Smoke filled the air in cities across the country today, including Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Lille, as protestors incensed by the killing set fire to cars and buildings, looted shops and clashed with police. 

More than two hundred police were injured and 875 people arrested overnight, authorities said. France’s interior ministry said that bus and tram services would be halted nationwide from 9pm tonight.

Macron, who left an EU summit in Brussels early to attend a crisis cabinet meeting, appealed to “the responsibility of mothers and fathers” to help quell the violence. Many of the rioters are teenagers. 

The President blamed social media for fuelling copycat violence and said that state agencies would ask platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok to remove the most “sensitive content”. 

Such is the intensity of the violence that the Foreign Office has updated its travel advice, warning Brits visiting France that “local transport provision may be reduced” because of the unrest, “some local authorities may impose curfews”, and that “locations and timing of riots are unpredictable.”

The violence was sparked by the shooting of a 17-year-old teenager, named as Nahel M, in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday. He was shot by a traffic police officer after failing to stop when asked to do so. The officer is in custody and faces charges of voluntary manslaughter.

The killing has fanned long-standing resentments among poor, racially-mixed, urban communities in France over repeated incidents of police violence and allegations of systemic racism in recent years.

The apparent trigger-happiness of French police is being traced back to a 2017 change in the law which allows police officers to shoot in five specific instances, including when the driver or occupants of a vehicle ignore an order to stop and are deemed to pose a risk to the officer’s life or physical safety, or other people’s.

Last year, a study showed that fatal police shootings on drivers of moving vehicles had multiplied fivefold since the law was implemented. Of the 39 people killed by police in 2022, 13 were drivers who were shot on the basis that they failed to comply with orders.

Macron is attempting to wrestle back control of the situation. As France smouldered from Lille to Lyon on Wednesday night, the President was attending an Elton John Concert. A picture shows Macron grinning alongside John and their respective partners. The ill-advised snap has done nothing to shake his image as a – in his words – “Jupiterian” President, one who has lost touch with the mortal world. 

And with Nahel’s funeral tomorrow, the prospect of the fierce emotions driving the violence subsiding are slim.

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The PM said he fundamentally disagreed with the court’s verdict that the Central African nation had not provided enough safeguards to prove it is a “safe third country”.

The ruling is the culmination of a number of court challenges over human rights concerns regarding the policy, which aims to deal with the influx of asylum seekers arriving on British shores from across the Channel in small boats. The first scheduled flight to Rwanda in June 2022 was blocked by a last-minute interim measure from the European Court of Human Rights. 

Another party less than impressed with the Court of Appeal’s decision was the Rwandan government. Its spokesperson, Yolande Makolo, said: “While this is ultimately a decision for the UK’s judicial system, we do take issue with the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers and refugees.

“Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world and we have been recognised by the UNHCR and other international institutions for our exemplary treatment of refugees.”

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, denied that after defeats in the courts and the House of Lords, the government’s Rwanda plan was unravelling: “Our Bill is absolutely essential as an element in fixing this problem. It will allow us to detain and remove those who arrive here illegally. 

“The problem is out of control – 45,000 people arrived here illegally last year. It is costing the British taxpayer £6m a day in hotel accommodation.”

Braverman insisted that she remained fully committed to the policy. Even so, there might be a few secret sighs of relief rippling around Whitehall. After all, Braverman can now blame leftie activists for scuppering what would have been a tough, no-nonsense solution to an issue that the Tories believe resonates with the electorate. This way, the Home Secretary has been spared the embarrassment of the policy failing miserably, the chances of which were quite a bit higher than zero.

For one thing, the scheme being blocked is likely to save the taxpayer money. Earlier this week, a Home Office economic assessment revealed that the plan to deport migrants to Rwanda would cost £169,000 per person – £63,000 more than keeping them in the UK. The government was banking on a deterrent effect for the scheme to make economic sense. 

All is not lost for Sunak. The Court of Appeal decision was split two-to-one, with the Lord Chief Justice siding with the original High Court ruling that the scheme is legal. The decision may well go the other way on appeal to the Supreme Court. 

Yet the ruling is undoubtedly a blow for the government, at a time when the PM and his team could really do with things going their way.

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Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, said she was “very concerned” about the future of the company, which supplies 15 million customers with water and has the highest debt-to-equity ratio across the UK water sector, at nearly 80 per cent.

The industry regulator Ofwat is in talks with the government and is believed to have examined placing Thames Water into a special administration regime that would in effect take the company into temporary public ownership.

In a sign of the pressure the company is under, chief executive Sarah Bentley stepped down with immediate effect on Tuesday after two years in the job. She gave up her bonus over the failure to tackle sewage and other environmental issues.

None of this is good news for consumers or the taxpayer.

Water prices already rose by up to 11 per cent in April, yet water companies are asking the regulator to approve real-terms price increases next year of up to 40 per cent, according to consultation documents seen by The Times. It would mean annual bills increasing from an average of about £450 to £680, plus inflation, in parts of the country.

Part of the reason for the drastic hike is that water firms are finally being told to pay for the pollution they pump into England’s waterways. Water companies have been asked to submit plans by October to tackle sewage under a process run by Ofwat. These include improving storm overflows discharging in or near designated bathing spots and improving 75 per cent of overflows into high-priority nature sites.

