London Playbook: Midnight in Paris — Macron hits
the phones — Presser klaxon
BY ALEX
WICKHAM
February
21, 2022 8:00 am
POLITICO
London Playbook
By ALEX
WICKHAM
Good Monday
morning.
DRIVING THE
DAY
MIDNIGHT IN
PARIS: The United States warned on Sunday that Vladimir Putin is moving closer
to launching an invasion of Ukraine, as Joe Biden’s administration said it had
intelligence showing Russian commanders had received orders to proceed with an
assault on the country. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it plainly:
“We are on the brink of an invasion.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed it
was “highly likely” Russian tanks would soon be seen on the streets of Kyiv.
The latest dire American assessments come as French President Emmanuel Macron
spoke to Putin twice by phone — a second call took place overnight — in a
dramatic attempt to broker a last-ditch summit between the Russian and American
presidents. In the early hours, Biden agreed to meet Putin on the condition
that he doesn’t invade. As reports continue to come in that Russia is shelling
cities in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, in more apparent false flag
attacks intended to frame the Ukrainian government as a pretext for an invasion,
the next hours are critical in determining whether a final diplomatic scramble
can avert war.
Latest
Stateside: The warnings from Washington throughout Sunday made clear the
administration believes an invasion is now imminent. “Putin has made his decision.
Period,” Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters. Biden had planned to
travel to his home in Wilmington but canceled the trip at the last minute and
stayed at the White House to monitor the situation. U.S. officials briefed CBS
and CNN that the Kremlin had sent an order to its tactical commanders and
intelligence operatives to proceed with an attack on Ukraine, in the latest
coordinated release of declassified intelligence aimed at exposing Putin’s war
plans. They also noted previous U.S. intelligence statements about false flag
attacks and Putin failing to withdraw troops from the border had proven to be
correct. This weekend Russia decided to indefinitely extend the stay of its
troops in Belarus, where military exercises had been scheduled to end on
Sunday, in yet another sign that Putin’s claims of de-escalation were false.
Kill lists:
The U.S. is this morning claiming to have intelligence that Russia is planning
human rights abuses in Ukraine. In a complaint to the U.N., U.S. Ambassador
Bathsheba Nell Crocker writes: “We have credible information that indicates
Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent
to camps following a military occupation. We also have credible information
that Russian forces will likely use lethal measures to disperse peaceful
protests or otherwise counter peaceful exercises of perceived resistance from
civilian populations.” The Washington Post has the letter in full, while
Foreign Policy broke the story of the “kill lists” last week. U.S. intel also
showed a Russian invasion would potentially target multiple Ukrainian cities
beyond Kyiv, Bloomberg’s Alberto Nardelli and Jennifer Jacobs report.
Blinken
told CBS: “Everything we’re seeing tells us that the decision we believe
President Putin has made to invade is moving forward. We’ve seen that with
provocations created by the Russians or separatist forces over the weekend,
false flag operations, now the news just this morning that the ‘exercises’
Russia was engaged in in Belarus with 30,000 Russian forces that was supposed
to end this weekend will now continue because of tensions in eastern Ukraine,
tensions created by Russia and the separatist forces it backs there …
Everything we’re seeing suggests that this is dead serious, that we are on the
brink of an invasion.” POLITICO’s Catherine Kim and Maeve Sheehey have his
comments.
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Macron hits
the phones: Emmanuel Macron spent Sunday on a series of phone calls with world
leaders, in what France’s ambassador to the U.K. called an “intense diplomatic
drive.” First, Macron had a near two-hour call with Putin which saw the Russian
leader mainly issue a load of false statements about Ukraine and NATO’s
actions. POLITICO’s David Herszenhorn, Giorgio Leali and Suzanne Lynch have a
write-up of that call. Macron also spoke by phone with Biden, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz — before calling Putin a second time overnight.
Breaking
overnight: The announcement of the second call came past 2 a.m. Moscow time,
suggesting it was not planned very far in advance, that it took place very
late, and its contents were of particular urgency. The Elysée’s readout, which
dropped just after 1.30 a.m. Paris time, said Macron had “proposed a summit to
be held between President Biden and President Putin and then with relevant
stakeholders to discuss security and strategic stability in Europe. Presidents
Biden and Putin have both accepted the principle of such a summit. It can only
be held at the condition that Russia does not invade Ukraine.” The Elysée said
the details of the summit would be agreed during a planned meeting between
Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday. Here’s the full
readout via Ben Judah. POLITICO’s Zoya Sheftalovich has the breaking story in
full.
The key
question: For this proposed summit to take place, Putin would have to hold off
from an invasion until the Blinken-Lavrov meeting on Thursday, and then until
the Biden-Putin summit is arranged. Judging by the statements coming from the
U.S. in the last 24 hours, they are extremely skeptical that will happen.
