New UK sanctions

UK tells Putin to have a ceasefire

The UK and the ridiculous and out of his depth Foreign Secretary Lammy have announced new sanctions on Russia. This is the line which gives us some idea of the depth (that is total shallowness) of thinking of these people:

Putin has so far not put in place the full, unconditional ceasefire that President Trump has called for, and which President Zelenskyy endorsed over 2 months ago [1]

My gosh. Naughty Putin. Do they really think this is how wars end? One side in the war orders the other to have a ceasefire, even when the other side is winning, and that’s it? It is difficult to know if they really think that Putin is just going to order a ceasefire because he was told to, by the war party of the “Collation of the Willing” or whether this is just fluff while they try to prolong the war. We can see how the War Party are trying to associate Trump with their “ceasefire” project – as here, “which President Trump has called for”. This little game started when the war party met in Kiev a week ago; Starmer, Macron. Merz and Tusk with Zelensky. They did a little piece for the camera allegedly when they were all talking to Trump on a mobile phone! (No word from the liberal media about the security of this!) Then they put out an announcement about how if Putin didn’t bow down and have their ceasefire, they would “massively ramp up sanctions and arms supply to Ukraine”. They tried to imply that they had a united front with Trump, (the purpose of the staged call with the mobile phone). Embarrassingly for them, Trump’s next move was to order Zelensky to have talks with Russia without a ceasefire. So, here, the UK government has to refer to a call Trump made for a ceasefire two months ago, and gloss over what happened last week – when he called for talks without any preliminary ceasefire. Does the UK government think that they can’t figure all this out in the Kremlin? Who are they writing this propaganda for?

Turning to the sanctions themselves, (linked to from the Press Release [1]), I am not an expert and don’t have the time to do the research. But, at a glance it appears that a few dozen small financial and technical businesses have been added to UK sanctions; which means that UK businesses and individuals, (I think), cannot do business with them. This does not look to me like the “massive ramp up” we were promised. It looks very minor. How many of these businesses depend on UK finance and trade? Even to the extent that these companies are negatively affected – I would guess that money and tech will simply find new ways to flow.

Baltic Sea flashpoint

More interesting perhaps, and also, in its own way, somewhat amusing, is watching the EU trying to find the bottle to do something about the shadow fleet transiting though the Danish Straits. This is a narrow strip of water which lies, I believe, entirely within the territorial waters of Denmark and Sweden, which tankers carrying Russian oil have to pass through to exit the Baltic Sea. About 1/3 of Russia’s oil exports pass through this channel. [2] Legally, it appears that the EU has a problem. They might be able to impose some kind of controls based on claims about environmental protection under UNCLOS (Law of the Sea), but there is a separate treaty, the 1857 Copenhagen Treaty, which appears to guarantee free transit through the Danish Straits which might, if I understand it, limit even what limited action can be taken under UNCLOS. [3] Still; the situation in the Baltic Sea does appear to be hotting up a bit. [4] After all; the EU (with the UK) are talking about reducing their oil price cap to $50.00 – [5] but the oil price cap is meaningless if they can’t block Russia’s “shadow fleet”.

What is the plan?

And, as always, we can ask the one question that Western media does not seem to want to ask of Starmer, and Lammy and Kaja Kallas and von der Leyen and Merz and all the rest of them. What is the plan? You must have a plan? Do they really still think that squeezing the sanctions a little more, (while still buying Russian gas – because no one in Germany wants the situation there to get any worse than it is), and scrabbling around to find a few more arms, is going to turn the tide? That Russia is, finally, going to collapse? (And what happens when the remaining $3 billion of the last US Congress package runs out?) It seems that they tell themselves that they are “increasing pressure on Putin to force him to come to the table”. But this is the absolute stupidity of their position. Putin is not, in fact, a naughty child reaching for some sweets which don’t belong to him, and if you make him sit on the naughty step and go to bed without supper he will change his cost-benefit calculation and give up the sweets. Russia has a clear set of rational, strategic aims, foremost of which is to block any possibility of Ukraine joining NATO or becoming a Western military stronghold on their border. This is existential for Russia and increasing the “costs” has no effect at all. If someone is fighting for their life, increasing the difficulty of doing that will have zero effect; they are still fighting for their life. Russia is not involved some kind of mercantile cost-benefit game. This part, I am willingly to believe, they simply don’t understand. These people are not statesmen. They have no understanding of history or international relations. No serious theory. (If they have a theory it is the cost-benefit theory which is a bad theory because it is not how states think). And they have no idea how to do diplomacy. They just talk to Russia like Russia is a naughty child, quite literally, and they think they can get their way by haranguing, insulting and punishing Russia. They had better be glad that their wrong-headed plans will not come to fruition, because, if there was any chance that they might, Russia would explode and then would have a real war on their hands.

Who set fire to Starmer’s house?

This is another interesting story. [6] One Ukrainian has been charged with trying to torch property belonging to UK Prime Minister. A Romanian national has also been arrested. A third man too and as of now no information about him in the media. In court the Romanian was aided by a Russian interpreter. UK media is being very, very coy about this. In court the prosecution has said that no motive has been identified. Was this an operation directed, or encouraged, by Russian secret services? We are continually being told about Russian sabotage operations in Europe – involving, often, arson. I am willing to believe that some of these may well be prompted by Russian intelligence. I have discussed how Ukrainian intelligence is running this kind of campaign in Russia; it would perhaps be surprising if Russian intelligence isn’t returning the compliment. Some of the people arrested in Europe in connection with sabotage attacks are Ukrainian. [7] Russian intelligence may be using Ukrainians. If this apparent arson attack on Starmer’s property in London was directed or even prompted in some way by Russian intelligence that would be an act of war. It would be 100x worse than poisoning their own ex-spy on British soil – and recall the enormous, pompous fuss about that. I would guess that there is an official or self-policing D-notice on this one. If it is linked to Russia, (I mean really); what then? Would they suppress it to avoid having to respond? At any rate the total lack of interest the media is showing is a nice example of how the UK media, (D-notice or not), is, basically, controlled by the state on security matters. (Update: the name of the third man has been released and is reported here by the Guardian. [8] Petro Pochynok, 34 – which looks somewhat Ukrainian. Notice; how the Guardian does not mention at all the nationalities of the suspects).

Notes

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