Britain’s water industry has been held up as an example of why not to privatise a utility where the potential for meaningful competition is minimal.

For decades, privatised water companies have been condemned for sewage spills, creaking infrastructure and rising bills, while simultaneously paying dividends to investors and large salaries and bonuses to executives.

As the FT’s Jim Pickard points out, water companies had no debt when they were privatised in 1989, but since then they have borrowed £53bn, much of which has been used to help pay £72bn in dividends.

Thames Water alone was fined £32m for water pollution between 2017 and 2021. Three years ago, its new boss, Sarah Bentley, vowed to clean up the company. Yet it is still under intense pressure to stop polluting – and it recently emerged that leaks at Thames Water are at a five-year high.

Despite the company’s shoddy track record, Bentley took home a reported £2m last year. She’s not alone. Liv Garfield, CEO of Severn Trent, was paid a whopping £3.9 million, while Steve Mogford, head of United Utilities, serving the northwest of England, received a package valued at £3.2 million. (Walter Ellis’s run-in with water industry fat cats in a previous life is well worth a read).

Financial issues have stacked up over years under different owners. Thames Water’s former owner between 2006 and 2017, the Australian bank Macquarie, was accused of asset stripping as it extracted billions in shareholder dividends while the firm’s debt soared.

Today, its biggest shareholders include Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System with a 32 per cent stake, and UK pension fund Universities Superannuation Scheme with 20 per cent, along with China’s sovereign wealth fund (8.7 per cent) and Abu Dhabi’s (9.9 per cent).

Thames is trying to negotiate a £1bn cash injection from its shareholders. If talks fail, taxpayers face the appalling prospect of taking on billions of pounds of debt to bail out another failing utility giant.

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The utterly scathing verdict of the majority-Tory committee was that Johnson’s behaviour, including being “complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation” of the privileges committee amounted to “an attack on democratic institutions”.

It recommended that he be suspended from the Commons for 90 days. Johnson announced his resignation as an MP on Friday. 

Johnson’s case – that his inadvertent telling of an un-truth to Parliament was cock-up, not conspiracy – was demolished by the devastating report. You can read Johnson’s disdainful riposte in full here.

Loyalists have come out to bat for Boris. Sir Simon Clarke, a former Cabinet minister, said he was “amazed at the harshness of today’s report” and the “punishment is absolutely extraordinary to the point of sheer vindictiveness”. 

“Spiteful, vindictive and overreaching” was how Brendan Clarke-Smith, a Johnson-supporting Tory backbencher, put it.  

And his biggest cheerleader, Nadine Dorries, pronounced that the committee had “overreached” and that any Tory MP who voted to approve the report’s findings was “fundamentally not a Conservative”.

On the charge he deliberately misled Parliament, Johnson said this was “rubbish” and based on “a series of things that are patently absurd”, calling the process a “witch-hunt”. 

The public isn’t so sure. Fresh YouGov polling found that 69 per cent of Britons think Johnson knowingly misled Parliament over Covid rule breaches, as do 51 per cent of Tory voters.

And while a slim plurality of Tory voters think Johnson did not get a fair hearing from the privileges committee – 40 per cent to 33 per cent – the wider public think he did, by 47 per cent to 20 per cent.

So, what now?

The report will be debated in the Commons, with a vote held on whether to approve the findings on Monday.

MPs are expected to approve the report, after Commons leader Penny Mordaunt said Tory MPs would not be ordered to vote against it.

On the by-election front, it was confirmed this afternoon that the Tories will be defending Boris Johnson and Nigel Adams’ vacated seats on 20 July, just before MPs break for the summer recess.

And having jumped before he was pushed, Johnson will formally exit the Commons once the convoluted quitting process plays out in the coming weeks. 

His immediate priority is likely to be getting his finances back on track after buying a £4m nine-bed Georgian manor house (complete with moat) in Oxfordshire.

But by questioning the legitimacy of the committee rather than accepting its damning verdict, Johnson is erecting the scaffolding for an eventual political return.  

Could the cold, dead hand of zombie Boris thrust through the earth of his political grave?

Picture the scene. It’s 2027. Partygate is ancient history. Labour has a 50-seat majority in the Commons. And Sir Keir Starmer’s government is gaining momentum in the polls after a shaky start, thanks to a modest economic recovery. After Rishi Sunak stood down in the wake of a general election drubbing two years earlier, the new leader, Kemi Badenoch, is struggling to hold together a party beset by infighting and despair.

The Tories are in meltdown and desperately casting around for anyone who could revive their electoral fortunes, a tried and tested vote-winner, popular with the grassroots…

It’s depressing to think about and highly unlikely. But so is much about Boris Johnson.  

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Inflation was running at 4 per cent in the year to the end of May, slightly under the 4.1 per cent expected, and down from 4.9 per cent in March.

The big question gripping financial markets is whether the inflationary slowdown will give the Fed confidence to leave interest rates unchanged when it meets tomorrow.

Officials have raised borrowing costs sharply since last year to try to rein in prices, wrenching the Fed’s key interest rate to more than 5% from close to zero in March 2022.

But analysts are now pricing in a pause – a welcome relief for businesses, mortgage-owners and US policymakers striving to boost still-sluggish growth.

The picture isn’t so rosy this side of the Atlantic, however.

