. The US and its allies support Ukraine’s key war aim, which is a return to the 2014 frontiers, ie, Russia’s expulsion from Crimea and Donbas. But all informed analysts agree that short of a serious escalation of war, the likeliest outcome will be continued stalemate on the ground, with a not insignificant chance of a Russian victory. This conclusion points to the desirability, even urgency, of a negotiated peace, not least for the sake of Ukraine itself. Reluctance by the official west to accept a negotiated peace rests on the belief that anything short of a complete Ukrainian victory would allow Putin to “get away with it”. But this ignores by far the most important outcome of the war so far: that Ukraine has fought for its independence, and won it — as Finland did in 1939-40. Some territorial concessions would seem a small price to pay for the reality, rather than semblance, of independence. If a peace based on roughly the present division of forces in Ukraine is inevitable, it is immoral not to try for it now. Washington should start talks with Moscow on a new security pact which would safeguard the legitimate security interests of both Ukraine and Russia. The announcement of these talks should be immediately followed by a time-limited ceasefire in Ukraine. The ceasefire would enable Russian and Ukrainian leaders to negotiate in a realistic, constructive manner. We urge the world’s leaders to initiate or support such an initiative. The longer the war continues the more territory Ukraine is likely to lose, and the more the pressure for escalation up to a nuclear level is likely to grow. The sooner peace is negotiated the more lives will be saved, the sooner the reconstruction of Ukraine will start and the more quickly the world can be pulled back from the very dangerous brink at which it currently stands. Lord Skidelsky Professor Emeritus in political economy University of Warwick Sir Anthony Brenton British Ambassador to Russia (2004-2008) Thomas Fazi Journalist, author, columnist for UnHerd Anatol Lieven Senior Fellow, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statesmanship Jack Matlock US Ambassador to the USSR (1987-1991) Ian Proud British Embassy in Moscow (2014-2019) Richard Sakwa Professor Emeritus of Russian and European Politics, University of Kent Christopher Granville British Embassy, Moscow (1991-1995)

Jon Benjamin, Britain’s former Ambassador to Mexico, hit the headlines in May after pointing a semi-automatic rifle at a member of his staff. This incident spoke to a deeper rot at the heart of the Foreign Office at a time when Britain’s influence abroad is in sharp decline.  Here’s what awaits David Lammy when he arrives in King Charles Street as the ninth Foreign Secretary since 2014. The Foreign Office wasn’t always this bad. William Hague focused on modernisation.  He launched a Diplomatic Academy and reopened a language school, to create ‘the best diplomatic service in the world’. He grew the UK’s overseas network. Ministers worked in partnership with officials and there was a level of mutual respect. That all vanished after he left. Hammond was singularly unsuited, Boris was never taken seriously, Hunt had good ideas but was ignored by officials who knew he wouldn’t last long.  The ‘system’ circled the wagons against an overly assertive Raab.  Liz Truss was disinterested, Cleverly was liked because he had no ideas, and no one knew why Cameron jumped onto Sunak’s sinking ship having abandoned his own.  Change in any civil service department relies on Ministers spending long enough in their departments to nudge the Mandarins forward. But he also needs to grip Foreign Office Officials who have resisted change better than Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister . Sir Simon Fraser didn’t like Ministers spending Foreign Office cash, launched Hague’s Diplomatic Academy on a shoe-string and drove the Diplomatic Excellence Programme with little vigour.   Sir Simon MacDonald blogged that he didn’t ‘do’ radical reform following the publication of Naked Diplomat  Tom Fletcher’s Future FCO report in 2016 which made various suggestions to improve the capability of Britain’s diplomats. That Report was shelved and barely any its recommendations have been implemented. The Foreign Office has become progressively de-skilled. It stopped training diplomats in diplomatic skills over twenty years ago. Almost one third of diplomats fail or don’t even take the foreign language examinations that are a requirement for them to do their jobs overseas.  A Foreign Affairs Committee demand that the Foreign Office reports on improvements in language performance has been routinely ignored for years.   