A personal view of Australian and International Politics
Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Restrictions hampered Ukraine's ability to intercept Russian attack drones. (Reuters)
In short:
Ukraine says Starlink satellite is back to operating at high speeds after restrictions disrupted Ukraine's military operations.
Problems with the Elon Musk-owned Starlink and Starshield came after Donald Trump announced a deal to buy Russian diesel, pressing Kyiv to stop striking Russian oil refineries.
What's next?
Mr Trump said if problems persisted, he would "get it straightened out".
Ukraine says the Starlink satellite system is back to operating at high speeds after restrictions disrupted Ukraine's military operations and intensified tensions with the US.
Problems with Elon Musk's SpaceX-owned Starlink and its military version, Starshield, came after US President Donald Trump announced a deal to buy Russian diesel, while pressing Kyiv to stop striking Russian oil refineries.
Neither Elon Musk or the US government has acknowledged responsibility for delays in satellite speed. (Reuters: Nathan Howard)
Ukrainian officials said the restrictions hampered the military's ability to intercept Russian attack drones and forced the cancellation of some operations.
"Ukraine's Ministry of Defence monitoring systems are officially recording the restoration of Starlink/Starshield operating speeds," the ministry said in a post to Telegram.
"Connectivity remains stable at speeds exceeding 400km per hour," it added.
The Ukrainian military does not disclose the systems' maximum operating speeds, and the defence ministry did not say whether service had been fully restored.
A Ukrainian serviceman prepares a Starlink satellite internet system at a frontline position in the Donetsk region. (Reuters: Inna Varenytsia)
When limitations were in place, Ukraine experienced problems trying to operate at speeds over 160kph.
Ukraine does not rely on the systems for long-range drone operations on Russian territory, but Starlink is vital for frontline communications and Starshield is used for military operations in occupied territories.
The restrictions sparked outrage in Ukraine, particularly as they coincided with disruptions to allied warnings about incoming Russian missile attacks.
Kyiv later said it continued to receive US intelligence.
Neither Elon Musk or the US government has acknowledged responsibility for restricting Starlink or Starshield in Ukraine.
Both said publicly that any such decision could only have been taken by the other.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hugs US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. (NTB/Heiko Junge/via Reuters)
It was reported by Reuters that the order to throttle Starshield came from inside the White House.
Previously, US administrations had several times asked SpaceX to turn Starlink on or off in various countries, sources said.
Trump said on Friday that if problems persisted, he would "get it straightened out".
Growing succulents has helped Ian Andrews transition into retirement. (ABC Riverland: Amelia Walters)
A pop of colour from an indoor plant is a staple in many households.
From apartments to smaller backyards, the way Australians are living has resulted in a surge in succulent popularity over the past decade.
For newly retired Ian Andrews, who lives in Renmark in South Australia's Riverland, his five-year gardening plan to propagate the plant has quickly become an obsession.
Now the owner of more than 10,000 succulents, he said the benefits of the resilient and striking species were endless.
Ian Andrews is a big believer that plants live naturally outside so that is where they should stay. (ABC Riverland: Amelia Walters)
"Australia has a very diverse climate, but we tend to have cold and wet winters and drier summers which are favourable to many succulent families," he said.
"In the Riverland for example, a lot of succulents come from the southern part of Africa, so their soils and climates are very similar."
Not only has the hobby reinvigorated his passion for plants, but it has helped him transition into retirement.
"Retirement's been lovely. [My garden] is my Zen area," he said.
Ian Andrews has always had a passion for plants but was not able to indulge it fully until retirement. (ABC Riverland: Amelia Waltes)
"[I've gone] from being self-employed when we started our business 25 years ago, which was often seven days a week … to being able to catch up and start doing things that most people take for granted.
"It's a positive thing rather than sitting on the internet gambling the money away or down all those other bad habits that you can develop."
Many who have visited Mr Andrews's colourful display want to know his secret to succulent success.