Sure
enough: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says this morning: “As the
President has repeatedly made clear, we are committed to pursuing diplomacy
until the moment an invasion begins. Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister
Lavrov are scheduled to meet later this week in Europe, provided Russia does
not proceed with military action. President Biden accepted in principle a
meeting with President Putin following that engagement, again, if an invasion
hasn’t happened. We are always ready for diplomacy. We are also ready to impose
swift and severe consequences should Russia instead choose war. And currently,
Russia appears to be continuing preparations for a full-scale assault on
Ukraine very soon.”
Britain
also skeptical: Following Boris Johnson’s own call with Macron last night,
Downing Street said the PM had “noted” Macron’s diplomatic efforts and
expressed hope Putin “might” reconsider an invasion. Translation: We’ll believe
it when we see it. Earlier, Johnson told the BBC’s Sophie Raworth that the
evidence suggested Putin was planning “the biggest war in Europe since 1945.”
He added: “All the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun.”
Johnson said the U.S. and U.K. would cut off Russian companies’ access to U.S.
dollars and British pounds if Putin went ahead with an invasion. A senior
government source told Playbook that they expected to see a continuation of
false flag attacks in eastern Ukraine and an escalation of violence in the
coming hours. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is meeting NATO Secretary-General
Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels today.
Fake news:
Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins has a remarkable exposé of one attempted false flag
by Russian separatists, who published false allegations using a fake video of
alleged “Polish saboteurs” creating a major chemical incident. The video was
reported by the Russian media, but Higgins demonstrates in forensic detail how
the metadata of the video shows it was faked, and even finds the original
YouTube video the material was taken from: a firing range in Finland.
Johnson in
Munich: It is worth reading Johnson’s speech to the Munich Security Conference
on Saturday, which won praise from foreign policy analysts and was the latest
evidence of a closer working relationship between the PM and Biden, as noted in
Tim Shipman’s Sunday Times long read. Johnson forecast what could happen next:
“We need to prepare ourselves for the Russian playbook of deception that
governs every operation of this kind. There will be a cascade of false claims
about Ukraine, intended to spread confusion almost for its own sake, and even
now there are plans being laid for staged events, spinning a web of falsehoods
designed to present any Russian attack as a response to provocation. We’ve
already witnessed a fake military withdrawal, combined with staged incidents
that could provide a pretext for military action. We knew this was coming,
we’ve seen it before — and no-one should be fooled. And we have to steel
ourselves for the possibility of a protracted crisis, with Russia maintaining
the pressure and searching for weaknesses over an extended period, and we must
together refuse to be worn down.”
Could
Britain arm Ukrainian insurgents? Johnson openly speculated about a future
Ukrainian insurgency against Russian forces, raising questions about whether
the U.K. would provide material support for guerrilla warfare against Putin’s
troops. He said: “I fear that a lightning war would be followed by a long and
hideous period of reprisals and revenge and insurgency, and Russian parents
would mourn the loss of young Russian soldiers, who in their way are every bit
as innocent as the Ukrainians now bracing themselves for attack. And if Ukraine
is overrun by brute force, I fail to see how a country encompassing nearly a
quarter of a million square miles — the biggest nation in Europe apart from
Russia itself could then be held down and subjugated forever.”
Not Blinken
first: Zelenskiy used his moment in Munich to deliver a scathing speech that
slammed Western allies for not doing enough to punish Moscow and move his
nation toward the safety of Western integration. Without naming names,
Zelenskiy criticized Germany for hesitating to send weapons and offering
helmets instead, and went after the U.S. for refusing to impose immediate
sanctions on the Kremlin for threatening Ukraine. Blinken rejected Zelenskiy’s
request on Sunday, insisting the U.S. would not impose sanctions until “the
tanks are actually moving, the planes are actually flying, the bombs are actually
dropping.” POLITICO’s David Herszenhorn, Suzanne Lynch and Jamil Anderlini have
an essential wrap of what went down in Munich.
LIVING WITH
COVID
PRESSER
KLAXON: Queen Elizabeth II’s positive COVID test provides a somewhat
unfortunate backdrop for Boris Johnson’s Tory MP-pleasing announcement on the
end of coronavirus restrictions in England today. The details were still being
thrashed out last night and Cabinet will meet this morning to sign off the
“Living with COVID” plan. Johnson will make a statement to parliament at around
3.30 p.m, before addressing the nation in a press conference this evening. The
details will be confirmed later, but Playbook has an early look at what we can
expect (this is all TBC until Cabinet sign-off).
Self-isolation
requirement: The law requiring people with COVID to isolate will be ditched a
month earlier than previously planned, meaning people who test positive should
be free to do as they wish from the end of this week, possibly as soon as
Thursday.
