In 2017, I traveled with my two teenage children to Plains, Ga., from Jacksonville, Fla., to hear Jimmy Carter teach Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church.
My son Gibson asked for this trip to celebrate his 17th birthday. A fierce and unusual admirer of the Carter presidency, he’d recently written a high school history paper on Jimmy Carter’s Administration and the rise of arch-conservatism, and we had all been rattled by Donald Trump’s “carnage” inauguration address that month.
The three of us spent a pastoral Saturday roaming around Plains, visiting Carter’s childhood home and peanut farm, his brother Billy’s gas station and the train depot that became the presidential campaign headquarters in 1975. We stood as a southern family in the Carter visitor’s center, housed in the high school where the future President and First Lady were students. We admired Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize and took pictures of sitting at a replica of his Oval Office desk. As we wandered from exhibit to exhibit, it was easy to fall back to 1976.
I was a 10-year-old in Jacksonville that year when the American Bicentennial permeated everything—television, magazines, clothing, commemorative this and that. Not just coins, spoons and the like, but our Avon lady could sell us perfume in a bottle shaped like Betsy Ross sewing the flag or soaps with George and Martha Washington’s likeness molded onto them. I could dig around in the Cheerios box to get first dibs on the Stars and Stripes stickers or send away for a Bicentennial scratch-and-sniff coloring book with my Applejacks.
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It felt like a patriotic party that the whole country was invited to. I was all in. As my mama used to say about me, you aren’t happy unless every day is a parade, and for once it felt like it was.
And I was a very earnest child—as evidenced by my own ways of celebrating the Bicentennial, which included learning military hymns, memorizing the Gettysburg Address, and staging a variety show on the carport attached to our cinderblock home. My best friend played Thomas Jefferson and I was Ben Franklin, our pant legs shoved awkwardly into our knee socks, trying to make it look like we were wearing breeches. The most remarkable part of the whole thing was not that the neighborhood kids actually showed up, but that not a one made fun of us, at least not to our faces.
What I was most proud of though, were the four poems I wrote honoring our country’s birthday, with which I won the northeast Florida Girl Scouts regional talent show at Camp Kateri. This was no mean feat, since among my competition was a girl who played “One Tin Soldier” on her flute and another who performed a karate routine to the song, “Kung Fu Fighting.”
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But it wasn’t just the Bicentennial that had me aflutter with patriotism.
A southern peanut farmer, hailing from the same state as my daddy’s side of the family going back to the 17th century, was running for President.
And his appeal ran deeper than his familiar drawl. Despite being deeply religious, Jimmy Carter didn’t come across as judgey. When he spoke, it was with a steady calm and a good-natured intelligence. I felt inexplicably proud, as though he and his family were our better-off relations.
I’d lie in bed that year and dream up scenarios in which our paths would cross, say, like the Carter campaign was coming to Jacksonville and we’d be chosen as the average American family for them to spend an evening with. Because we both wore glasses and loved to read, I knew his daughter Amy and I would hit it off, maybe over a game of Parcheesi, and before you knew it, I’d be flying off to the White House for sleepovers.
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I found it disappointing that despite all my perceived commonalities, my daddy still didn’t vote for him. But in our fifth-grade class election, I did—probably my first act of rebellion against my father. That said, I do remember daddy announcing that he was glad to finally see a Southern man on TV who wasn’t depicted as a halfwit all the time.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when my understanding of what it meant to be patriotic came to mean something different entirely.
I felt it in 1979, when conservative Christians organized into voting constituencies. I felt it too in the “Republican Revolution” of ’94 when Newt Gingrich presented his Contract for America, and definitely in 2009, when the Tea Party was up in arms about Obama. By 2016, when Trump became President, it was as though the Republican Party had absconded with patriotism completely, and a large part of Christianity to boot.
By the time Jan. 6 happened, I figured the idea of patriotism could never, ever again mean what it used to. Instead of a sense of shared pride, it seethed with anger and coveted control.
But on that day in Plains in 2017, it was impossible to not feel patriotic in the nostalgic sense, not to find “fresh faith in an old dream,” to quote President Carter himself.
The next day, sitting in the pew with my children while Jimmy taught us Sunday school, then having our picture taken with him and Rosalyn after church, made the 10-year-old girl in me grin as though it were 1976 all over again. I couldn’t help but wonder, as Plains disappeared in the rear-view mirror, if it were still possible that someone like him could ever be President again.
