Why didn’t the Ukrainian government inform the Americans about its astonishing plan to invade Russian territory? Because they knew Washington would have told them not to do it.
The White House is reported to have said this crossed President Putin’s reddest of red lines, with the implicit threat that he might “use nuclear weapons.”
Two months ago, Putin warned: “We have a nuclear doctrine, look what it says. If someone’s actions threaten our sovereignty and territorial integrity, we believe it is possible to use all means at our disposal.”
Now let’s look at what really happened after kyiv took possession of part of the Kursk region, forcing more than a hundred thousand Russians to flee or be evacuated, and killing or capturing stunned Russian soldiers with the use of Western tanks and weapons.
Putin, in a televised meeting with his security council, played down the matter, referring to this surprise seizure of Russian territory as “the situation” or “a provocation” while flatly refusing to describe it as an “invasion.”
Putin, in a televised meeting with his security council, downplayed the invasion of Ukraine, referring to this surprise seizure of Russian territory as “the situation” or “a provocation,” while flatly refusing to describe it as an “invasion.”
On Saturday, Russian rescue teams and volunteers helped evacuate civilians from border settlements in the Kursk region.
This is a repeat of what has happened again and again since Putin launched his full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022: he has issued unimaginable threats to the West, if they cross certain lines, but he has never followed through. He initially warned in a broadcast: “Anyone who tries to interfere with us should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead to consequences such as it has never experienced in its history,” adding that Russia “is today one of the most powerful nuclear states.”
But after initial hesitation, Washington launched a colossal programme of lethal aid to kyiv. Putin did not retaliate.
He later warned ominously that “new targets could be attacked” if Ukraine was supplied with the devastating High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars).
President Biden seemed to dissuade him, but he eventually changed his policy and sent them. What happened? Putin said that their supply to kyiv “does not change anything in essence.”
He agreed to the same when, despite warnings from Moscow, Finland joined NATO last year and then Sweden in March this year.
There was also no retaliation against this country after the UK authorized kyiv to use our Storm Shadow missiles to attack the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.
I wrote during this period that Putin’s nuclear threats were being given excessive weight, especially in Germany, which, fearing an “escalation”, is refusing to supply kyiv with its Taurus missiles.
Images released by the Ukrainian military on Sunday show the destruction of a key bridge in Russia’s Kursk region
When Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the SVR (the Foreign Intelligence Service), met with his counterpart, CIA chief William Burns, in 2022, he “swore that he understood and that Putin had no intention of using a nuclear weapon.”
It’s not just that CIA chief William Burns traveled to Moscow in November 2022 to tell his counterpart what the US would do if Russia used nuclear weapons: according to Burns, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the SVR (the Foreign Intelligence Service), “swore that he understood and that Putin had no intention of using a nuclear weapon.”
A month earlier, after Putin began making more explicit nuclear threats, he was rebuked by none other than the Chinese president, his essential ally. Xi Jinping declared that all those involved should “jointly oppose the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.”
In any case, the country that has most to fear from Putin’s nuclear threats is Ukraine, and it has already made its point.
My wife’s allergy to bee stings has taught me to NEVER take risks.
There can be no greater tragedy than the loss of a child, especially when that death was preventable. Like that of 13-year-old Hannah Jacobs, who He died of an allergic reaction in February 2023 after drinking a hot chocolate from a Costa in east London..
The coroner involved in the inquest concluded that there had been “a communication breakdown” between one of the cafe’s employees and Hannah’s mother, Abimbola Duyile. The employee clearly did not understand when he was told that due to Hannah’s acute allergy to dairy, her hot chocolate should be made with soy milk.
The mother told the inquest how Hannah, after taking a sip of hot chocolate, made from cow’s milk, “abruptly I got up and went to the bathroom and yelled:“That wasn’t soy milk.” Within hours, Hannah died from the effects of anaphylaxis.
So, is it all Costa’s fault? A closer reading of the coroner’s verdict shows it’s not that simple. Dr Shirley Radcliffe also noted that “neither Hannah nor her mother were carrying a prescribed EpiPen with them”.
I know from experience how vital it is for those who are prone to anaphylaxis to obey the strict instructions they would have been given by their doctor to carry an EpiPen (which injects the dose of adrenaline needed to Reverse life-threatening symptoms).
My wife doesn’t have food allergies – it’s wasp or bee stings that cause a potentially life-threatening reaction. Once, we were in the garden when she was stung by a wasp. Within seconds, her lips swelled grotesquely and her breathing became labored.
Hannah Jacobs, whose photo is being held by her mother, Abimbola Duyile, died of an allergic reaction in February 2023 after drinking a hot chocolate from a Costa in east London. Dr Shirley Radcliffe noted that “neither Hannah nor her mother were carrying an EpiPen that had been prescribed for them”
We ran into the house and she grabbed her EpiPen, stabbing it into her thigh (through her pants). As suddenly as they had begun, the terrifying symptoms subsided. Acute food allergies are a condition that affects far more of a life than my wife’s. They were compellingly described on the BBC’s Today programme last week by Nadim Ednan-Laperouse: “the tiniest amount of an allergen could kill you within an hour.” Her daughter Natasha had died aged 15, on a BA flight they took together, after she I had a baguette with artichokes, olives and tapenade bought at Pret at the airport..
Unbeknownst to them, it contained sesame seeds, one of the many foods Natasha was highly allergic to.
Mr Ednan-Laperouse and his wife Tania established the Natasha Foundation for Allergy Research and have done wonderful work to bring more attention to this issue.
But I thought at the time of the investigation into her daughter’s death how shocking it was… Since he had suffered a series of acute allergic reactions since he was a baby – his in-flight meals were not prepared at home, but bought at a Pret branch at the airport.
It must be extremely difficult for parents of teenagers, particularly when so much of social life revolves around food and drink in public places, to insist that their children with acute allergies act as if all public restaurants are potential death traps. But they are.
As my (now retired) doctor told me at the time of Natasha’s tragic death: “If you have a complex set of life-threatening allergies, it’s crazy to eat out. You have to give yourself the best chance.”
The question is where corporate responsibility ends and personal responsibility begins. But those poor children: how brave they must have been throughout their short lives!