David Lammy needs to set his own vision to improve Britain’s international capabilities and task a junior Minister with holding officials to account. The balance between expertise and leadership at the top of the Foreign Office has never been struck.   In 2020, Sir Philip Barton was parachuted into the job, tasked with merging the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development shortly after the onset of COVID. However, he lacked the corporate leadership skills needed to drive forward a complex merger. His main failing, highlighted in a report that I wrote in 2022, an inability to resolve in-fighting among former FCO and DFID officials and make clear decisions on the way forward. A damming National Audit Office report earlier this year highlighted a basic lack of progress in getting the two merged departments to work together.  Essentially, after Dominic Raab was ousted in the teeth of bullying allegations, pressure to make the merger work evaporated. David Lammy should consider, for the first time, appointing a senior industry leader to drive the machinery of the Foreign Office along more professional lines.    Which brings me back to Jon Benjamin.  He’s not the only diplomat to have messed up. An Ambassador was once sent home for leaving the Embassy in his pyjamas. One diplomat wrote and circulated a note about Pope-branded condoms ahead of a Papal visit. Two diplomats fell foul of Russian honey traps while I was posted to Moscow.  Benjamin’s case was different because the story was leaked by a local member of his staff.   Two-thirds of Foreign Office staff are people employed locally to work in Embassies around the world. They are paid lower salaries compared to the average in their countries and are commonly treated as second class citizens by the well-paid and pampered minority of diplomats. Sir Simon McDonald solidified this disenfranchisement by dismissing them all as only having a job rather than a career. This lack of respect coupled with a sense that the Foreign Office has been drifting rudderless since the merger has fostered a toxic culture in British Embassies.  The yearly staff survey confirms a stubborn and immovable level of bullying, harassment and discrimination across the UK overseas network.  The Office spends millions each year paying consultants to offer advice on culture and things like that.  It hasn’t worked. David Lammy should step back and look at whether a more modern structure for the organisation, less racist and colonialist and more authentically inclusive and internationalist, would be better .   Because if he wants to the UK to have a greater impact on major global evets, like in Ukraine and Gaza, he first needs to fix a failing Foreign Office.

If you search for UK Reform Party leader Nigel Farage’s recent comments about Russia online, you will first be greeted by a slew of western pundits and parliamentarians jumping on a bandwagon of condemnation.  During a recent TV interview, he asserted that Vladimir Putin was provoked into war in Ukraine.  His detractors didn’t acknowledge or debate the points that he made. The facts or arguments were incidental to their moral outrage.  Just to be clear, I would never vote for Nigel Farage, or Reform (or, before it, UKIP) as I’m a pro-European, open borders, internationalist.  Growing up as an army kid in Germany, I remember the border checkpoints when my family took weekend trips to Holland.  Peace on the European continent has been earned, in my opinion, by allowing people of different nationalities to move and interact more easily. I don’t believe in unchecked immigration, but I do believe that the UK economy needs migrant workers across a broad range of skilled and unskilled roles.  As a good example, both the NHS and the City of London would sag if reliant on British labour alone. That’s my view, based on the evidence that I’ve seen. But Farage’s comments illustrated a problem, particular to the UK right now, in which any discussion of Russia is more often than not driven by feelings rather than hard analysis of the available evidence.   Take a recent Twitter/X article by British journalist and labour activist, Paul Mason. He responded to Farage by announcing that the NATO expansion argument – the idea that continued NATO enlargement has been a casus belli for Putin - is a lie.  Like most journalists who support the ongoing war in Ukraine – specifically, the majority of journalists in the UK - he didn’t explain why it was a lie, simply that it was.  Outrage brooks no debate. The available evidence is entirely incidental. This sits in sharp contrast to the US, where debate about the ongoing war in Ukraine is more open. Somewhat to my surprise, the Guardian recently carried an excellent article by Christopher Chivvis, a Senior Fellow as the Carnegie Endowment for peace.  He argued that ‘Ukraine’s leaders should stop asking for NATO membership and the Biden Administration should stop considering it.’  