Putin's regime is beginning to come apart
Putin's coffers are rapidly running dry; his oil sales, the 'black gold' which keeps his army marching, is rapidly falling. The iron grip of the Kremlin may be about to collapse.
Many surmise that Europe is at its 1939 moment again. The modern-day Hitler is on the march East again, and European countries are wholly unprepared militarily and socially to oppose Putin's forces.
But as likely, perhaps, is that Russia is at its 1934 moment. On December 1 1934, Sergei Kirov, the Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary, was shot and killed by Leonid Nikolaev. Nikolaev and several alleged accomplices were convicted in a show trial and executed less than 30 days later. Kirov's assassination was used by Stalin as a reason for starting the Moscow trials and the Great Purge; he accused Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and others of being part of a wider conspiracy to undermine the Soviet Union.
The parallels with today are clear. Almost 2 years ago Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian mercenary leader and close associate of Putin, died mysteriously after attempting to oppose the Russian president.
In short, 'the system', such as it is, cannot sensibly resolve issues like corruption, embezzlement, property-ownership – there's no rule of law. There is, instead, the use of naked thuggery to enforce authority. The most powerful gang or clan wins.
It is important to look at the current situation in Ukraine amidst this engulfing chaos. President Putin's 3-day special military operation is now in its fourth year, with over one million casualties and increasing at a rate of 1000 per day; the mothers of Russia who forced the USSR out of Afghanistan in 1989 after 17,000 deaths appear to be stirring at last.
The Russian leader, meanwhile, has just had to purchase 30,000 souls off North Korea for heaven knows what in return, a definitive statement that Russia is running out of conscripts to keep the meat grinder fed.
Putin's dismissal of the Ayatollah's pleas for help from the US onslaught on Iran's nuclear programme is a further sure sign that that Russia is completely fixed on its misadventure in Ukraine.
With the wheels appearing to wobble on the Russian president's ambition to reinstate the borders of the Soviet Union, now is surely the time for the West to turn the screw and enforce a just peace for Ukraine.
Unfortunately, with president Trump being showered with false flattery about Nobel Peace Prize nominations, he seems unlikely to jeopardise his chances and get further involved in the messy conflict in Ukraine.
Since the Nato Summit last month, when we all threw the 'kitchen sink' at defence spending, most European countries, including the UK, have also appeared to turn inwards once again to play party politics.
Let us hope that when the 'want-to-be King of Europe' Emmanuel Macron meets our real King today, Charles III can talk sense to Starmer and the French president and get them to lead a European military alliance that can convince Putin that peace is the only option in Ukraine.
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The Independent
30 minutes ago
- The Independent
Macron presses for recognition of Palestine as ‘only path to peace'
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Telegraph
32 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Macron: UK and France risk growing apart
Emmanuel Macron has warned there is a risk of French and British societies 'growing apart'. In an address to members from both houses of Parliament during his state visit, the French president voiced concerns that the English Channel could 'grow wider' after Brexit. Mr Macron argued for new exchange programs for students, researchers and artists, saying: 'Let's allow our children to have the same opportunities as the one we had.' That section of the speech, which was listened to by hundreds of MPs and peers, received one of the largest rounds of applause of his 30-minute address. The intervention puts pressure on Sir Keir, who was watching from the front row of the audience, to sign off details for a new youth free movement agreement with the European Union. The Prime Minister agreed to one in principle in his 'reset' summit with the EU in May after strong lobbying from European capitals but has not agreed on the timings or numbers. 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'Although there are 300,000 French people living in the United Kingdom and 150,000 British people living in France, there has been a decrease in movement in recent years when it comes to school, university, professional and researcher exchanges. 'And today there is a risk that our societies are growing apart, that our young people do not know each other as well and may end up strangers at a time when international current events remind us on a daily basis of our common future. 'Let's face it, let's work together, in order to facilitate the exchange of students, researchers, intellectuals, artists. This is so important. Let's allow our children to have the same opportunities as the one we had.' Elsewhere in the speech, there were nods to Brexit, a decision that Mr Macron fiercely opposed and has since been involved in shaping via numerous signed agreements. The French President called Brexit 'a decision we respect, even if we found it deeply regrettable'. 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Mr Macron used the speech to argue his case: 'Today, working together in order to recognise a state of Palestine and to initiate this political momentum is the only path to peace.' He also condemned what is happening in Gaza, as he said: 'A war without end and without a strategic objective poses a huge threat to the region and our collective security. Today, dehumanisation is occurring there that can never be justified.' There was a call for both nations to work together to counter not just the threats from China but the challenges from the US under Mr Trump's second presidency. Mr Macron said: 'If we still depend on both China and the US I think we have a clear view of our future and the future of our children. 'On one side, over-capacities and over-subsidies are a clear threat to fair trade and they are destabilising a lot of value chains and creating new dependencies. 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Mr Macron said: 'I came here today to renew the French people's message of friendship and fraternity. 'Yes, finally, we meet again. And let's be sure that we will meet again for years and decades. 'Because we are linked by our geography, by our past, but we are linked by our common future. And the only way to overcome the challenges we have, the challenges for our times, will be to go together, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. This is our common destiny. 'Long live our French-United Kingdom friendship. Long live the United Kingdom. Long live France.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘Nowhere for them to hide any more': Zelda Perkins' fight against NDAs after Harvey Weinstein