It’s been eight or so years since that pilgrimage. I’m remembering it now because, in the speeches Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have delivered in Minnesota, Arizona, and Nebraska, I hear echoes of the same aims Carter spoke of—that “the test of government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few, but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who depend on it.” And also, of course, because Uncle Jimmy (as I respectfully and longingly call him) is turning 100 on Tuesday, and is proof positive that the good can live to see the impact of their endeavors spread throughout the world.
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Even more than I did in the town of Plains that day, I have fresh faith in that old dream that suddenly feels new again.
Rigathi Gachagua (L) and William Ruto (R) were elected on a joint ticket just two years ago
Kenya’s Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has been threatened with impeachment proceedings by lawmakers amid intense speculation that he has had a major fallout with President William Ruto.
The president’s allies in parliament have accused Gachagua of undermining the government, promoting ethnically divisive politics, having a role in fuelling the deadly protests that rocked the country in June, and of being involved in corruption.
The power struggle has led to concerns of instability at the heart of government, at a time when Kenya is in the throes of a deep economic and financial crisis.
Ruto chose Gachagua as his running-mate in the 2022 election, when he defeated former Prime Minister Raila Odinga in a bitterly contested election.
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Gachagua comes from the vote-rich Mount Kenya region, and helped marshal support for Ruto.
But with members of Odinga’s party joining the government after the youth-led protests that forced Ruto to backdown from increasing taxes, the political dynamics have changed – and the deputy president looks increasingly isolated.
Legislators say they are preparing to table a motion in parliament, calling for impeachment proceedings to be instituted against him.
“I have already appended my signature to it,” said majority leader Kimani Ichung’wah.
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Allies of the deputy president have launched several attempts in the High Court to prevent the motion from being tabled, but have failed.
Several legislators told local media that the one-third threshold has been passed, with nearly 250 having already backed the move to table the motion for debate.
“I was surprised that I was number 242 to sign it and there was still a queue [waiting to sign],” said legislator Didmus Barasa.
“It’s a foregone conclusion, the DP [deputy president] asked for it,” added another legislator, Rahim Dawood.
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Gachagua has, however, struck a defiant tone, saying he has the backing of voters in his native central Kenya region.
“Two-hundred people cannot overturn the will of the people,” he said.
For the motion to pass, it would require the support at least two-thirds of members of the National Assembly and Senate, excluding its nominated members.
Backers of the motion are confident that it will sail through, especially as they can now also rely on the votes of Odinga’s party.
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Raila Odinga lost the elections but is once again close to the centre of power
But Gachagua has made it clear that he will not go down without a fight.
“The president can ask MPs to stop. So, if it continues, he’s in it,” he told media outlets broadcasting to people in his political base, Mount Kenya.
Ruto has in the past vowed not to subject Gachagua to “political persecution”, similar to what he says he experienced when he was deputy to his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta.
But the rift between Ruto and Gachagua has been apparent in recent months.
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The deputy president has been conspicuously absent from seeing off his boss at the airport when he travels abroad, and receiving him when he returns.
Interior Secretary Kithure Kindiki, a law professor who is trusted by the president, appears to be taking on some of the deputy president’s responsibilities – something that also happened when Ruto and Kenyatta fell out.
Like Gachagua, Kindiki comes from Mount Kenya – the region which forms the largest voting block in Kenya.
Dozens of legislators have rallied behind Kindiki as the region’s preferred “mouthpiece”, intensifying speculation that they are pushing for him to succeed Gachagua.
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That has left the deputy president largely isolated with only a handful of elected politicians backing him.
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Kenya’s security forces were accused of using excessive force to quell protests against higher taxes earlier this year
In a further sign that he is in political trouble, the police’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) recently recommended charges against two MPs, a staff member and other close allies of the deputy president, after accusing them of “planning, mobilising and financing violent protests” that occurred in June.
Gachagua defended the accused, denouncing the charges as an “act of aggression” and an “evil scheme” to “soil” his name and lay the groundwork for his impeachment.
In parliament last week, Kindiki – under whose ministry the DCI falls – pledged to remain neutral, but made it clear that “high-level individuals” will be prosecuted.
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“We are dealing with the aftermath of the attempted overthrow of the constitution of Kenya by criminal and dangerous people who almost burnt the parliament of Kenya. We have a job to do,” he said.
But many of the young people who were at the forefront of the protests dismiss suggestions that Gachagua’s allies were behind it, and see the bid by lawmakers to oust him as an attempt to deflect attention from bad governance.