His article carefully laid out a series of arguments to underpin this central judgement. I happen to agree, as having been closely involved in UK policy making towards Russia from 2013-2023, it's clear to me that repeatedly ignoring Putin’s expressed concerns about NATO expansion would cause the very conflict we see today in Ukraine. You don’t necessarily have to agree with me, or with Chivvis, but let’s at least discuss it. The British media is dominated by emotional proponents of the current UK and US policy, to continue to arm Ukraine with a view to a longer-term strategic defeat of Russia.  Whenever Zelensky makes a plea, it is always for more weapons, never for genuine negotiations. But there are counter-arguments too, that Russia cannot be defeated on the battlefield, and that the US should get behind a negotiated settlement. In the run up to a UK general election that will almost certainly change the government in Westminster, these counter-arguments are almost entirely ignored. With the rare and pleasing exception of the Chivvis article, British citizens are subject to significant press censorship on alternative views of Russia. The Tories and Labour have entered a pre-election pact to whitewash all debate.  As with the Mason article, we are asked to accept the current government approach to war in Ukraine as a given.  Free speech has never been under such threat in a Britain that claims to stand up for liberty.  Don’t get distracted by the evidence guys, it’s enough to know that Russia is bad. But I firmly believe that honest debate should trump blind cancellation.  So, and back to Nigel Farage, he made four specific points that haven’t cut through the blizzard of outrage.  First, that EU expansion can help explain Putin’s choice of war over peace. In my view, this is classic Farage, using the ongoing war in Ukraine to launch another attack at his old foes in Brussels. I don’t personally believe the evidence supports this. Russia undoubtedly saw the Eastern partnership programme as a way to peel former Soviet States away from Russia’s influence. Putin offering Yanukovych a $15bn back-hander to stay out of an Association Agreement was undoubtedly a flashpoint for the Maidan protests, which precipitated the Ukraine crisis in 2014.  But since Ukraine signed the EU agreement under Poroshenko’s Presidency, the EU membership issue has largely blended into the background. Russian leaders practically never raise this as an issue now. The second and related point – what people like Mason and others write off as a lie, while offering no opportunity for debate - is that NATO expansion prompted Putin to choose war over peace. Here, in my opinion, Farage made a valid point, a point made over many years by more reputable academics and activists. Like many others, Mason proceeds from the argument that Putin has confected his concern about NATO only recently, to justify his actions.  This is convenient for a readership that is starved of unhelpful context.   But the facts show that this has been an expressed concern of Russia for eighteen years.  Cast your mind back to Bucharest in early April 2008 at the NATO Summit. This is the Summit where Putin agreed  to allow NATO to continue to transport military equipment through Russia to support the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, Putin also railed against proposed expansion of NATO.  Two years after the former Soviet Baltic states joined NATO, he saw further NATO expansion as a threat to Russian security. ‘Let’s be friends, guys,’ he implored NATO leaders.  He specifically warned against Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO.  He was ignored and, within four months, Russian troops poured into Georgia to prop up the separatist states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. NATO blamed Putin (though Medvedev was by that time President) for what happened in Georgia. Yet, despite this, Russia tried to maintain relations with the west, including Hillary Clinton’s botched attempt at a reset. Since then six new countries have joined NATO.  And here, Farage’s third point comes in. ‘They are coming after us again!’ Hard-wired into the Russian psyche is an idea that their enormous and difficult to manage country has constantly faced external threat over the centuries.  Those threats including Nazi Germany, Napoleon, the Swedes and Lithuanians and the Mongols. Russia sees NATO as the grouping that bombed Belgrade, dismembered Yugoslavia, and caused mayhem in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, all in the cause of liberty. We might take a different view on each of those theatres of conflict. But believe me, having lived in Moscow for four and a half years, many Russians really do believe this.  