UK government borrowing costs hit levels last seen during the global financial crisis today as traders priced in a higher likelihood of the Bank of England raising interest rates as high as 6 per cent.

Gilt prices slumped as the yield on the two-year notes – the return the government must offer to anyone buying its debt – jumped as much as 20 basis points to 4.84 per cent, the highest since 2008.

If the base rate reaches this level, there are growing fears about the devastating impact on mortgage rates, and the housing market. At 6 per cent, analysts reckon mortgage rates in the current market are as punitive as 13 per cent was in the late 1980s, leading to negative equity for many homeowners.

This jump in yields follows ONS data showing that UK private sector wages grew by 7.2 per cent in the three months to April – a record, if you ignore the pandemic years. Public sector wages also rose, by 5.6 per cent.

The figures will add to the Bank of England’s concern that the economy is slipping into a wage-price spiral, and most of the signs point to the Bank continuing its monetary tightening when it meets to set rates next week.

Money markets have now priced in 1.25 percentage points of hikes this year from the current level of 4.5 per cent. And comments today from Megan Greene, the latest addition to the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, support the idea that we haven’t seen the end of monetary tightening.  

She told the Treasury Committee that halving inflation from its winter peak will be easier than bringing it down to the Bank’s target: “I think that there is some underlying [inflationary] persistence and so getting from 10 per cent to 5 per cent… is probably easier than getting from 5 per cent to 2 per cent.”

Greene also warned of the dangers of reigning in monetary tightening too soon: “If you engage in stop-start monetary policy, you may end up having to tighten even more and generating an even worse recession on the other side.”

If Greene’s comments reflect the MPC’s thinking, the pain of high rates could get a lot worse before it gets better. 

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Jens Stoltenberg, who has been a steady hand at the alliance’s tiller since 2014, is due to stand down in September, and the race to replace him is on.

Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has made it clear he’d like the job, and Sunak is almost certain to have made the hard sell for Wallace during his tête-à-tête with Biden on Thursday.

Yet the President was cryptic when asked by the press whether it was time for a British secretary-general for the first time in 20 years.

“Maybe, that remains to be seen,” Biden said, adding: “We’re going to have to get a consensus within NATO to see that happen.”

“They have a candidate who’s a very qualified individual… we have a lot of discussion between us in NATO, to determine what the outcome of that will be.”

Is Wallace the “very qualified individual”? Or does “they” refer to the Danes, whose prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, is also thought to be in the running for the NATO job. It’s not entirely clear. Either way, Biden was hedging his bets.

Wallace is thought to be something of a long-shot, while Frederiksen, who pipped Sunak to a meeting with Biden in Washington earlier this week, is considered one of the frontrunners if Stoltenberg is replaced. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas are two other names doing the rounds.

Still, there’s plenty to recommend the defence secretary. Wallace has proved himself immensely competent since the Ukraine war began, spearheading Britain’s robust response and drumming up international support.

Edward Hunter Christie, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and a former NATO official, believes that in a straight shoot-out between Wallace and Frederiksen, Wallace would be the best bet.

“I think it’s a good time for NATO’s top role to favour a candidate with greater military expertise and credentials,” he says. “Wallace is a safe pair of hands and he can do consensus politics. But with an added gravitas that Frederiksen doesn’t have.”

From the point of view of NATO members, Wallace’s big advantage is that the UK is putting its money where its mouth is on defence – at least compared to the Danes.  

In his statement to the press from the White House yesterday, the PM trumpeted the UK’s record of consistently spending more than the NATO target of 2 per cent of GDP on defence. This is being interpreted as a veiled swipe at Denmark, which did not meet the target last year.

Yet there’s a chance neither hopeful will get the chance to stand. Stoltenberg’s term has already been extended from March 2022 following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine the month before, and many officials believe that a further extension is a serious possibility – and the right call at a perilous moment in the alliance’s history.

Others are pushing for a breath of fresh air. Stoltenberg is a former Norwegian prime minister and his most recent predecessors were Danish, Dutch and British. The French are thought to be in favour of a candidate from an EU country, and there is a strong argument for the new head to hail from a central or eastern European state, given the renewed focus on Russia. NATO has never had a secretary-general from any of the former Soviet countries which joined the alliance since 1999.

Whoever takes over will face a tough balancing act: bolstering NATO’s defences and boosting Ukraine’s war effort without becoming directly involved in the conflict. The alliance must ensure their man – or woman – is up to the task. 

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The Ukrainian administration added that 17,000 people were being evacuated – many from in and around the city of Kherson, prised from Russia’s grip in November – with some 40,000 more in danger of being flooded. Another 25,000 civilians require evacuation from the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River, raising fears they would be relocated to Russia.

It’s a fresh form of horror inflicted on a people who have endured death, destruction, and grief for 15 months.  

In his first public response to the dam breach today, Vladimir Putin called it a “barbaric act”, but the signs point to Russia being responsible. The Biden administration has said that while it could not say conclusively who is to blame, intelligence on the ground meant it was “leaning towards” Moscow being behind the attack.

It wouldn’t be the first time. Joseph Stalin ordered the destruction of a dam across the Dnipro in 1941 in the face of invading German forces marching eastwards towards Russia. This time around, a vast expanse of water will hamper Ukrainian efforts to recapture lost territory in the south – including Crimea.