They say that if the deputy goes, the president must go too.
Ruto, who is expected to host legislators from his party later this week, will be weighing the political risks of moving against Gachagua, but some lawmakers say they do not want him to wade into the debate – a tough ask.
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For now, Gachagua’s fate rests with legislators, but one man might still extend him a renewed lease of political life – the president.
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Back in 1967 Goldman Sachs’ Gus Levy orchestrated a record smashing $26.5mn block trade in Alcan Aluminum that made his name on Wall Street. But we may now have one of the all-time worst block trades in history.
On August 21, Walmart ditched its entire 144.5mn share stake in JD.com, which had been first initiated through the sale of its Chinese online grocery store to JD.com in 2016, and later increased to over 10 per cent.
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The divestment happened through a huge block trade of JD.com’s US-listed American depositary receipts conducted by Morgan Stanley at $24.95 a share — an 11.5 per cent discount to the market price. This netted about $3.6bn for the US retailer. Alphaville understands that some people involved in the trade were proudly touting that it was the largest-ever single ADR block placement.
However, with the benefit of Alphaville’s favourite resource (perfect hindsight) the timing now looks awesomely, hilariously terrible.
Having notched up another gain yesterday — thank you Beijing — JD.com’s ADRs closed at $40, up 60 per cent since the August block sale. This means that Walmart in effect has lost out on about $2.2bn.
To be fair to Walmart, JD.com’s ADRs had lost nearly three-quarters of their value from their 2021 peak, and were by August 20 trading at approximately the same level as they were a decade ago. Just getting out and focusing on its own Chinese operations still might make perfect strategic sense. Block trade timing is always hostage to fate, and selling such a big JD.com chunk back in August at a reasonable discount probably rightly felt like a feat for Morgan Stanley at the time.
FTAV is admittedly more familiar with another type of block-trade-gone-awry: when underwriters bid far too aggressively for the deal and are left holding the bag on a big share sale.
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For example, back in 2012 Morgan Stanley inadvertently became one of the biggest players in Danish telecoms company, after being stuck with a $450mn, 7.2 per cent share in TDC. Perhaps the most famous example of a hung block trade is when Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank were stuck with a chunk of Vivendi in 2002, pretty much ruining the entire year for their equity departments.
The JD.com block trade is just a matter of terrible timing, rather than banks doing dumb stuff for league table credit. But still, looking just at the money that Walmart left on the table, in dollar terms this might be one of the worst block trades in history?
Global hospitality group Accor has announced a significant new partnership with The Summary Executive Properties, to open the world’s first standalone Swissôtel branded residences. Located on Dubai Islands, Swissôtel Waterfront Residences at Dubai Islands is expected to debut in 2027, offering 105 private homes alongside a mix of apartments and a penthouse
Senior doctors and scientists have told the BBC they have concerns about how crucial evidence was presented to the jury at Lucy Letby’s trials.
The BBC’s File on 4 has examined how expert witnesses helped to build the case against the former nurse.
The programme raises concerns about how courts grapple with cases of significant medical complexity – with the juries in Letby’s two trials presented with huge amounts of complicated medical evidence relating to each child.
The experts who spoke to the BBC raise questions about the amount of insulin she needed to harm babies in her care, the health condition of one of the babies she was convicted of murdering, and pathology findings presented to the jury.
A public inquiry is under way to establish how Letby was able to murder and injure babies. At its opening Lady Justice Thirlwall was scathing about those who have questioned the verdicts, saying this was causing “enormous additional distress to the parents”.
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Last month some of the families of the babies gave evidence at the inquiry.
Each of the experts interviewed by File on 4 acknowledge how difficult it must be for the families to hear doubts raised about the trials. However, they say they feel so strongly about the evidence they felt compelled to speak out.
Available now on BBC Sounds and on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 1 October at 20:00, and Wednesday 2 October at 11:00.
More than 100 days of complex evidence was heard during Letby’s first trial, which ended in August 2023. She was found guilty of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six others between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
In a second trial held this year, a different jury found Letby guilty of attempted murder – after the first jury failed to reach a verdict. She is serving 15 whole-life sentences and four judges have dismissed her attempt to appeal these convictions.
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Most of the experts File on 4 spoke to were not present at the trials, and they don’t offer an opinion on her guilt. They have studied key medical evidence presented in court. Their concerns – that some of it was misinterpreted – form part of the growing speculation around her convictions.