So, when the Polish President talked recently about dismembering Russia into a host of ethnic states, you might see how this feeds Russian paranoia. Which brings me to Farage’s fourth point. The Putin has used NATO expansion as a reason to justify his war in Ukraine. Ordinary Russians look on the map and see that NATO, and its aspirant states, almost completely encircles their country as far as the border between Georgia and Azerbaijan.  Russians don’t see NATO as a so-called ‘defensive’ alliance.  To them, it is a vast military empire with far more troops and equipment than Russia has. NATO now accounts for 55% of all global defence spending – that’s at least ten times bigger than Russia, despite its vast spending on the war.  The USA alone spends 6-7 times more each year on defence than does Russia. And despite its overwhelming advantage, NATO still encourages all of its members to spend even more which, if they did so, would add over $80bn each year to NATO spending.  It therefore isn’t difficult for Putin to convince his electorate that in this fight he is Luke Skywalker, and Joe Biden is Darth Vader. That’s one reason why domestic support in Russia for the war remains high. That’s also why developing nations in BRICS and the wider developing world increasingly see Russia as the plucky small guy, fighting for its rights against NATO.  Very few non-European or non-NATO nations signed the communique at the recently so-called Ukraine peace Summit in Switzerland.  They see a Ukraine that cannot win a war on its own against Russia despite the NATO billions. Farage is simply suggesting we have a debate about whether peace in Ukraine would be better than war. You can’t blame him for offering a point of difference when the main political parties, and the British media, as typified by journalists like Paul Mason, are set against all debate. Let’s hope that when the new Prime Minister walks into 10 Downing Street at some point on 8 July, they look above the parapet and ask for fresh advice on how badly off-track our policy towards Ukraine has become.

My core analysis remains unchanged: only negotiations will end this war and the US, in particular, is key in insisting that Zelensky do this. The US is increasingly doing high-G turns to package Ukraine's ongoing (and, I suspect, permanent) exclusion from NATO, in the run up to the military alliance's 75 anniversary summit in Washington. More high profile speakers are stepping up to press Biden to tell the truth that Ukraine will never join. I don't sense that he is listening or, if he is, will make a clear statement on this point, against the entreaties of an increasingly grasping Zelensky. Over the past couple of weeks I've had a busy time talking to various people about the ongoing war in Ukraine. You can find here a selection of my interviews. With Aaron Mate and Katie Halper on their Useful Idiots show On the Daniel Davis Deep Dive to discuss the so called Ukraine Peace Summit (or, Zelensky's asking for more weapons, summit). Recent interview on RT following Nigel Farage's comments on NATO.

The G7 recently made the headlines by agreeing to lend Ukraine $50bn which will be repaid using the yearly interest accrued on $329bn of confiscated Russian sovereign foreign exchange reserves. When it is finally structured, the loan will consist of a series of loans by G7 member countries, with the US topping up the fund by the required amount so it hits the $50bn mark. Taking a step back from the legality of, effectively, expropriating another country’s sovereign assets to repay a rival country’s debt, what does this mean for Ukraine? Figures vary, and the Ukrainian government is increasingly coy about releasing economic data sets, but Ukraine’s economy is currently around $180-190bn in size.  To put that into context, that is around 11 times smaller than Russia’s economy and 131 times smaller than the US economy. $50bn, therefore, represents around 27% of Ukraine’s yearly GDP.  That is a huge figure for a single loan. But the problem is that Ukraine has been borrowing this amount every year since the war started.  According to politico, Ukraine borrowed $58bn in 2022, $46bn in 2023 and is set to borrow $52bn in 2024. So, in just three years, Ukraine will have borrowed 82% of GDP. Ukraine needs to borrow this much because its government spends almost twice as much each year as it receives in income from taxation and other sources. To put that into context, the European Union sets a limit that Member States cannot run a budget deficit of more than 3% of GDP.  Ukraine, which aspires to join the EU, has been running a yearly budget deficit of 25% since the war began. And in addition to that, with Ukraine running a deficit on its current account each year – the difference between how much it exports and imports – it also needs capital to stop its currency going into meltdown. And here’s the thing, Ukraine will probably need to borrow even more this year than what is currently forecast.  