Putin is cornered. Ukraine is the point of main action
After what seemed to be a war-changing intervention by President Trump a few weeks ago, virtually every Western leader and country seems to be looking elsewhere. It is blithely assumed that Putin will come to the peace negotiation table in 40 days' time with cap in hand. Many MPs' thoughts seem to be turning to their extensive summer holidays which begin this week. When they end in five weeks' time, Trump's 50-day deadline will be almost upon us. We must ensure that it is a just peace for Ukraine we are discussing then, rather than an extension of the war to include us all.
The only person who is still focused is Putin. As Trump announces much needed air defence and long-range missiles for Kyiv, Putin has ramped up drone swarm and missile strikes on civilian targets to 500 per night with a promise of 2000 very soon. We know where these mass drone factories are: we should be giving Ukraine the weapons to destroy them.
With some fanfare over the weekend, we were led to believe that UK defence minister John Healey was going to galvanise the 'coalition of the willing' in Europe to up weapon delivery to Ukraine. Unfortunately, this much vaunted speech has barely caused a ripple. Most government ministers are apparently more interested in the Middle East than Europe. But however dreadful the events in Gaza and Syria might be, we are unlikely to get dragged into another war in the Middle East. We might very well in Europe.
We have far too many protesters on our streets shouting about the children of Gaza. Why is nobody shouting about all the children killed by Putin's drones? Why isn't anyone on the streets waving banners in support of Ukrainian families from whom Putin has stolen 20,000 children? Israel has many critics but nobody credible would accuse that nation of child-snatching at all, let alone on such an enormous scale.
Let us not forget that our Security Services warned us only last week that we are being subjected to a massive and continuous cyber-attack from Russia, and we have had to sanction 20 Russian spies because they have conducted – and continue to orchestrate – espionage and sabotage in this country. Russia is waging covert warfare against us here and abroad – and all anyone cares about is Gaza and Israel.
We know the Russian elite are living in fear, as Putin's purges take their toll. The wealthy and powerful of Moscow are terrified following recent arrests and mysterious deaths. Putin's grip on power may be slipping: paradoxically this may make him more dangerous to the world, not less. The Russian economy is in freefall and will fall off a cliff if Trump does impose his promised sanctions at the end of the summer, but we must not give the Russian military freedom of manoeuvre over the next five weeks to seize more territory, kill more Ukrainians and steal more children.
We can prevent this by accelerating weapons to Kyiv – Mr Trump has made it plain that the US will supply weapons if we will pay for them. We should also seriously consider using Nato jets to enforce no-drone zones around protected civilian targets, hospitals and schools, in the major cities like Kyiv and Lviv. This would be a show of intent that even the Kremlin would notice and yet it could not be taken as any form of attack on Russia.
The Germans have a military concept, 'schwerpunkt', the point of main focus or action on which all force must be brought to bear. It is Ukraine, not Gaza, not Iran, that is the schwerpunkt now for the Western world.
However much our political leaders, on all sides of the House, seem to believe they deserve the summer off, they don't. They must stay focused on the war that actually threatens us. The stolen children of Ukraine cannot take a holiday, the cruelly hard pressed Ukrainian soldiers cannot either. If we fail to prevent the war engulfing Europe this summer, none of us will be on holiday next summer.
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