5 d. ago Trump and Putin are threatening to carve up Europe between them. Suddenly, it all feels a bit 1939 | Simon Tisdall

Forget the US president’s seeming volte-face on Ukraine this week: he and Putin fundamentally agree that European liberal democracy is the problemFor many people in eastern Europe, August 1939 may not feel that long ago. That was the moment Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union secretly agreed to partition Poland and forcibly subsume the sovereign Baltic republics and Finland into their totalitarian “spheres of influence”. The world knows what came next.Now the question arises: is it happening again? This time around, it’s Donald Trump’s United States and Vladimir Putin’s Russia making the big geopolitical power-play – and, once again, all of Europe is potential prey. Notwithstanding last week’s sparring over Ukraine, the two leaders’ core aims appear closely aligned.Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago Mystery drones, brazen warplanes & secret sabotage how Putin’s hybrid war will push Nato to breaking point

RUSSIANS are escalating a dangerous hybrid war against Nato with tricks from Vladimir Putin's classic playbook in a bid to sow chaos in Europe. In the last two weeks, Europe has witnessed fighter jet face-offs, mysterious large drone sightings and coordinated sabotage operations that crippled operations at major airports. All these attacks bore hallmarks of...

Events

9 d. ago Putin’s lackeys LOSE IT over Trump backing Ukraine victory with threats to nuke White House & Oxford for good measure

PRO-Putin pundits and officials have been left punch-drunk by Trump's sudden backing of a total victory for Ukraine - and making increasingly insane threats of revenge. Three of Putin's public mouthpieces have levelled insults towards the American president, following a shock pivot in support of Ukraine. Amid Russian politicians pushing Putin to release nuclear weapons...

Politics

9 d. ago How Trump’s breakup with Putin helped push his startling shift on Ukraine

In his biggest policy shift to date, Trump has declared that Ukraine could take back all its land from Russia and ‘go further’. Chief international correspondent Bel Trew asks: what happened?

Politics

1 week ago Kanye West furiously lashes out at tearful Kim Kardashian in explosive documentary

Kanye West unleashed fury at his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, in his new documentary, sharing an insight into his complicated life after being made aware he was putting his family at risk

Events

1 week ago Look to Myanmar for a vision of a world where authoritarians have unfettered power | Simon Tisdall

The brutality and repression there highlight the failings of a dysfunctional world order. Unless we do better, this is the futureThe children were sleeping when death came from the air. A military warplane dropped two 500lb (230kg) bombs on their boarding school, witnesses said. Imagine, if you can, the carnage and the horror. At least 18 died. Others suffered life-changing injuries. The ruling regime claims to be fighting terrorists. Yet more often than not, it is defenceless, blameless civilians who are killed, maimed and displaced. No, this isn’t Gaza. It isn’t Ukraine. It’s Myanmar, where appalling atrocities, including crimes against humanity, often go unreported and unpunished. That doesn’t render them any less heinous or less deserving of universal condemnation.Myanmar, formerly British-run colonial Burma, where civil war has raged since an army coup overthrew the elected government in 2021, is a microcosm of today’s fractured world. National leaders gathering at the UN gener...

Culture

2 w. ago Trump is no 'strongman' when it comes to Russia or Israel. If other democracies don’t step up, anarchy awaits | Simon Tisdall

Putin and Netanyahu are creating chaos in the vacuum left by a weak US president. But there are still ways to foil themIt is too easy to blame Donald Trump for everything that goes wrong in the world. The ability of any US president to fundamentally change or control the behaviour of other major powers is frequently overestimated. Yet by posing as a sort of uncrowned global monarch and grand arbiter of war and peace, Trump perpetuates fantasies of US hegemony, omnipotence and divine right. Intoxicated by such ego-inflating delusions, he pledged before taking office to swiftly end the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts. Perhaps, in his vanity and hubris, he truly believed he could.Eight months on, the exact opposite is happening. Both crises are expanding and escalating. The bubble has burst, his bluff has been called, the emperor has no clothes – and there is no denying that Trump, by alternately appeasing, excusing and encouraging the two foremost villains of these twin tragedies, is great...

Politics

3 w. ago One by one, leaders learn that grovelling to Trump leads to disaster. When will it dawn on Starmer? | Simon Tisdall

As the US president’s state visit looms, he’s leaving a trail of broken promises across the globe. Britain can’t afford to look like a lackey stateSign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and moreSucking up to Donald Trump never works for long. Narendra Modi is the latest world leader to learn this lesson the hard way. Wooing his “true friend” in the White House, India’s authoritarian prime minister thought he’d conquered Trump’s inconstant heart. The two men hit peak pals in 2019, holding hands at a “Howdy Modi” rally in Texas. But it’s all gone pear-shaped thanks to Trump’s tariffs and dalliance with Pakistan. Like a jilted lover on the rebound, Modi shamelessly threw himself at Vladimir Putin in China last week. Don and Narendra! It’s over! Although, to be honest, it always felt a little shallow.Other suitors for Trump’s slippery hand have suffered similar heartbr...

Politics

3 w. ago Russia boasts it is ‘world leader’ in prosthetic limbs due to war in Ukraine

Deputy defence minister Anna Tsivilyov, a relative of Vladimir Putin, said troops returning from the battlefield had helped push Russia’s prosthetic developments

Politics

last month Trump’s belligerence is pushing Xi, Putin and Kim together – and tearing the old world order apart | Simon Tisdall

The three-way partnership on show in Beijing is united in opposition to US hegemony and a western-dominated financial systemSign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and moreDonald Trump’s first reaction to the disconcerting spectacle of China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un marching side-by-side at a huge military parade in Beijing was, predictably, all about him. This show of solidarity and strength, he complained, was nothing less than an attempt to “conspire” against the United States. Trump likes military parades – his own, that is. Even more, he likes to be on the podium, at the centre of attention. He casts himself as world number one. The images coming out of the Chinese capital this week challenged him on all three counts.This puncturing of Trump’s insecure ego, and the striking feebleness of his response, will greatly grat...

Politics