Don't be fooled by the official defence budget for 2024 of $28.6bn; this is around half of what Ukraine actually spent on defence in 2023.  (Ukraine adjusted its original 2023 defence budget up from $39.4bn - still more than the 2024 budget - to $56.3bn). Ukraine’s massive spending spree on the war effort, in 2023 at least, accounted for one third of total economic output. With Zelensky showing no appetite to negotiate, there's little reason to believe it won't in 2024. So, with Ukraine taking on 25% of its GDP in debt each year, its debt mountain will continue to spiral out of control.  The EU forecasts that Ukrainian debt is growing by 10% of GDP each year since the war started, but I view these forecasts with a heavy dose of scepticism. Even if Ukraine’s economy grew by 5.5% in 2023, it remains smaller than it was in 2021, before the war started. More realistically, Ukraine’s debt is growing by 15-20% of GDP each year. So, Ukraine’s debt will hit 100% of GDP in the current financial year (if it hasn’t already).  And the really worrying thing is that there are no plans to repay any of it.  Because Ukraine isn’t making debt repayments each year to tamp down its debt growth.  In fact, Ukraine stopped making payments ona its existing external debt in 2022 when the war started.  For those who remember the onset of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Ukraine immediately refused to pay a debt of $3bn that Russia had given it as part of the deal with Yanukovich to stay out of the EU Association Agreement. Fueled by hubris and self-righteousness, Ukraine has become addicted to taking on debt and then refusing to make payments on that debt.  Since the start of the war, Zelensky has been pressing for the $329bn in frozen Russian assets to be given to Ukraine. The G7 loan of $50bn therefore marks an alarming shift in that direction. It assumes that Ukraine itself will never need to repay the debt itself, even though it’s Ukraine’s debt. But when the war ends, if this needless war ever ends, who will repay the G7 countries their loans then? The Americans seem to believe that it would be possible to continue to freeze Russia’s frozen reserve assets even after war finished. If that be so, what motivation, then, for Russia to stop fighting if it feels that massive sanctions and the theft of its assets will continue? As I said at the top, Russia’s economy is 11 times larger than Ukraine’s. Russia is also bringing in healthy amounts of capital each year as its exports continue to exceed its imports.  Put simply, Russia gains a surplus of around $50bn each year in its exports, which roughly equates to what Ukraine borrows each year to prop up the war effort.  While Putin has offered a peace deal – or at least, terms for peace negotiations to restart – Russia has sufficient resources to keep fighting, even if the fighting results in a barely shifting stalemate. So, in economic terms at least, winning the war doesn’t matter to Russia right now, even if he and the Russian people would prefer an end to it all.  Because the longer the war continues, the more indebted and delinquent Ukraine becomes. Putin knows that practically all of the foreign money that Ukraine borrows comes from western countries that are bankrolling Ukraine’s fight. And we have already seen the sands shift in western support with pure hand-outs transitioning to actual loans.  So, over time, the west will increasingly offer Ukraine debt rather than freebees. And it is pure fantasy to believe that Russia will repay this debt, as Russia wants its frozen money back. A one-sided peace will not be possible in which the west continues to punish Russia, including economically, after the cannon fire stops. Indeed, stealing Russia’s assets will only lead to potential further escalation, prolonging Ukraine’s suffering, and ramping up its unsustainable debt still further. This war will end when Putin feels that there are economic incentives to stand his troops down and to negotiate a lasting peace. Until then, the west is holding a ticking time bomb of debt that Zelensky doesn’t believe that he should have to pay.  Or, to put it another way, he is paying for this war using credit cards; except that they are our credit cards, not his.

I recently had the pleasure of talking with Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. We discussed how UK decision makers have failed to draw lessons from the history of Russia, and how this ignorance has fueled an avowedly hawkish sentiment in London, with the disastrous consequences we see today in Ukraine. A link to the video is below.

