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Christopher Steele, who worked for MI6 for more than two decades and ran the Russia desk for the intelligence service between 2006 and 2009, said Mr Putin “can’t be resurrected in the international community” after declaring war more than two weeks ago.He told Sky News: “I don’t see him surviving this in the long term. I think we’ve gone over a watershed here. An operation on this scale is really beyond Russia... I think there are several gross miscalculations here by Putin.”Mr Steele added that we have “seen the high water-mark of Putinism” and that his “overreached adventure” into Ukraine will lead to the downfall of his regime.

The 57-year-old said: “As the Russian army becomes bogged down, more desperate, and clearly not realising its objectives militarily, you’re likely to see more indiscriminate killing and bombardment and possibly the use of a [chemical] weapon.”

He said that the impact of sanctions on Russia combined with Mr Putin’s method of governance could also accelerate his decline.

The Chinese premier has described the situation in Ukraine as disconcerting and pledged “best efforts” from his government to help negotiations for peace.

“The Ukraine situation has grabbed the world’s attention, and the Chinese side is deeply worried and greatly saddened,” Li said at his once-a-year press conference on the sidelines of the annual national parliament. “We sincerely hope the Ukraine situation can be eased and peace be restored as early as possible.

“We will make our best efforts to support Russia and Ukraine to overcome difficulties and conduct negotiations that should result in peace. We support and encourage all efforts that can help solve the crisis peacefully. The urgent task is to avoid the situation from escalating or getting out of control, which is the consensus of the international community and all sides.”

The argument was amplified this week when gas prices hit at a record average of $4.17 per gallon and Biden announced a ban on US imports of Russian oil. He warned that while the move would hurt Vladimir Putin, “there will be a cost as well here in the United States”, and anticipated criticism by branding it “Putin’s price hike”.

the era when wars meant unity governments and a shared understanding that “politics stops at the water’s edge” is over. Republicans backed Biden’s ban on Russian oil imports but simultaneously went on an offensive that effectively absolved Putin of blame.

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader in the House, told a press conference: “These aren’t Putin prices. They’re President Biden’s prices.”

At the dawn of the 20th century, Norman Angell famously (or infamously) predicted that the era of global commercial integration had made great power conflict so costly and destructive as to be unthinkable.

A few years later, the outbreak of World War I proved him right about the cost and destruction, but wrong about being unthinkable. The Great War ended the first era of globalization, and it took generations to rebuild the level of worldwide integration that pertained before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a much smaller conflict than World War I, and the trade disruptions associated with the U.S./European quasi-embargo on Russia are smaller than the British blockade of the Central Powers.

The last major overhaul of relations with Russia, guiding hopes after the collapse of the Soviet Union, came in 1997, when NATO leaders and Moscow approved the “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security.” Reflecting “the changing security environment in Europe, … in which the confrontation of the Cold War has been replaced with the promise of closer cooperation among former adversaries,” it said they would act together to build “a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic Area.”

As it sought to tie Russia to interdependency, the Founding Act included specific commitments to respect states’ sovereignty, peacefully settle disputes, and, on NATO’s part, an intention to avoid any additional permanent stationing of “substantial combat forces” on Russia’s borders. It also specifically said it was not intended to “delay, limit or dilute NATO’s opening for the accession of new members.”

But at an emergency NATO summit last month, “leaders agreed to reset our deterrence and defense for the long term,” Stoltenberg said. “To face a new security reality” with substantially more forces in the east, more jets in the skies and more ships at sea. Russia has “walked away” from the Founding Act, he said later. “That doesn’t exist any more.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, many German politicians have publicly admitted they got Vladimir Putin wrong. Even German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has apologised, saying it was a mistake to use trade and energy to build bridges with Moscow.

"It's a bitter acknowledgement that for 30 years we emphasised dialogue and co-operation with Russia," says Nils Schmid, foreign affairs spokesperson for Mr Steinmeier's party, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). "Now we have to recognise this has not worked. That's why we have entered a new era for European security."

That new era was dubbed "Zeitenwende" - literally meaning a turning point - by Germany's SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a now-famous speech in the German parliament a few days after the invasion.

The charter recognises that states have a right to self-defence, and that other countries can join in “collective self-defence” to help them. States are allowed to give military support to victims of aggression, or to impose sanctions on the aggressor, without affecting their own neutral status.

this law of neutrality was designed for a world where war was an accepted tool of statecraft. That changed with the adoption of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, which made it illegal to attack another country unprovoked—a principle later enshrined in the UN’s charter.

International law, as it developed in Europe beginning in the 17th century, required countries that wanted to stay out of others’ wars to observe strict neutrality. That meant they had to trade equally with both sides of a conflict, as Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, professors at Yale Law School, explained in a recent article. Supplying arms to one side only, or favouring its trade, could make their ships fair game for attack by the other.

Cocaine production is at global highs. Seizures of amphetamine and methamphetamine have exploded. The multiyear pandemic deepened personal burdens and fomented an increase in use.

In the United States alone, overdose deaths, fueled by opioids and deadly synthetic fentanyl, topped 100,000 in both 2021 and 2022 — or double what it was in 2015.