"Give them lots of outdoor breaks. If you have them inside for a week, take it outside for a month," he said.
Ian Andrews says leaving succulents alone can often be the best form of care. (ABC Riverland: Amelia Walters)
"Succulents are easier to look after and are more forgiving.
"Sometimes they can look better when you come home from a holiday because they've had time to dry out."
Growing in popularity
Greenlife Industry NSW & ACT chief executive Mike Mehigan said plant sales in Australia were worth more than $3 billion.
He said the commercial sector and nursery sector were performing well, with younger generations driving demand.
Mike Mehigan says succulents are a great way to start learning about plants. (Supplied: Mike Mehigan)
"The number of plants being sold has probably never been greater than it is at the moment," he said.
Succulent demand has been on the rise for the past 10 years, with housing changes likely a factor.
"The way we live nowadays, people often don't have gardens, and there are a lot more people living in apartments where balconies or indoors is often where they have to grow their plants," Mr Mehigan said.
Hybrid Aeoniums are Ian Andrews's favourite. (ABC Riverland: Amelia Walters)
"I think young people [also tend to] have plants in their bedrooms, and small succulents are a great way to start."
The way in which people are purchasing their plants is evolving in Australia, with many opting for online purchases.
"To sit on your couch in the evening and order your plants is just the way we do things nowadays, and although [plants are] quite a traditional sort of product, we're selling them in a modern way," Mr Mehigan said.
Back in Renmark, Mr Andrews said it was never too late to get a green thumb.
"Gardening is always there for you when you have got time and if something takes your fancy, give it a go," he said.
"At the end of the day, a plant might die, but you can just go and buy another one."
Israeli Defence Forces position themselves near Hebron as the prime minister ordered a major offensive to "destroy" parts of the city. (Reuters: Ammar Awad)
In short:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to mount a major offensive to "destroy" parts of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
It comes after two Israeli soldiers were shot dead at a checkpoint.
What's next?
Mr Netanyahu has also threatened to broaden the assault across the West Bank.
Benjamin Netanyahu has seized on an attack at a military checkpoint in Hebron, which killed two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian gunmen, to launch a major offensive in the city, with Israeli forces going house-to-house to "destroy" what he described as “terrorist infrastructure”.
The Israeli PM also threatened to broaden the assault across the West Bank to a scale "unlike any seen since the Six-Day War".
Mr Netanyahu also used the incident, which took place on Friday, to endorse the increasingly violent actions of "our heroic" Israeli settlers in the West Bank for "standing in the breach".
"You are a role model for the people of Israel, you are a role model for the State of Israel", he said, vowing an expansion of settlements regarded as illegal under international law at an even greater rate in the future.
Four days before the first Israeli election since catastrophic security failures led to the October 7 Hamas attack in 2023, the embatted PM arrived in Hebron at the scene of what had been a 20-minute gun battle between two Palestinian gunmen and security forces which killed two Israeli soldiers and injured three others. The two gunmen were also killed.
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) immediately claimed that a large quantity of ammunition found in the attackers' car showed they had been planning a mass shooting of Israeli citizens.
Hamas issued a statement praising the actions of the two gunmen, identified by Israeli security forces as two 27-year-old members of the same family, Mohammad Jaaba and Firas Jaaba.
Israeli forces stands guard near the shooting scene. (Reuters: Ammar Awad)
Israel's prime minister immediately ordered the sealing of the predominantly Palestinian city of Hebron and threatened the possible closure of the entire West Bank.
After cancelling planned election events, Mr Netanyahu arrived in Hebron to announce major retaliations in the neighbourhood where the attackers lived and warned that Israeli defence forces could broaden out their assault.
"We will implement the successful and aggressive offensive model we carried out in the refugee camps inside the cities — the IDF will enter the neighbourhoods from which the terrorists emerged, evacuate the residents, go house-to-house, and destroy the terrorist infrastructure", Mr Netanyahu, appearing in a flak jacket, said in Hebrew.