It comes after Letby’s new lawyer, Mark McDonald, told the BBC he plans to take her case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice.
Insulin evidence
At her first trial Letby was found guilty of attempting to murder two babies – referred to in court as Baby F and Baby L – by adding insulin to intravenous feed bags.
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The prosecution said both babies were doing well until Letby attacked them, and that it was suspicious she later searched for the parents on Facebook.
The prosecution alleged it would have taken only a few drops to poison each baby, but File on 4 has spoken to a team of mechanical and chemical engineers who disagree – and who are speaking about their calculations for the first time.
Prof Geoff Chase, from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, has been modelling how insulin works in pre-term babies for more than 15 years. He worked with chemical engineer Helen Shannon on a mathematical model that calculated significantly higher quantities of insulin would be needed to harm babies F and L, and to generate insulin levels seen in their test results. In the case of Baby L they calculated it could be as much as 20-80 times more.
There was no evidence in the trial to suggest significant quantities of insulin had gone missing on the ward.
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Speaking to File on 4, another expert expressed concerns about the use of the same blood test results at the trial – something others have questioned in the media.
Dr Adel Ismail – a world-leading expert in the test – told the BBC he believes the immunoassay blood test can produce misleading results.
“In my research, I found the error rate is one in 200,” he said, and added that a second, confirmatory test in such cases was “absolutely vital”. In the case of Baby F and Baby L follow-up tests were not carried out by the lab.
Some experts, however, say the tests are good enough to rely on one set of results. The hospital didn’t order further tests because both babies recovered soon after.
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The X-ray and Baby C’s collapse
Letby was also found guilty of murdering a baby referred to in court as Baby C.
Key to the case was an X-ray taken on 12 June – it was referred to repeatedly during the first trial. In pre-trial reports two prosecution witnesses said it showed the baby had a swollen stomach “most likely due to deliberate” pumping of air into his feeding tube.
However, neonatologist Dr Michael Hall – who has spoken publicly about his concerns before, and has written to the chair of the public inquiry – told the BBC: “There are a number of possible explanations for there being excess gas there.”
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Dr Hall, who was consulted by the defence but never called to give evidence, said it is likely to have been caused by the respiratory support the baby was receiving and said the X-ray suggested there was a bowel obstruction.
Letby was not working on the day the X-ray was taken and had not been on shift since before the baby was born – information the jury heard in her first trial. Letby’s former barrister Ben Myers also highlighted these details in his closing argument.
In his summing up the judge made clear to the jury this X-ray had been taken the day before Baby C collapsed, though he didn’t remind them Letby hadn’t been on shift. At appeal, the prosecution said Letby could have visited the hospital while off shift, but didn’t put forward any evidence that she was there.
The BBC has also spoken to five senior clinicians who reviewed Baby C’s medical notes made public at trial – although only one had access to the baby’s complete medical history. They all noted the baby was high risk and should have been in a higher level unit.
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Prof Colin Morley, a retired professor of neonatology from the University of Cambridge, told File on 4 he was “very confident” Baby C died of natural causes.
At the trial, the X-ray was not the only evidence used to convict Letby on this charge. The prosecution argued text messages showed she was desperate to get into the room where Baby C was being treated, even though she wasn’t his designated nurse. Another nurse said she found Letby standing over the baby’s cot when he collapsed. After he died, Letby again searched for his parents on Facebook.
Liver damage
Baby O was one of triplet brothers born in good condition in June 2016. He was stable, Letby’s first trial was told, until the afternoon of 23 June when he suffered a “remarkable deterioration” and later died.
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The pathologist for the prosecution, who reviewed the case, said he believed Baby O had suffered an “impact injury” to his liver akin to a road traffic collision.
There was other evidence used to convict Letby of Baby O’s murder. She objected to the baby being moved to another area of the unit to be more closely monitored. She was accused of falsifying medical notes, and there was a rash which prosecution experts said was consistent with air being injected into the baby’s veins.
However, a leading senior perinatal pathologist told File on 4 she agrees with the original post-mortem on Baby O – that his liver injury and death were by natural causes.
The pathologist – who asked not to be identified because of the controversial nature of Letby’s case – said she has seen this kind of liver damage at least three times in her career. Each time there were natural causes.
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None of the experts who spoke to File on 4 made any evaluation of Letby’s guilt or otherwise, but added their concerns to growing speculation about how complex medical evidence was presented at her trials.