Across the Atlantic in Europe, tiny Portugal appeared to harbor an answer. In 2001, it threw out years of punishment-driven policies in favor of harm reduction by decriminalizing consumption of all drugs for personal use, including the purchase and possession of 10-day supplies.

For nearly two hours Thursday, Mr. Schwartz was grilled by a judge in a hearing ordered after the disclosure that the lawyer had created a legal brief for a case in Federal District Court that was filled with fake judicial opinions and legal citations, all generated by ChatGPT.

At times during the hearing, Mr. Schwartz squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead with his left hand. He stammered and his voice dropped. He repeatedly tried to explain why he did not conduct further research into the cases that ChatGPT had provided to him.

“I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases,” he told Judge Castel.

One of the most striking positive trends in the world these days can be found in the democratic strength, character and leadership of Germany.

This came to mind as I was reading German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s speech this week in Prague, in which he promised that his country would support Ukraine “reliably and for as long as it takes.” He explained that Germany had “undergone a fundamental change” on providing military aid to Ukraine. He affirmed Germany’s support for a stronger, more integrated Europe — one that would welcome new members that aspire to Europe’s democratic values and ideals.

This is all part of what he calls a Zeitenwende in German foreign policy, a “turning of the times.”

The leaders of China and Russia hailed each other as “old” and “dear” friends. They took swipes at the United States and depicted themselves as building a “fairer, multipolar world.” And they marveled at their countries’ “deepening” trust.

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, used a Beijing-led conference of leaders from mostly developing countries on Wednesday to showcase his ambitions to reshape the global order, as the world grapples with a war in Ukraine and a crisis in Gaza. He cast his country as an alternative to the leadership of the United States. And he gave a prominent role to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, underscoring how central their relationship is to Mr. Xi’s vision.

Mr. Xi sought to tout China as a force for stability in the world, with Mr. Putin alongside him — never mind that Russia upended European security when he launched an invasion of Ukraine 21 months ago.

Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy.

Lesson #2: Rationality alone will not save us.

McNamara emphasizes that it was luck that prevented nuclear war—rational individuals like Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro came close to destroying themselves and each other.

R.S. McNamara's eleven lessons of war

1. Empathize with your enemy

2. Rationality will not save us

the most important international development on President Biden’s watch has been the erosion of America’s deterrence. The war in Ukraine and the escalating chaos and bloodshed across the Middle East demonstrate the human and economic costs when American power and policy no longer hold revisionist powers in check.

if the erosion of America’s deterrent power leads China and North Korea to launch wars in the Far East, it would be a greater catastrophe by orders of magnitude

a war over Taiwan would be far more serious for the world economy than the war in Ukraine or even a wider regional war in the Middle Eas

So it turns out that of the two largest crypto exchanges, one was a fraud and the other was a money launderer. Whoever could have guessed?

Skeptics of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have had their prejudices reinforced. The two main use cases—fraud and crime—have been exposed to the public in dramatic fashion, so now all we have to do is sit back and wait for the inevitable collapse in value.

There must be something underpinning this value, so what is it? Here are the options:

“And then we became the first COP to host a change-makers majlis,” Al Jaber said in his prepared closing speech. “And I felt that that was the turning point in our negotiations. You reconnected with your spirit of collaboration, you got out of your comfort zones and started speaking to each other from the heart.”

“That,” he said, “made the difference.”Could a majlis really do all that? Or did the sultan overstate the benefits of the majlis because it was kind of his thing? I looked into these questions and came away thinking that the sultan was on to something. The majlis is a tradition of the Arab world that just might have a role on the world stage.

A majlis (pronounced MAHJ-liss) is both a place and an event. It is the place in an Arab home where people sit with guests. Often the richer the homeowner, the bigger the majlis. Traditionally there are carpets, cushions, a teapot, an incense burner. In a majlis, people don’t rush to do business. Sociably sitting is part of the experience.

The Russian military, beaten down and demoralized after three months of war, is making the same mistakes in its campaign to capture a swath of eastern Ukraine that forced it to abandon its push to take the entire country,

And since the war started, Russia has lost 1,000 tanks,

Russia still has not established any kind of air superiority

The cargo of Iranian oil was then handed over to the United States for being in violation of American sanctions that ban Iran from selling its oil, according to Iranian news media, a claim that could not be independently verified.

Iranian oil and energy experts said Iran’s seizure of the ships was a signal to Washington that Iran would toughen its stance if the Biden administration returned to Trump-era policies of maximum pressure and began seizing tankers and crude oil cargo belonging to Iran.

Greece’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Iran’s actions on Friday were “tantamount to acts of piracy” and would have a negative impact on Iran-Greece relations, as well as Iran’s relations with the European Union, of which Greece is a member. It advised its citizens not to travel to Iran.

The European Union’s long-delayed deal to embargo Russian oil, finalized late Monday, effectively exempts Hungary from the costly step the rest of the bloc is taking to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

He has also painted Hungary’s interests as being distinct from the West by fanning culture wars and fears of liberal values lapping at Hungary’s borders, speaking in March about “the gender insanity sweeping across the Western world.”

“Hungary is exempt from the oil embargo!” Mr. Orban declared on his Facebook page Monday. He had previously said cutting off Russian oil “amounts to an atomic bomb being dropped on the Hungarian economy.”