"We are prepared for a broad operation in Judea and Samaria [the Israeli name for the West Bank]."
"We warned a few weeks ago about attempts by our enemies to harm us, our citizens, and our soldiers ahead of the elections.
"That is what they tried to do here. IDF soldiers blocked this with their bodies and were also wounded. The soldiers not only stopped the terrorists but also charged heroically and eliminated them."
Mr Netanyahu's culpability for the security failures on October 7, 2023, his failure to act to get Israeli hostages back out of Gaza, and his refusal to allow a proper inquiry into the events that led to the biggest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust are a central issue in the election campaign.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will "act to destroy" Hebron. (Reuters: Ronen Zvulun)
There has been considerable apprehension that any escalation of violence could be seized on to enhance his security credentials.
In Hebron, Mr Netanyahu said "we will act to destroy this place, to change it completely, but to do something that has not been done until now — we are going to implement the successful and aggressive model we used in the refugee camps, which are essentially terrorist strongholds".
In language that carried clear echoes of the devastation the IDF brought to Gaza after the October 7 attacks, Mr Netanyahu said "we will evacuate the residents, we will go house-to-house, we will also confiscate the weapons there, and all terrorist infrastructures will be dealt with and destroyed".
"At the same time, we are cordoning off the cities of Hebron and Halhul.
"We will consider expanding this model to other cities as well. We will clear out illegal houses along the routes at an accelerated pace. This threatens our forces."
The prime minister said that he and Defence Minister Israel Katz had reviewed "a very broad IDF operation in Judea and Samaria unlike any seen since the Six-Day War".
"The IDF is prepared to carry it out, and we will determine the timing, but it is on the way"
he said.
Mr Netanyahu said he also wanted to say "a word about our heroic settlers".
"You are standing in the breach. You are a role model for the people of Israel, you are a role model for the State of Israel.
"We are going to destroy the terror infrastructures, and we are going to build the settlement infrastructures"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem. (Reuters: Ronen Zvulun)
Even in a region too used to conflict, there is an air of ominous apprehension sitting over the Middle East this weekend.
Sure, regional tensions are competing for our attention — and anxiety — with events in Ukraine, unrest across Europe, the perils of AI and financial market jitters.
But it is the sheer danger of regional instability embedded in Tuesday's elections in Israel — underlined once again this week when Palestinian gunmen targeted a military checkpoint in Hebron — and the ongoing rumblings of renewed war with Iran, that have put people here on edge.
For a bitterly divided Israel, Tuesday's election is seen as an historic turning point for the country.
Benjamin Netanyahu has cast the election as a choice between standing up for Israel, or succumbing to international pressure for a Palestinian state (despite the fact that no one in this election is proposing the establishment of a Palestinian state).
His Likud Party's campaign slogan is "Yamin o Palestin", meaning "The Right Wing or Palestine".
But the thing to understand about this election is that it is not a choice between the far right and the left in classical terms. It feels to many Israelis more like a choice between the current state of play continuing, and the possibility of Israel going further to the right if Netanyahu were to stay in power.
For the anti-Netanyahu opposition, he is a threat to the state of Israel as a democracy. The ultra-right parties on which Netanyahu has relied have proposed changes that include allowing parliament to override Supreme Court decisions.
Then there are the territorial ambitions.
The ultranationalist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has publicly promoted a plan to remove 1.86 million Palestinians — nearly 90 per cent of Gaza's population — over the next seven years. He and other far-right parties are calling it "voluntary" emigration, as well as "encouraging" the emigration of Palestinians from the West Bank.
Another far-right leader, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, says Israel should annex the 60 per cent plus of Gaza it already controls, as well as the 20 per cent of Lebanon it currently occupies.
Brutally, the fate of Palestinians is not an issue that features much in the election campaign. But the unanswered question of where these Palestinians are actually supposed to go shows a reckless disregard for the sort of instability such actions would have on the regional neighbours — Egypt, Jordan and Syria — that would be expected to take in millions of people.