The peninsula, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, depends on the Nova Kakhovka reservoir for drinking water and irrigation. The flooding will have severe consequences in a region that was already struggling to supply enough drinking water for its residents.

Russia may have calculated that the impact on Crimea was worth it. Writing in the Conversation, Stefan Wolff, professor of international security at the University of Birmingham, says: “Such an act of economic self-harm also begs the question of how committed Russia is to its future in Crimea. It looks more like a bid to inflict long-term damage to the viability of Ukraine as a functioning society and economy.”

Then there’s the catastrophic damage the flooding will do to fertile Ukrainian farmland. At least 150 tons of oil were swept into the deluge, and landmines unearthed by the catastrophic flooding are floating down the river engulfing Ukrainian homes. Kyiv labelled the destruction of the dam “ecocide”.

The threat of ecological disaster has haunted Ukraine since the early days of the war when the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was seized by Russian forces. The plant lies upriver from the dam and uses water from the reservoir for its cooling ponds.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said that while the burst dam poses “no immediate threat” to the plant, there are long-term concerns, both over safety and the possibility of the plant becoming operational again in the coming years. Once again, Ukrainians are being made to pay a devastating price by forces they are powerless to stop. 

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In a post on Telegram, Hannah Mailer wrote that the eastern city of Bakhmut is the “epicentre of hostilities” and that Russian forces were on the defensive in the east and south of Ukraine. 

Ukrainian commanders also claim to have made marginal gains in several areas. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “moving forward” on the Bakhmut front amid 29 combat clashes in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

It comes after Russia claimed last night to have killed 250 Ukrainian troops in a thwarted major offensive in southern Donetsk. “The enemy launched a large-scale offensive in five sectors of the front,” Russia’s defence ministry said. “A total of six mechanised and two tank battalions of the enemy were involved.” It added that “the enemy” had had “no success”.

However, Ukrainian officials have denied Russia’s claims that the offensive has begun and said the Kremlin was lying to undercut morale. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Russia was “repelling… a global offensive that does not yet exist.” Ukraine made it clear over the weekend that there would be no announcement when its counter-offensive begins.  

Who to believe? Individual reports should be treated with scepticism. Both sides have an obvious incentive to muddy the waters. Yet taken together, the reports suggest a multi-pronged attack that stops short of an all-out assault. Western officials told The Economist that the attacks “do in fact mark the start of the offensive” and added that Russia’s defensive lines “could be more fragile than thought”.

Analysts have said that the Ukrainian attacks could be designed to probe the Russian frontline for weaknesses ahead of a more concentrated commitment of troops and firepower. With 600 miles of frontline, Ukraine cannot afford to spread itself too thin. At the same time, one promising route to battlefield success would be to force Russia to defend multiple, less well-reinforced points at once, stretching its own units.  

Reports also hint at Western-supplied kit being put to good use. Alexander Khodakovsky, the commander of a pro-Russian militia in Donetsk claimed the Ukrainians had deployed German-made Leopard battle tanks for the first time in the area around Vuhledar, suggesting that NATO-trained troops have entered the Ukrainian battlefield.

Kyiv may not have formally declared that its spring offensive has begun, but signs on the ground are that the months of relative stasis on the Ukrainian frontline are over. 

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The deals mean all tariffs on UK goods exports to Australia and New Zealand have been removed, access to these markets for services unlocked, and red tape slashed for digital trade and work visas.

Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, hailed it as a “historic moment” despite criticism, including from within the government’s own ranks, that the deals hand an advantage to Antipodean farmers at the expense of their British counterparts.

Tory MP George Eustice, an enthusiastic Brexiteer who was environment secretary when the deals were signed in December 2021, told the Commons in November that the Australia agreement “gave away far too much for far too little” and “was not actually a very good deal for Britain”.

The government’s own calculations estimate that the new deals will make a negligible long-term contribution to the British economy, increasing GDP by just 0.11 per cent a year – or £3.1bn – by 2035. On the other side of the ledger, the National Farmers’ Union has warned that the deals could cost the industry up to £150m.

The UK has struck more than 70 trade agreements since leaving the EU – but big-ticket deals with major players like the US haven’t yet materialised.

Rishi Sunak is due to hold talks with Joe Biden in Washington next week. Just the opportunity, you might think, for the PM to work his tech-bro charm and get the ball rolling on a deal. After all, Sunak’s Windsor Framework agreement to settle trading arrangements in Northern Ireland has negated a major source of tension between London and Washington.

But Downing Street said on Tuesday that the PM would not try to secure a trade agreement on his visit to the States. The concession reflects an acceptance within the Sunak government that a trade deal with the US – which those optimistic about the UK’s post-Brexit future once hailed as one of the biggest potential dividends from leaving the EU – is looking further away than ever.

US-UK talks were thrown off course by the pandemic and sticking points such as whether to allow US agricultural products into the UK market. Biden has made clear that reviving negotiations is not a priority for his administration.

All is not lost, however. The UK has already agreed closer trade partnerships with North Carolina, South Carolina and Indiana. A Downing Street spokesman confirmed yesterday that Utah, Texas, California and Oklahoma are next in the crosshairs.

Individual US states don’t have the power to strike full trade deals with foreign nations, and any agreements the UK makes with them to cut trade barriers and boost economic cooperation are likely to be “memoranda of understanding.”