In what was an echo chamber for Ukraine’s allies to encourage Zelensky to continue to reject formal peace talks with Russia, the Swiss Summit delivered nothing.  Here are my key takeaways. The west makes up two-thirds of the signatures Of the 82 signatories to the Communique, 45 were European Countries including non-EU members, there were 4 European Institutions and 5 other western allies that have sanctioned Russia, including Japan. Add in Israel, which is a US client state, that makes 55 countries and institutions. BRICS blocked the Summit as did 9 G20 Members No BRICS member state associated itself with the final communique.  There are two reasons for this.  Firstly, they believe that Russia should be involved in any peace process for it to be credible. India’s representative at the Summit said that “only sincere and practical engagement” between Russia and Ukraine can lead to enduring peace.  The second point is that Ukraine will need to make difficult compromises in any peace process, something Zelensky has been determined not to do.  Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister said, “we believe it is important that the international community encourage any step towards serious negotiations which will require difficult compromise as part of a road map that leads to peace.” There were also major G20 no-shows with 9 of the non-western members not associating themselves with the Communique.  The notable exception to this was Argentina, which got behind the summit outcome. The Middle East completely turned its back on the Summit Given almost unconditional US support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, Middle Eastern Countries turned their back on the summit and final communique. They were most likely turned off by a US-engineered peace initiative for Ukraine that, much like US efforts in Gaza, seek to support one side over another in the conflict. Only Qatar, which is playing an active role in negotiating prisoner handovers associated itself with the Communique. As did the wider Global South Of the 27 non-western allies who signed the communique, there was a very limited showing from mostly smaller Asian and Pacific (6) Latin American (9) and African states.  This sent a powerful statement that the Global South was turned off by this initiative. Ukraine’s position on territorial integrity not sustainable While western media have claimed the communique endorsed Ukraine’s territorial integrity as a basis for a just and lasting peace, this isn’t correct. A core part of Zelensky’s so-called peace formula is the requirement that restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders is core to reaching any peace deal.  This is highlighted under the umbrella of the fourth point of Article 2 of the UN Charter that States should “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”. However, Russia claims that NATO expansion, including towards Ukraine, is a threat to its state under the same clause of the UN Charter.  The communique wording is therefore ambiguous on this point.  Indeed, Russia might argue that the final paragraph of the text refers to its rights as much as to Ukraine’s rights. At best, the communique was therefore inconclusive on territorial integrity. This confirms my assessment that any future peace deal will require Ukraine to make compromises, based on the battlefield realities, which are not likely to shift. Ukraine trying to demand a one-sided text on nuclear and prisoner exchange While the communique as a whole is a demonstration in diplomatic circumlocution, there are obvious points where Ukraine has tried to stamp Zelensky’s so-called formula on the text. The clause on returning Zaporizhia to the “full sovereign control of Ukraine” ignores the fact that it is currently under Russian control. Likewise, the clause on the return of “deported and unlawfully displaced Ukrainian children”: this would never make the text of any peace deal as Russia claims, rightly or wrongly, that is has acted to protect vulnerable children. The point is, that trying to shape a communique that pushes Ukraine’s positions and ignores Russia’s, will never garner broad-based international support. Zelensky’s demands for military withdrawal, restoration of its borders and a war crimes tribunal are dead in the water As I predicted in my separate article, Zelensky’s demands to settle for peace by turning back the clock to 1991 can never be met in this one-sided format for dialogue. Ukraine has not secured significant backing from the Global South for the less contentious topics discussed in Switzerland. It will never be possible to find agreement on the far more contentious points, if non-Western states consider that this is a US-led attempt to impose an outcome on Russia in absentia. A follow-up event in Saudi Arabia will put more pressure on Zelensky to compromise and involve Russia So with BRICS and the Global South decidedly lukewarm on this Swiss Initiative, it won’t be possible to garner their support for a tougher line on Russia in future. If another Ukraine Peace Summit is convened – and there are suggestions that this might take place in Saudi Arabia – the pressure will grow on Zelensky to make compromises and involve Russia. So, the biggest outcome from the Summit, if there was one, was to confirm that Zelensky’s so called 10-point peace formula is dead in the water.  It’s time for him, now, to start talking to Russia.