Ballot boxes are prepared ahead of Israel's national election. (Reuters: Ronen Zvulun)
But in a world where the idea of "Greater Israel" — documented this week by my ABC colleague Matthew Doran and our digital colleagues — has become mainstream, a more extreme biblical view of greater Israel would eventually include the entire Kingdom of Jordan as well as the Sinai Peninsula, most of Syria, and large swathes of Iraq, so the question of whether such a movement of people might provoke war with more Israeli neighbours, or actually destroy a poorer and less populous country like Jordan, doesn't get much of a mention.
International tensions
There is also a sense of the clock ticking on events that may unfold immediately after the election, whatever the outcome.
Hostilities between Iran and the US for now remain the loud rumbling background noise to the election, and in the region more broadly. There is a regular stream of stories about how Israel and/or the US is planning renewed attacks on Iran, and of Iran announcing it is changing its military posture from a defensive one to an offensive one.
For people living through it, there are the daily reports of the massing and preparation of US and Iranian troops, but also the knowledge that the defensive weapons that largely kept civilian populations safe are now in short supply.
The widespread damage to US bases across the region has seen US troops and assets moved en masse to Jordan.
There has been a change in the nature of attacks that have continued through the technical ceasefire. It is now civilian infrastructure — like Riyadh's airport — that has been targeted, rather than just military installations.
Iran has also threatened to escalate its attacks on countries throughout the region, and to infrastructure like data centres and underwater cables.
In Israel, though, all the attention is on the election. The campaign has been verbally violent, and its messages have often exploited violence.
A pundit on a conservative television channel who is seen as a Netanyahu mouthpiece this week called opposition party leader Gadi Eisenkot "a Moroccan monkey controlled by Ashkenazi elites", a reflection of some of the internal divides and racism in Israeli society.
Law enforcement agencies have been instructed to stop National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from accompanying demolition operations in the West Bank, amid accusations he is using the images for election campaigning.
A billboard for the more left-wing of the parties running for office was vandalised in recent days with calls for the murder of party leader Yair Golan scrawled across it, according to the newspaper Haaretz.
Among the messages written on the sign was: "Despicable killer of Jews, wanted dead or alive."
Concerns about Netanyahu
Netanyahu himself is the main issue in the campaign.
Like many really long-serving political leaders, there is a sense that he is campaigning by just pulling the same string, even though it doesn't really work anymore.
Very few polls suggest Netanyahu is going to win.
Most predict a bigger vote for parties standing against Netanyahu's Likud, but not a large enough one to create a majority.
Israelis who want to see Netanyahu gone — because of the corruption allegations against him; because of the security failures before October 7; because they believe he actually represents a threat to Israel remaining a democracy — still talk hopefully of an election boilover.
But whatever the actual numbers of seats held in the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, after Tuesday, Netanyahu is expected to stay on as a caretaker prime minister for the foreseeable future.
That is seen as posing its own risks, both domestically and abroad.
In the short term, the concern is that, at home, Netanyahu and his ultra-right colleagues will accelerate their attempts to change Israel's legal system, and towards full annexation of the West Bank. And abroad, there are fears Netanyahu will renew hostilities with Iran with the aim of establishing wartime conditions that would allow him to stay on in office, irrespective of the election outcome.
All the signs show that Netanyahu is much more driven and steady in his determination to recommence hostilities with Iran than is the US president.
The New York Times reported this week that Israel and the United States came close to striking Iran early this month, but Mr Trump again decided at the last minute to postpone the attack.
Trump has declared there will be no attacks before the US mid-term elections on November 2. Apart from the politics involved in such a call — when the war is deeply, deeply unpopular in the US — it reflects the fact that the American military build-up in the region is not expected to be ready until that time.
The question now has to be whether the sheer desperation and determination of Benjamin Netanyahu means he may be prepared to risk stoking regional conflict on a range of fronts, irrespective of the vacillating decisions of the United States President.