In August, 24 experts wrote to the government to share their concerns over the way statistics and the science around newborn babies was presented to the jury at the former nurse’s first trial.
The Crown Prosecution Service told the BBC: “Two juries and three appeal court judges have reviewed the evidence against Lucy Letby, and she has been convicted on 15 separate counts following two separate trials.”
It said in May the Court of Appeal dismissed Letby’s leave to appeal on all grounds – rejecting her argument that expert prosecution evidence was flawed.
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This is a distressing case, so if you – or someone you know – need help after reading about it, the details of organisations offering assistance can be found on the BBC Action Line.
In a command post near the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, soldiers of the Separate Presidential Brigade bemoan the dithering in Washington about whether Kyiv can use western missiles to strike targets inside Russia.
If only they were able to fight “with both hands instead of with one hand tied behind our back”, then Ukraine’s plucky troops might stand a chance against a more powerful Russian army, laments an attack drone operator.
Surrounded by video monitors showing the advancing enemy, the battalion’s commander says his objectives have begun to shift.
“Right now, I’m thinking more about how to save my people,” says Mykhailo Temper. “It’s quite hard to imagine we will be able to move the enemy back to the borders of 1991,” he adds, referring to his country’s aim of restoring its full territorial integrity.
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Once buoyed by hopes of liberating their lands, even soldiers at the front now voice a desire for negotiations with Russia to end the war. Yuriy, another commander on the eastern front who gave only his first name, says he fears the prospect of a “forever war”.
“I am for negotiations now,” he adds, expressing his concern that his son — also a soldier — could spend much of his life fighting and that his grandson might one day inherit an endless conflict.
“If the US turns off the spigot, we’re finished,” says another officer, a member of the 72nd Mechanised Brigade, in nearby Kurakhove.
Ukraine is heading into what may be its darkest moment of the war so far. It is losing on the battlefield in the east of the country, with Russian forces advancing relentlessly — albeit at immense cost in men and equipment.
It is struggling to restore its depleted ranks with motivated and well-trained soldiers while an arbitrary military mobilisation system is causing real social tension. It is also facing a bleak winter of severe power and potentially heating outages.
“Society is exhausted,” says Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the foreign affairs committee of the Ukrainian parliament.
At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is under growing pressure from western partners to find a path towards a negotiated settlement, even if there is scepticism about Russia’s willingness to enter talks any time soon and concern that Ukraine’s position is too weak to secure a fair deal right now.
“Most players want de-escalation here,” says a senior Ukrainian official in Kyiv.
It would be naive to expect the applause we got two years ago
The Biden administration is aware that its present strategy is not sustainable because “we are losing the war”, says Jeremy Shapiro, head of the Washington office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “They are thinking of how to move that war to a greater quiescence.”
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Most threatening of all for Kyiv is the possibility that Donald Trump wins next month’s US presidential election and tries to impose an unfavourable peace deal on Ukraine by threatening to withhold further military and financial aid. Trump repeated his claim last week that he could rapidly bring an end to the war.
Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in Europe may wish to keep it in the fight but lack the weapons stockpiles to do so and have no plan for filling any void left by the US.
Kyiv confirmed it was laying the groundwork for future talks in spectacular fashion when its troops seized a swath of Russia’s Kursk region in a surprise cross-border incursion in August. Zelenskyy said the land would serve as a bargaining chip.
And last week, in an attempt to shape the thinking of his allies, Zelenskyy visited the US to market his so-called “victory plan”, a formula for bolstering Ukraine’s position before possible talks with Moscow. Zelenskyy described it as a “strategy of achieving peace through strength”.
Stepping into the maelstrom of the US election campaign, he held separate talks with President Joe Biden, vice-president Kamala Harris and her Republican opponent, Trump, to make his case.
At one point, Zelenskyy’s US mission veered towards disaster after he was criticised by Trump for resisting peace talks and censured by senior Republicans for visiting a weapons factory in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania accompanied only by Democratic politicians. But in the end, he persuaded Trump to grant him an audience and salvaged his visit.
“It was not a triumph. It was not a catastrophe,” the senior Ukrainian official says of Zelenskyy’s US trip. “It would be naive to expect the applause we got two years ago,” the official adds, referring to the president’s address before Congress in December 2022, for which he received multiple standing ovations and declared that Ukraine would “never surrender”.