What
replaces it? There will be guidance on general behavior — including telling
people that they should stay at home if they have COVID — but none of it will
be legally binding. “We are moving from government diktats and legal
restrictions to people being able to make personal judgments,” a government
official said.
Free
testing: The general public’s access to free COVID tests will come to an end in
the coming weeks, though exactly when is still to be confirmed. Playbook is
told people in high risk settings such as health care, as well as the most
vulnerable and elderly people will still have access free testing indefinitely.
The Telegraph’s Charles Hymas and Tony Diver hear over-80s will still get free
tests.
Vaccines:
We could get advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization as
soon as this week on a fourth jab for the elderly and most vulnerable. Playbook
is told not to expect a long-term vaccine strategy for wider population today
(i.e. whether everyone will get an annual jab, or not). That’s coming at some
point in the future.
They think
it’s all over: Johnson is not declaring that it’s mission accomplished and the
pandemic is over today, and instead will adopt some cautious language. The
queen having COVID may not be an unrelated factor in that. Downing Street said
last night: “The pandemic is not over, and as set out by SAGE, there is
considerable uncertainty about the path the pandemic will now take in the U.K.
That’s why we will continue to take a cautious approach as we learn to live
with COVID, retaining some surveillance systems and plans for contingency
measures which can be stood up if needed to respond to new variants.” In
remarks pre-briefed by No. 10, Johnson said today will “mark a moment of pride
after one of the most difficult periods in our country’s history as we begin to
learn to live with COVID.” Expect to hear plenty from the ministers and Tory
MPs about how Britain will be one of the first major countries to throw off all
COVID restrictions.
Not so sure
1: Labour’s Wes Streeting said the opposition did not agree with ending all
COVID restrictions now. He told the Sunday shows the move “seems very
premature” and that “at this stage, it’s not the right thing to do,” comparing
it to a football team defending a narrow lead and then subbing off their best
defender. The Guardian’s Aubrey Allegretti has his comments.
Not so sure
2: Most Tory MPs will love today’s announcement — after all, that’s why Johnson
is making it — but some are nervous about the testing element in particular.
Backbencher Tim Loughton told BBC Westminster Hour: “It’s two years on now from
when this wretched pandemic started, and we have got to learn to live with
COVID and not lock everything down and retreat until it goes away because it’s
going to be with us for some time to come. I’m pleased we’re trying to get back
to as normal … as possible. I have slight apprehensions in that I think we
still do need to have testing available widely because I think that is the
reassurance people can have that they’ve taken all possible precautions and
they don’t want to infect other people.”
TODAY IN
WESTMINSTER
HOUSE OF
COMMONS: The Commons returns at 2.30 p.m. with an hour of MoD questions,
followed by any post-recess UQs or ministerial statements … and then MPs will
move through the remaining stages of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill on
vocational training. Westminster Hall has a petition debate on reform of the
Gender Recognition Act at 4.30 p.m.
NOT ANOTHER
ONE: Severe flooding hit parts of Northern Ireland, Yorkshire and Manchester
over the weekend, while the U.K. awaits the damage of Storm Franklin after the
brunt of the storm hit overnight. The latest storm is set to bring more
hurricane-force winds and flooding today — stay safe out there. Here’s the
BBC’s write-up.
NO COMMENT:
As we await the police findings on Partygate, the chat among ministers is
turning to whether Boris Johnson can survive as PM if he is issued with a fixed
penalty notice for any COVID rule breaches. Johnson refused to answer the
questions 17 times when grilled by the BBC’s Sophie Raworth yesterday. Loyalist
Europe Minister James Cleverly told the Sunday shows that Johnson shouldn’t
quit if he gets a fine, though two anonymous Cabinet ministers will withdraw
their support if it happens, the Times’ Matt Dathan reports.
Defying
gravity: As the PM waits to hear from the boys in blue, POLITICO’s Esther
Webber has new piece out this morning on “How Boris Johnson gets away with it,”
looking at his track record of squeezing out of tight spots. She revisits his
unlikely win as London mayor — including the time his campaign team tricked him
into a trip to department store Selfridges in order to force him to buy some
new suits — which helped create the myth of Johnson defying political gravity,
but also embedded alleged patterns of behavior which aren’t so amusing now he’s
in No. 10. Colleagues past and present speak of a lack of attention to detail,
and his difficulty in building a strong team at Downing Street, which some
suggest had a role to play in Partygate. As things stand this morning, it remains
plausible he could wriggle free again. But as one former Cabinet minister puts
it to Esther: “Things don’t matter — until the day they do.”