Still, with the door firmly shut on a comprehensive deal with Washington for the time being, this piecemeal approach looks like the best option on the table. 

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Muscovites woke to the sound of explosions early on Tuesday morning as Russian air defence systems shot down several drones approaching the capital.

The city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said two people were injured, but not seriously, while some residents in two lightly damaged apartment blocks were briefly evacuated. It follows another alleged Ukrainian attack on Moscow earlier this month, when two drones were shot down over the Kremlin building.

President Putin blamed Ukraine for the latest attack which he said was aimed at “civilian targets” with the aim of “frightening” Russians. An aide to President Zelensky denied that Kyiv had a hand in the attack but said that Ukraine had been “pleased to watch”.

The explosions over Moscow came as Russia launched its own drone strikes over Kyiv, the third barrage over the Ukrainian capital in 24 hours, injuring at least 30 and killing a 33-year-old woman.

For Ukraine, attempting to widen the war satisfies several objectives at once. One is psychological. The downed drones hit the city’s “golden mile”, a wealthy south-western residential district dotted with residences of government officials and mansions of Russian tycoons.

While it’s unclear whether these affluent areas were the intended target – there are known military and industrial targets near where the drones were shot down – terrifying the wealthy Muscovites who hold some sway in the Putin-centric political system would seem like a shrewd way of undermining domestic support for the war.

Plus, for many Ukrainians targeted by Russian bombs for 15 months, a sense that Russian civilians are being made to feel a fraction of their fear and pain will bring a grim satisfaction.

The strategic advantage of hitting Russia on home turf – albeit indirectly and deniably – is also important. Last week, two Russian paramilitary groups fighting alongside Ukraine – the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Liberty of Russia Legion (LSR) – carried out a cross-border raid into Russia’s southern Belgorod region. While Ukraine again denied any involvement in the incursion, capturing Russian territory – even by a proxy outfit – would give it valuable bargaining chips in any eventual peace talks.  

Apart from the fact the Belgorod raid appeared to have failed, there was one other snag. Russia posted pictures of destroyed US vehicles apparently at the scene of the fighting and said it was proof of deepening Western military involvement in the war.

It’s entirely possible that the scene was staged. Either way, it’s a reminder of tensions between Ukraine and its Western backers over the scope of the war.

Western nations have placed limits on acceptable targets for the arms they provide Kyiv, and demanded assurances that these weapons will not be used inside Russia.

In response to reports in the Washington Post earlier this month that Ukraine was considering attacking the Druzhba gas pipeline running from Russia to Hungary, and invading the city of Belgorod, Zelensky said: “We have neither the time nor the strength [to attack Russia]”. Today’s drone attack is the latest in a series of events suggesting otherwise.

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Speaking at the London Defence conference, Pål Jonson said that giving up the Gripen fighter jets that Ukraine has asked for would have “very severe operational effects” on Sweden’s capacity to defend itself.

“When I look at Russian capabilities, I see that their ground forces are severely weakened and tied up in Ukraine,” he said. “But when I look at their naval and aerial assets, they’re almost completely intact in [Sweden’s] area.”

“So it’s very hard for us to give up the 60 Gripen fighters that we have, as they’re operating 24/7 right now to maintain our territorial integrity, and Russia is still active in our region.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing for the aircraft, considered by analysts at RUSI to be one of the most suitable models of advanced jet to help Ukraine win the war. 

Professor Justin Bronk, of RUSI, said the Gripen had been “explicitly designed” to counter Russian surface-to-air missiles and fast jets by “flying very low and having an internal electronic warfare suite”, adding that the model was easy to maintain and operate.

Jonson said he welcomed the progress made in the “jet coalition” to source aircraft for Ukraine, including the contribution of MiG-29s from Poland and Slovakia.

Pressed by Iain Martin, director of the LDC, on the conditions that would have to be met for Sweden to change its mind on Gripen jets, Jonson refused to be drawn.

“I don’t exclude any possibility, but I have no immediate plans right now to send Gripens to Ukraine, because right now it’s in the ‘too hard to do’ box.” 

Watch the 2023 London Defence Conference live here

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Speaking at the London Defence Conference, the Hon. Stephen Smith insisted that collaboration on hypersonic technology, intelligent submersibles and AI (“pillar two”) was even more important than increasing nuclear-powered submarine capabilities in the Indo-Pacific (“pillar one”).

“If pillar two fails, then AUKUS fails,” he said.

The session, chaired by New Labour grandee Lord Mandelson, focussed on the viability and strategic ambitions of the 2019 defence pact, which involves equipping Australia with nuclear-powered submarines as a deterrent against an increasingly aggressive China.

Smith added: “If AUKUS is to be a genuine trilateral strategic partnership, there needs to be that seemlessness of technology, and that’s one of the things we’re working very hard on and making progress on.”

Dr Nicola Leveringhaus, a senior lecturer at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, echoed Smith’s remarks, noting that China is taking the security pact seriously: “For China, AUKUS is a serious military concern that complicates its strategic manoeuvrability across the Indo-Pacific.

“It complicates diplomatic and political reach that China has – at very high levels – tried to cultivate with its partners in [the region].