Yet the Ukrainian leader left Washington empty-handed on two central issues: US permission to use western weapons for long-range strikes on Russian territory; and progress on Ukraine’s bid to join Nato. The Biden administration has resisted both, fearing it could encourage Moscow to escalate the conflict, potentially drawing in the US and other allies.
US officials were unimpressed by Zelenskyy’s “victory plan”, which includes requests for massive amounts of western weaponry.
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An adviser who helped prepare the document says Zelenskyy had no choice but to restate his insistence on Nato membership because anything else would have been perceived as a retreat on the question of western security guarantees, which Ukrainians see as indispensable.
The victory plan is an attempt to change the trajectory of the war and bring Russia to the table. Zelenskyy really believes in it
Despite Washington’s misgivings, the ability to strike Russian territory is also central to Zelenskyy’s victory plan, says the adviser. While US officials have argued that Russia has already moved strike aircraft beyond the range of western missiles, Ukrainian officials insist there are plenty of other targets such as command centres, weapons caches, fuel depots and logistics nodes.
Destroying them could disrupt Moscow’s ability to wage war, show Russian leader Vladimir Putin that his objectives of seizing at least four whole provinces of Ukraine are untenable and disprove his conviction that the west will lose interest in supporting Ukraine.
“Russia should not be overestimated,” says Andris Sprūds, Latvia’s defence minister. “It has its vulnerabilities.”
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Although Zelenskyy’s victory plan restated old objectives, its real significance is that it shifts Ukraine’s war aims from total liberation to bending the war in Kyiv’s favour, says the senior Ukrainian official.
“It’s an attempt to change the trajectory of the war and bring Russia to the table. Zelenskyy really believes in it.”
Multiple European diplomats who attended last week’s UN General Assembly in New York say there was a tangible shift in the tone and content of discussions around a potential settlement.
They note more openness from Ukrainian officials to discuss the potential for agreeing a ceasefire even while Russian troops remain on their territory, and more frank discussions among western officials about the urgency for a deal.
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Ukraine’s new foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, used private meetings with western counterparts on his first trip to the US in the post to discuss potential compromise solutions, the diplomats said, and struck a more pragmatic tone on the possibility of land-for-security negotiations than his predecessor.
“We’re talking more and more openly about how this ends and what Ukraine would have to give up in order to get a permanent peace deal,” says one of the diplomats, who was present in New York. “And that’s a major change from even six months ago, when this kind of talk was taboo.”
Ukrainian public opinion also appears to be more open to peace talks — but not necessarily to the concessions they may require.
Polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology for the National Democratic Institute in the summer showed that 57 per cent of respondents thought Ukraine should engage in peace negotiations with Russia, up from 33 per cent a year earlier.
Life is about to get even tougher. Russia has destroyed at least half of Ukraine’s power-generating capacity after it resumed mass drone and missile strikes against power stations and grid infrastructure this spring.
Ukraine faces a “severe” electricity deficit of up to 6GW, equivalent to a third of peak winter demand, according the International Energy Agency. It is increasingly dependent on its three remaining operational nuclear power plants, the IEA noted. Were Russia to attack substations adjacent to these plants — despite all the obvious dangers — it could cause Ukraine’s power system to collapse, and with it heating and water supply. Central heating facilities in large cities such as Kharkiv and Kyiv are also vulnerable.
Another source of tension is mobilisation. Under new legislation, millions of Ukrainian men have been compelled to register for possible service or face hefty fines. At the same time, many Ukrainians know of men who have been randomly stopped at metro or train stations, often late at night, and carted off to mobilisation centres, a brief period of training and then the front line.
55%Share of Ukrainians who remain opposed to any formal cession of territory as part of a peace deal, down from a peak of 87 per cent last year
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“It is perceived as abusive, worse than if you are a criminal, where there is at least due process,” says Hlib Vyshlinksy, director of the Centre for Economic Strategy in Kyiv. “It tears people apart. The real enemy is Russia, but at the same time they fear a corrupt, abusive enrolment office doing the wrong thing.”
If Ukrainians have warmed to the idea of negotiations, a majority — 55 per cent according to a KIIS polling in May — remain opposed to any formal cession of territory as part of a peace deal.
“People want peace but they are also against territorial concessions. It is hard to reconcile them,” says Merezhko, the chair of the foreign affairs committee.