Smart
Cookie: Senior Boris Johnson aide Henry Cook is leaving government after more
than a decade in Westminster. Most recently, Cook advised the PM on COVID and
was a key figure in drawing up today’s “Living with COVID” plan, so his
departure is seen as it being the right time to move on now the pandemic is
winding down. Cook was one of the longest serving SpAds in government, working
for Michael Gove across five departments and under three prime ministers, as
well as the Vote Leave campaign, before joining No. 10. He’s looking forward to
a very well-deserved few months off after an epic career in SW1.
Busy Liz:
Away from Ukraine, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has another important meeting in
Brussels today — with her European Commission opposite number Maroš Šefčovič.
They’re holding Northern Ireland protocol talks at the U.K.-EU UK Joint
Committee. Stocktake incoming.
TINKER,
TAILOR, SOLDIER, CLEGG: Plenty of follows in today’s papers for Glen Owen’s
Mail on Sunday top splash revealing ministers have ordered a Whitehall leak
inquiry amid concerns someone is leaking Meta/Facebook boss Nick Clegg secret
information about the Online Safety Bill. A security source told the MoS: “We
don’t know if Clegg himself is getting this information, or the company has
other sources, but they seem to know what we are up to almost before we do.”
The Times is among those having a bite this morning.
Access all
areas: Expect plenty of interest from opposition politicians today in Gabriel
Pogrund and Henry Zeffman’s Sunday Times scoop revealing the membership of the
shadowy “advisory board” of Tory donors that gets access to the PM in exchange
for cash. Obviously Putin’s former finance minister’s wife is on the list.
Spike the
hike: No. 10 and No. 11 will be concerned by Page 2 of the Mail, which carries
no fewer than three stories slamming them for their looming national insurance
tax rise. Lucy White reports the hike will cost firms more than all the new
taxes they’ve faced in the past decade, while Martin Beckford says it will
backfire on the social care residents it is supposed to help by costing care
providers millions of pounds a year. The Mail also has new research saying the
rise will hit more than 9 million workers. It’s all part of the paper’s “Spike
the hike” campaign.
COP26 100
DAYS ON: It’s 100 days since the end of the COP26 climate conference and the
world has a crises crisis, writes POLITICO’s Karl Mathiesen. Those who landed
the deal are concerned that a pile up of war, plague and other pressing
problems might distract from efforts to bed in the commitments made in Glasgow.
The Munich Security Conference, which ended on Sunday, was a perfect picture of
those colliding concerns. With feverish attention on the West’s effort to
present a united front against Russia, the main climate question was voiced by
Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abdul Momen: will a war in Ukraine “derail” the
climate effort? U.S. climate envoy John Kerry gave this downbeat assessment: “It’s
going to distract rather enormously.”
Sharma’s
view: In an interview with POLITICO, COP26 President Alok Sharma said the deal
in Glasgow “continues to be fragile.” If there were to be an attack on Ukraine,
“undoubtedly, that is going to take up a lot of bandwidth of leaders around the
world.” But he said COP26, held as it was in the middle of a pandemic, was
proof of “a clear recognition amongst governments that climate change is
something that we have to continue to work on and attack.” Sharma also admitted
there was an argument to win on the importance of net zero with the public and
within his own party, though he argued that the “vast majority” of Tory MPs
support the government’s climate plans. Read Karl’s full piece here.
TALKING OF
CRISES: The former U.K. Ambassador to Afghanistan Laurie Bristow will have lots
to say on the fall of Kabul and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan as he
delivers a lecture and Q&A to the center-right Bright Blue think tank this
afternoon. Watch from 3 p.m. here.
SUISSE
SURPRISE: A massive data leak — initially to the German newspaper Süddeutsche
Zeitung, which promptly shared the info with investigative outlets around the
globe — has revealed that European banking giant Credit Suisse provided
services to egregious human rights abusers, kleptocrats and criminals. The
Guardian has some of the detail in a slick set of features leading its site
this morning, setting out how the Swiss lender opened or maintained bank
accounts for clients including a human trafficker in the Philippines, multiple
convicted fraudsters and a billionaire who ordered the murder of his pop star
girlfriend. The bank issued a statement rejecting most of the allegations.
COMMITTEE
CORRIDOR: The Scottish affairs committee hears from the defense sector on
military spending in Scotland (3 p.m.) … The Treasury committee looks at the
future of financial services with representatives from the FCA and Bank of
England (3.15 p.m.) … The public accounts committee will question senior
officials at HMRC on new tax rules for freelancers and self-employed workers (4
p.m.) … and Leveling Up Secretary Michael Gove faces questions on the building
safety crisis at the leveling up, housing and communities committee (4 p.m.).
LORDS: The
other place returns at 2.30 p.m. with questions on touring British artists in
the EU, cooperation with France and Germany on foreign policy and state pension
underpayments and arrears for women … and then the main business will be the
second reading of the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill, followed by the
committee stage of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill.
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