“Ukraine – Russia”

German military leaks that have put British troops at risk could be the tip of the iceberg, Berlin’s former intelligence chief warned on Monday night.

August Hanning said more Nato secrets may have been compromised after Russia intercepted and published a video call disclosing military information, telling Bild newspaper: “This leak could have been just the tip of the iceberg.”

On Monday, sources claimed that Russia had identified Germany as the “weakest link” in Nato and was using Olaf Scholz as a “useful idiot”.

British soldiers are “on the ground” in Ukraine helping Kyiv’s forces fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles, according to a leak in Russian media of a top-secret call involving German air force officers.

The Kremlin said the leak demonstrated the direct involvement of the “collective west” in the war in Ukraine – while former British defence ministers expressed frustration with the German military in response to the revelations.

Released on Friday by the editor of the Kremlin-controlled news channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, the audio recording – confirmed as authentic by Germany – captures Luftwaffe officers discussing how Berlin’s Taurus missiles could be used to try to blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia with occupied Crimea.

A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of an unholy alliance of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

What is driving European politics at present is fear. Fear of who Russia might invade next if Ukraine were to collapse. Fear of what might happen if Trump were to abandon Nato and leave Europe to the mercy of Putin.

To adapt Dr Johnson’s adage: depend upon it, sir, when leaders fear they may be invaded in a matter of months, it concentrates their minds wonderfully.

Fear they may have to fund their own defense!

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the possible interception of a confidential discussion between top-ranking Bundeswehr officers about the war in Ukraine as “a very serious matter.”

“It will now be investigated very carefully, very intensively, and very quickly,” Scholz said on Saturday during a visit to Rome.

The head of Russian state broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, on Friday published what she said was an audio recording between German officers, including the chief of the Air Force, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz.

On Monday, Europe crossed yet another red line in its ever-escalating, no-longer-so-proxy war against Russia. In a hastily arranged meeting of European leaders in Paris — a response to significant Russian breakthroughs on the Ukrainian frontline over the past few weeks — Emmanuel Macron shattered one of the few taboos left in Western circles by saying that sending Nato troops to Ukraine should not be ruled out. “We must do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning the war,” he declared, adding that France could even take such action without the consent of other EU members because “each country is sovereign and its armed forces are sovereign”.

On Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the war with Russia — the first official announcement concerning Ukrainian troop losses since December of 2022. Many on social media have expressed scepticism about the figure. But what do the facts say?

A conflict between Russia and NATO would be inevitable if Western troops go to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said today.

The Kremlin’s comments come after French President Emmanuel Macron did not rule out putting boots on the ground in Ukraine as Kyiv struggles to fend off Russia’s full-scale invasion.

While Macron noted that there was no consensus about troops at this stage, Ukraine has not asked allies for soldiers to fight its cause and other Western governments even scrambled Tuesday to insist troops were not set to be deployed, the mere suggestion sparked a furious response from Moscow.

Denmark has dropped its investigation into the 2022 explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Germany, becoming the second country to do so after Sweden closed a separate inquiry.

The multibillion-dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in the Swedish and Danish economic zones in September 2022, releasing vast amounts of methane into the air.

Russia and the west, at loggerheads over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February that year, have pointed fingers at one another. Each has denied involvement and no one has taken responsibility.

The authorities said best leave it unsolved…

After two years of secrecy, Volodymyr Zelensky has finally revealed the number of fallen Ukrainian soldiers. ‘31,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed in this war. Not 300,000 or 150,000, as Putin and his deceitful circle falsely claim. But each of those losses is an enormous loss for us’, he said. The President chose not to disclose the number of wounded troops: this, he said, was to prevent Russia from knowing how many people had ‘left the battlefield’.

For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia.

Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burned-out husk, a casualty of a Russian missile barrage early in the war.

But that is above ground.

Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders.

On one screen, a red line followed the route of an explosive drone threading through Russian air defenses from a point in central Ukraine to a target in the Russian city of Rostov.

Maryna Lyushyna was planning to give a chocolate-themed cooking class on February 24, 2022. The actress and mother of two had prepared everything the night before, and was looking forward to greeting the children who were supposed to be coming to her youth theater in Konotop in northern Ukraine for the event.

But that night, she had trouble sleeping. When she heard some noise, she thought it must be the tram. “At 7 in the morning, a friend called me and said: ‘Turn on the TV, the war has begun!”

Konotop is around 80 kilometers (about 50 miles) from the border with Russia. Two years ago, the town was surrounded by Russian troops within hours of the invasion. There was some resistance, but the forces were unequal and the Ukrainian army soon withdrew.