“AUKUS submarines won’t be game-changers, but with pillar two, it really does start to change the balance between us and China.”

AUKUS is forecast to cost up to $368bn between now and the mid-2050s, and Australia has committed to spend $9bn on the project over the next four years.

Pressed by Lord Mandelson on whether the vast cost of AUKUS would eventually cause public support in Australia to wane, Smith said: “There are always political risks that one needs to manage. But at the moment we have strong bi-partisan support for the programme. If you start this great national endeavour, you cannot stop.”  

Watch the 2023 London Defence Conference live here.

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Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday that his mercenaries had seized the frontline Donetsk city, despite having “practically no” help from the Russian army. In a message on Telegram today, he said his forces had set up defensive lines to the city’s west ahead of the transfer.

Yet the true status of Bakhmut is hotly contested.

Ukraine has pushed back against Russian claims of victory, making clear that the battle for Bakhmut is far from over. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Mailar, today denied that Russian forces were in full control of the city, although Ukraine’s army has admitted that much of Bakhmut’s territory has been lost.  

President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted at the G7 summit in Japan on Sunday that the small eastern city was “not occupied by Russia.”

After a year of relentless bombing, Bakhmut is a cadaver of a city. By January this year, 60% of the buildings had been destroyed. Zelensky said photos of Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb fell reminded him of Bakhmut: “There is absolutely nothing alive, all the buildings are destroyed. Absolute, total destruction. There is nothing, there are no people.”

The scale of the investment both sides have made in the battle for the city is staggering. Vast quantities of ammunition have been expended, while US intelligence figures suggest Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties in and around Bakhmut since December last year alone – including 20,000 deaths. If accurate, it means around one in four of all Russia’s deployed troops (450,000) have been killed or injured in Bakhmut.  

According to Russian officials, some 14,000 to 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers have also been killed in the city, although Ukraine claims its forces are taking seven Russian lives for every Ukrainian life lost.

While the exact numbers are impossible to verify, it’s likely that the battle for the city has been the bloodiest since the Second World War.

The battle to control the narrative of Bakhmut is as intense as the fighting on the ground. It’s hard to cut through the fog of war, but if the Wagner Group has indeed taken Bakhmut, it would be Vladimir Putin’s first significant battlefield prize in 10 months – and hand Russia a valuable psychological advantage.

Control of the city won’t define the war on the ground. With the 600 miles of frontline mostly frozen for months, the ferocious fighting in Bakhmut has become the focus of media attention. But its importance has been mostly symbolic. Zelensky vowed in March that he would never let Bakhmut fall into Russian hands. He can’t be seen to break that promise.

When the spring offensive eventually comes, Bakhmut could well return to what it really is, at least in strategic terms – a hellish sideshow in a conflict that shows no sign of ending any time soon.

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CNN is reporting that sources close to the discussions have confirmed that the US has signalled the move to its European allies in recent weeks.

Washington has been at odds with Europe over supplying the American-made aircraft to Ukraine.

The sensitive technology on board means the US must approve the third-party transfer of the jets. Until now it has refused to do so, or to green-light the training of Ukrainian pilots on the aircraft.

But it seems Washington has relented, paving the way for jet deliveries ahead of the much-trailed spring offensive. The Netherlands, for instance, has 24 F-16 that are due to be scrapped next year and has signalled it may be willing to send them to the frontline.

The news came as leaders of the G7 held top-level talks in Hiroshima on the first day of a three-day summit.

In a joint statement, the group of rich democracies said it would “starve Russia of G7 technology, industrial equipment and services that support its war machine”. One option being considered is sanctioning Chinese companies which provide dual-use parts to Russia that end up on the battlefield in Ukraine.

While President Volodymyr Zelensky will be pleased by the talk of tougher sanctions, he’ll be delighted by the apparent US volte-face on F16s, which have been top of his wish-list for months.

After deciding that a video address would lack the personal touch, Zelensky is due to touch down in Japan on Saturday evening. The Ukrainian president will be sure to press home his advantage.

It’s been a day of high-profile gatherings the world over. Ahead of his date with the G7, Zelensky paid a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia today to attend the Arab League Summit and meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Last year, bin Salman negotiated the return to Ukraine of 10 foreigners captured by Russian-backed forces in the occupied Donbas. Zelensky will press the MBS to use his leverage over Vladimir Putin once again to secure the return of more political prisoners.

The big hope, however, is that Saudi Arabia could become a guarantor of Ukrainian security once a peace plan is in place.

Meanwhile, several thousand miles away in north-west China, a third summit has been taking place.

At a gathering of central asian powers, President Xi Jinping unveiled a grand plan for the economic development of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Xi is on manoeuvres in Central Asia, traditionally considered Russia’s backyard, not least by the Kremlin. Renewed interest in the resource-rich region follows the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

The pledges of support and cooperation at the two-day summit cover everything from building infrastructure to boosting trade. It represents a deepening of China’s Belt and Road initiative, with the aim of embedding itself in the economic nervous system of countries across the globe.

All the world’s focus may be in Japan, but the geopolitical cogs are turning elsewhere too. 

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Or so we’ve been told. For several months now, the idea of an imminent make-or-break spring offensive has framed coverage of the war.

Yet so far, the promised push hasn’t materialised. Instead an eerie calm has remained along much of the front line, except in the devastated city of Bakhmut.

Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that the counter-offensive to retake Russian-occupied territory has been pushed back due to delays in Western weapons arriving on the front line.

He has every incentive to press allies to deliver on their promises of kit. Ukraine’s armed forces would have folded long ago without foreign military support, and the President is desperate for the billions of dollars flowing into the war effort not to dry up. He knows how much depends on this next chapter of the war being perceived as a success.

Ambiguity also helps Ukraine. Russian forces worn down by nervous exhaustion, not knowing where or when the assault will come, is exactly what Kyiv wants.

But behind the smoke and mirrors is a simple question: Is Ukraine ready?

What does Ukraine want?

Readiness depends on what Kyiv aims to achieve. The big prize – and the most obvious immediate goal – is recapturing the city of Melitopol, severing the land bridge Russia has created between Crimea and the Donbas.

A push south along the western bank of the Molochna River towards the city would pitch Ukrainian troops against Russia’s most heavily fortified positions, through terrain littered with mines, anti-tank defences and a warren of re-enforced trenches. A simultaneous feint east towards Luhansk and Donetsk to keep the Russians guessing is also a possibility.

Winning the war depends on splitting Russian forces in two. But other, smaller victories will help the cause. Pushing the Russians out of Bakhmut would send a defiant message. Vladimir Putin has staked a lot of political capital on conquering the now-symbolic stronghold. A conclusive Russian defeat there would amplify the sense among doubters in Moscow that Putin is a busted flush. 

What does Ukraine need?

All variations of Ukraine’s spring offensive will require advancing into territory bristling with heavy weaponry, and the 150,000 Russian troops stationed in occupied areas of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

An army of combat drones has already been deployed to strike Russian oil and gas infrastructure in Crimea with the aim of disrupting supply lines.

Britain, meanwhile, has delivered an unknown number of Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, enhancing Ukraine’s ability to hit targets at distance. They are truly a potent weapon, supplied on the understanding that Zelensky will not attack Russian territory.

The Russians have 600 miles of frontline to defend, and Ukrainian generals have said that a strategy based on nimbly exploiting stretched defensive lines and poor Russian communications is most likely to get results. 

However, US military aid is arriving in dribs and drabs. Pentagon officials admit that the promised Abrams battle tanks are months away from being delivered. Excitement over the German-made Leopard has been dented by the reality that the tanks are arriving from eight different European countries and fire five different rounds, preventing Kyiv from buying ammunition in bulk.  

Ukraine is believed to have between 160,000 and 220,000 troops primed for the offensive. Zelensky’s determination to minimise casualties is motivating his pleas for American-built F16s to provide air support for the men on the ground. So far, Kyiv’s calls have been rebuffed.

Ukraine may never feel ready to launch into what is likely to be a defining moment in the war. But sooner or later, it will be forced to pull the trigger.

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Sunak made the remarks at his country residence, Chequers, where he hosted President Volodymyr Zelensky for a surprise visit. Sunak said the UK was “steadfast” in its support for Ukraine, telling Russia: “We’re not going away”.

However, Zelensky dropped his request for British fighter jets, making clear that he was focussing on American F-16s instead, amid reluctance from the UK to commit its own aircraft. 

After greeting Zelensky with hugs when he landed, the PM took his “friend” into the same room at Chequers from which Winston Churchill made his wartime speeches for their meeting, saying that the Ukrainian President’s fight for freedom was equally inspiring. He added that while the training of Ukrainian pilots on Western fighter jets would begin “relatively soon”, the provision of aircraft was “not straightforward”. 

Zelensky came and went in a camo-green Chinook, its rotors rippling the bucolic Chequers pasture. His trip to the UK is the last destination in a hectic weekend tour of European countries. In Italy, Germany and France, Zelensky repeated the case he’s been making for 15 months, pushing for more weapons to be delivered more quickly.  

Speed, Zelensky says, is vital. Ukrainian officials have complained of delays in the arrival of promised weapons and kit. The President suggested last week that the decision to push back the much-anticipated spring offensive was because the army was waiting for equipment, including armoured vehicles, to arrive in Ukraine.

Zelensky knows the offensive must appear to bear fruit. A multiplier effect is at play. A successful Ukrainian assault is good in and of itself, but it will also prove to Kyiv’s Western partners that their billions of dollars of investment is getting results, and make it easier for Zelensky to make the case for continued support. Failing to make tangible gains will have the opposite effect.

The backdrop to Zelensky’s chopper touching down at Chequers is the emergence of fresh and fascinating details from a US intelligence leak earlier this year, reported by The Washington Post.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner mercenary group, offered to reveal Russian troop positions to the Ukrainian government in exchange for a Ukrainian withdrawal from the besieged city of Bakhmut, the paper reported.

Ukrainian officials were said to have been suspicious the offer was not genuine, and rejected it. Yet this extraordinary overture is at least plausible. Wagner troops have been thrown into the Bakhmut meat grinder for months, and an expletive-strewn rant by Prigozhin threatening to withdraw his troops from the city because of a lack of kit from Moscow chimes with the idea that he and Vladimir Putin are increasingly at odds over the war.

The second revelation is that President Zelensky raised the possibility of Ukrainian troops occupying Russian villages in a meeting with his staff in January, with the aim of gaining bargaining chips that Kyiv might use in future talks with the Kremlin. He is also reported to have suggested Ukraine should blow up Russia’s Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline that runs to Hungary, a NATO member.