Zelda Perkins was 24 when – exhausted, broken and surrounded by lawyers – she finally agreed to sign the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that would legally gag her from talking about Harvey Weinstein's sexually predatory and abusive behaviour. The suffocating power of that document haunted her for decades, casting a long shadow over her life and making her ill. 'If I go back to that room, I did not ever imagine that it would be possible to reach any form of justice,' she says. Now, eight years since she first broke her NDA and inadvertently became the world's leading campaigner against them, Perkins feels justice may finally be within her grasp. On Monday, in a move that surprised even the most committed campaigners, the UK government announced sweeping measures that will prohibit bosses from using NDAs to silence abused employees. The following day, Perkins is still digesting the news, but her delight is palpable. 'This is huge,' she says. 'It's the beginning of abusers having to change their behaviour – not because somebody's wagging a finger at them, not because they are told to, but because they have to. There's nowhere for them to hide any more, they just have to effing behave themselves.' The government's stance has, she happily admits, gone beyond her expectations. If unchanged, the new measures will protect gig-economy workers as well as staff, requests for NDAs will be able to come only from complainants, not employers, and workers will be given access to legal advice. Crucially, 'non-disparagement clauses' (widely used since non-disclosure became a 'dirty word', says Perkins) will be off the table in cases of abuse. 'It's really, really ambitious; if they actually do what they say they're going to do, it is totally world-leading,' says Perkins, who set up the Can't Buy My Silence campaign in the UK to lead the fight against abusive NDAs in 2021. The campaign argued that while NDAs may be necessary for intellectual property or commercially sensitive information, they have become a routinely used weapon to silence victims of bullying, sexual harassment or abuse, especially in lower-income sectors like retail and hospitality. 'I'm super excited in a way I haven't felt before, because I feel like I can almost smell freedom,' she says. 'But the reality is this is the first step in quite a long parliamentary process. Tomorrow it is absolutely back to the grindstone, because this isn't done yet.' With inclusion and diversity under attack by Donald Trump's administration, the move is also globally significant, Perkins argues. Legislation has changed in more than 27 US states, a Canadian province and the Republic of Ireland – but companies are feeling nervous. Recently, two global corporations who signed up to Can't Buy My Silence's pledge not to use NDAs in cases of abuse, did not want to publicise the fact, for fear of it is being reversed. 'With DEI being rolled back, Britain leading the way here is pretty bloody huge,' she says. 'There's part of me that is scared of highlighting that because I don't want to scare the horses. But essentially, this is actually now much more important than it ever has been.' It is also a moment of huge personal significance. Perkins never wanted to be a campaigner – she just felt, finally, as if she had no other choice. 'I'm the most accidental activist that ever walked the earth,' she says. 'I've literally spent my whole time trying not to do it. 'At 24 when I went to the lawyers, I thought: if I tell the grownups, then they'll sort it out.' She felt the same when she spoke to the New York Times' Jodi Kantor about Weinstein eight years ago, breaking her NDA and sparking a chain reaction that would eventually lead to his incarceration. 'But what I didn't realise in 2017, when I was 45, was that I was a grownup,' she says. 'Because I'd been silent for 23 years, I thought nobody could hear me or see me, and I was stupid. I did not believe that I had any right or power to make any change.' When the change she wanted – even expected – to see didn't happen, she kept going. She enlisted a 'ferocious team of female allies' across the campaigning and political sphere – including, but not limited to, the former Conservative minister Maria Miller, Labour's Jess Phillips and Louise Haigh, and the Liberal Democrats' Layla Moran in the House of Commons, Helena Morrissey and Helena Kennedy in the Lords, the former TUC boss Frances O'Grady in the unions and Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, on the campaign front. She kept going. 'It's funny because everyone goes: 'Oh you're so brave for breaking your NDA' – none of that was brave,' she says. 'I tell you what's brave: every single campaigner getting up every morning when you're on your own and continuing to fight the system with no remuneration, no encouragement, and nobody really there to hold your hand. That's brave.' But there is a reason she, and others, fight on. 'Being able to make change is the biggest, most fulfilling thing any of us can do. We're all looking to be part of a bigger thing,' she says. 'I'm very lucky to have been able to turn something so negative into a positive, because 90% of women who've been in these situations don't get to do that and that's really why this win is much more for them than me.' Still, the fight – and the exposure – took its toll. At the start of the year a series of false dawns had left her disheartened and demoralised. The support of Haigh and a group of high-profile baronesses in the Lords changed the dynamic, but when she got a call from government aides about the amendments on Friday, before a meeting with the business minister Justin Madders on Monday, she expected the worst. 'I was like: 'Oh God, here we go. They want to break it to me softly to make sure that I don't cry in the meeting.'' The news, they assured her, was definitely positive. On Monday she travelled to Westminster and found herself back in a room of power, but this time she was part of it. 'Without sounding woo woo, that has been the healing part,' she says. 'As corny as it sounds, this has made me acknowledge the privilege of living in a democracy. It's tough, and yes, the buttons are sticky and the levers are rusty, but they do actually work.' So what is next for the woman – part of a vanishingly rare breed – who took on power across multiple fronts and actually won? She will, she promises, continue to buzz around the government like a committed gnat, determined to see this through. Then, maybe, a rest. 'Since the story broke in 2017 it's been a maelstrom,' she says. 'Like I was attached to a surfboard but sort of under the water most of the time. I'm now on the surfboard, but really knackered – and I'd just like to get off and go and lie on the beach.'