However, the KIIS survey shows the share of respondents opposed to any territorial concessions has dropped sharply from a peak of 87 per cent early last year. It also found that Ukrainians might be open to a compromise whereby, in return for Ukrainian membership of Nato, Russian maintains de facto control over occupied parts of Ukraine, but not recognised sovereignty.
“If you get into any negotiation, it could be a trigger for social instability,” says a Ukrainian official. “Zelenskyy knows this very well.”
“There will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation. The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy,” says Merezhko, who is an MP for Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party.
As the KIIS polling shows, making any deal acceptable that allows Russia to stay in the parts of Ukraine it has seized since its first invasion in 2014 will hinge on obtaining meaningful western security guarantees, which for Kyiv means Nato membership.
“The most important thing for us is security guarantees. Proper ones. Otherwise it won’t end the war; it will just trigger another one,” says a Ukrainian official.
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“Land for [Nato] membership is the only game in town, everyone knows it,” says one senior western official. “Nobody will say it out loud . . . but it’s the only strategy on the table.”
Nato membership remains Ukraine’s key goal, but very few of the alliance’s 32 members think it is possible without a full, lasting ceasefire and a defined line on the map that determines what portion of Ukraine’s territory the alliance’s mutual defence clause applies to. The model floated by some is West Germany’s membership of the alliance, which lasted more than three decades before the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification with the east.
“The West German model is gaining traction particularly in the White House, which has been the most sceptical about Nato membership,” says Shapiro of the ECFR. “The Russians would hate that, but at least it could be some opening gambit for a compromise.”
But even that would require a vast force deployment by the US and its partners that any US administration, Democratic or Republican, would likely balk at, given Washington’s focus on the threat from China. One question would be whether European powers would be willing to shoulder more of the burden.
And would Russia accept Ukraine’s entry into the alliance, an alignment with the west it has been trying to thwart militarily for a decade? Many on both sides of the Atlantic say it is unlikely.
“I don’t think Russia would agree to our participation in Nato,” says a senior Ukrainian official.
Anything short of full membership is unlikely to be enough to stop the Kremlin’s military aggression. “Even if we get a Nato invitation, it will mean nothing. It’s a political decision,” adds the senior Ukrainian official.
In what could be his last trip to Europe before standing down as president, Biden will chair a meeting of Ukraine and its allies in Germany on October 12.
A western official briefed on Zelenskyy’s talks in Washington said there were tentative signs that Biden might agree to advance the status of Ukraine’s Nato membership bid before he leaves office in January.
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As he left the US this weekend, Zelenskyy said that October would be “decision time”. The Ukrainian leader will once again plead for permission to hit targets inside Russia with western-supplied munitions, knowing that it is one of the few options for bringing hostilities to an end.
“It’s about constraining Russia’s capabilities” and piling on pressure to get them to open talks, says the senior Ukrainian official. “It’s a real chance if we are thinking about resolving this war.”
Verstappen feels the punishment he was given for swearing in a news conference was “ridiculous” and the whole situation is “silly”.
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“If you can’t really be yourself to the fullest, then it’s better not to speak,” he said. “But that’s what no one wants because then you become a robot and that’s not how you should be going about it in the sport. You should be able to show emotions in a way. That’s what racing is about. Any sport.”
Verstappen made it clear that his decision to give the shortest possible answers in news conferences after qualifying and the race in Singapore was a direct consequence of being given a community service penalty for using a swear word on the Thursday.
“There is of course no desire to then give long answers there when you get treated like that,” he said, when speaking to journalists in a separate session away from the official press conference room.
This is a complex topic.
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Some will believe that swearing in any circumstance in a news conference is wrong.
Others might feel that dropping in the odd fruity word now and then if the context is right and it feels natural is authentic, and that F1 drivers should be able to behave in that manner.
It’s only what many people would do in normal speech, it could be argued, after all.
For many years, F1 drivers have been accused of lacking personality and being boring.
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So it’s understandable if they find it ironic and confusing that these actions are now being taken. Especially in the context of the successful Netflix Drive to Survive series, in which swearing is normalised, even celebrated, in the case of former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner.
The problem for Verstappen in particular and the drivers in general is that FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has made this another one of his hobby horses – just as with jewellery and underwear and other things in the past.
Ben Sulayem wants less swearing over team radio, never mind less in news conferences.
The interesting question now is how the drivers will respond when they arrive for media day on 17 October at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.
The drivers collectively will need to come up with a position, because you can be sure it will be one of the first items on the list of questions for most members of the media, especially to Verstappen.
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