It suggests Zelensky has been far more hawkish in private than in public. Britain only supplied its long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Kyiv on the condition that Zelensky would not attack Russia. He has vowed not to.

It’s a reminder of the tension at the heart of Western support for Ukraine. For all the hugs at Chequers, the lengths Ukraine and its sponsors would go to to push Russia out of Ukraine are drastically different. 

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The Bank’s policymakers now expect the economy to expand over the next two years rather than shrink, and admitted that growth would be “materially stronger”. The economy is now expected to be a full 2.25% larger in three years’ time than previously thought.

While the updated figures still anticipate relatively sluggish growth this year and next, it’s a dramatic change from doom-laden warnings of the longest recession in modern British history made just a few months ago. Indeed, many economists are questioning how the Bank’s forecasters could have got their predictions so badly wrong. 

However, the rosier growth forecast accompanied bad news for mortgage borrowers, as the Bank upped the cost of borrowing to a 15-year high of 4.5%, its twelfth consecutive interest rate rise.

The fact the 0.25-point hike was widely anticipated won’t make it any easier for millions of borrowers whose fixed-rate mortgages come up for renewal this year, and millions more on variable rate deals. 

The Bank warned that only a third of the impact of its previous 11 rate rises had passed through to borrowers because most of the 8m homeowners with mortgages had fixed-rate loans that had not yet come up for renewal.

Driving the latest rate hike is an inflation rate that remains stubbornly high (10.1% in March). The Bank now believes inflation will average just above 5% by the end of this year, instead of 3.9%, with “significant” risks that the rate could be higher. “Almost all” of recent inflation, the Bank said, was being driven by soaring food and goods prices, which it expected to continue. This leaves Rishi Sunak with a minute amount of wiggle room on his promise to halve inflation by the end of the year.

The Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, refused to give any hint at what the Monetary Policy Committee is thinking about the future path of interest rates, but market sentiment is that they may well have peaked.

Josie Anderson, an economist at the CEBR, says she expects this latest increase to be the last for the time being. Factors motivating a pause in monetary tightening, she says, are “the risk of recession in the UK resulting from high rates, the expectation of a deceleration in inflation over the rest of the year, as well as the current financial sector turmoil.”

Anna Leach, deputy chairman of the CBI, was more cautious, saying the direction of interest rates remained “uncertain”. She warned that “inflation could surprise to the upside, particularly if wage rises remain elevated, suggesting further rate rises.”

The most immediate test of the Bank’s forecasting skills – and the best indication of further interest rate hikes on the horizon – will be whether inflation “falls sharply from April,” as it predicts. Fingers crossed. 

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The question, which would be straightforward in most other political contexts, is the extent to which the recent abuse verdict will hinder Trump’s attempt to win a second term as president – and his party’s chances of wresting control of the White House from the Democrats.

“I think he would sink,” said Don Bacon, a Republican representative from Nebraska. “He would not win the White House. He would probably cause us to lose the House and the Senate. I would see very dark clouds on the horizon if he is the nominee.”

Republican soul-searching follows on from the decision by a Manhattan jury on Tuesday which found that Trump had sexually abused and defamed E Jean Carroll, an author, in a New York department store in the 1990s.

Trump was ordered to pay $5m in damages – $3m for defamation for denying the claims and $2m for the injuries suffered from the assault itself. The jury did not find him liable on the charge of rape, which Carroll had claimed. Trump vehemently denies all charges. 

North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer said: “[The verdict] and several other things cause me to question whether he’d be the best nominee for the party.”

The “sex abuser” label is the latest of Trump’s legal headaches, after a criminal indictment last month, and the prospect of more to come. 

But is Trump really toast?

One month before the 2016 US election, when the notorious Access Hollywood clip surfaced – in which Trump described his seduction technique in crude detail – pundits and politicians across the political spectrum thought the real estate mogul’s campaign was finished. Yet Trump shrugged off his comments as locker-room banter, many would-be critics kept their heads down, and the rest is history.

This time, the attack line from Team Trump is that he could never have been given a fair trial in a New York court, and the case was politically motivated.

Many are choosing to believe as much. The fact it was a meeting with George Conway, the anti-Trump lawyer and activist, that prompted Carroll to seek damages is enough for Trump’s diehard supporters to see the case as yet another establishment stitch-up.

This verdict won’t dent Trump’s popularity among the faithful. But it could well make wooing swing voters a lot more difficult. As John Cornyn, a Republican senator in Texas put it: “I don’t think he can get elected. You can’t win a general election with just your base.”

And yet, to the horror of more moderate Republicans, the prospect of Trump becoming the party’s nominee appears undimmed. Alyssa Farah, Trump’s former White House director of strategic communications turned vociferous critic, said: “We cannot afford to put this man up as Republicans if we actually want to win because women will run from voting for him.”

Opinion polling in the coming days will reveal the extent to which Trump is in trouble with the wider electorate were he to secure the Republican nomination. 

But the initial swings in the betting markets don’t bode well for the former president. His odds of winning the US election in 2024 fell from 29% to 23% after the abuse verdict was announced. Trump, a political gambler, won’t like the look of that one bit. 

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