Laura Tingle is reporting from Jerusalem as the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.
NEXTDC's share price plummeted after a two-day suspension from trading. (Reuters: Hollie Adams)
A small data centre operator with three sites being briefly valued at $44 billion, more than Woolworths.
A neighbourhood dispute over power poles that wipes $3 billion off a listed company's value in a single day.
And trillion-dollar global infrastructure build-out getting a wake-up call from the suburbs.
The fragility of the AI boom has been on full display in recent weeks.
An industry that has ignored the concept of "social licence" is colliding with people committed to their communities. And investors are feeling the financial consequences.
Australia ringing the alarm on AI valuations
It's a long way from West Footscray to Wall Street.
But as information has come to move in milliseconds, the titans behind trillion-dollar deals in our AI-boom economy may have spent time looking up "WeFo" on Google Maps, reading about plans for Tasmanian data centres, and wondering: is this where it started to unravel?
Let's step back.
Shares in data centre operator NEXTDC fell 42 per cent in a single day after the company revealed that delays in getting power to a proposed expansion of its massive complex in inner-west Melbourne meant its future earnings would be cut by a third.
The site of the NEXTDC data centre in West Footscray. (ABC News: Kyle Harley)
A neighbourhood dispute and an act of civil disobedience, residents parking their cars in the street to deny trucks access, had stopped the march of industrial-scale power poles that would provide the juice for the next stage of the data centre.
Firmus hit a similar hurdle.
The AI data centre company wanted to list on the stock exchange with an initial public offering (IPO) that would have valued it at about $44 billion.
It would have been one of the five biggest floats in the world this year, the biggest in Australia since Telstra went from being government-owned to listed on the markets.
But it fell apart. For one reason, and then a lot of them.
The key reason was that large investors didn't think the company was worth what it thought it was. They refused to buy it at $11 a share, which would have made it one of Australia's 20 largest firms, more valuable than toll road operator Transurban and supermarket giant Coles.
But the others are important, too: growing community opposition to power and water-hungry data centres and the transmission lines needed to feed them; fears about the job-killing nature of artificial intelligence; the collision of election cycles in the US and Australia with voter unhappiness about economic instability and uncertainty.
Craig Scroggie, chair of Data Centres Australia and chief executive and managing director of NEXTDC, speaks during September's AI Summit Australia in Melbourne. (AAP: James Ross)
AI not dead, but hitting resistance
The idea of social licence is that it's the ongoing acceptance and approval of an organisation's activities by people affected by them and society at large.
Whaling has lost its social licence. Very few countries now kill whales.
AI and data centre companies, spawned from the "move fast, break things" ethos of the tech sector, rapidly evolved from medium-sized warehouses in industrial areas to massive facilities closer to homes.
They became the physical manifestation of people's fears about AI. At the end of their street.
Standing outside NEXTDC's massive facility, the behemoth is undeniably dystopian. Devoid of any visible staff, the entirely black box rises vastly above the single-story brick and weatherboard houses on the other side of the street.
Protests in Europe and the US tuned leaders to the bad vibes coming from constituents. They didn't see the benefits of facilities that drove up power bills, drained precious water resources, and seemed to be in the business of making masses of people unemployed. The number of jobs in data centres, post-construction, is minimal.
But don't expect the sector to go away. As analysts at Morningstar detail, NEXTDC's assets, "both current and planned, are still in great demand". In addition, community concerns over the centres may increase costs and force new ones further away from built-up areas:
"However, this will affect all developers, will likely be factored into new contracts, and will likely make existing data centres even more valuable."
A single-street power pole dispute that costs $3 billion
There's a reason NEXTDC's difficulties are getting attention. It exposes the fragility of the AI boom, already unfolding on a scale the world has rarely seen.
Filip Tortevski, senior analyst at Wealth Within, calls it the "first serious warning shot" as investors weigh if this is an isolated incident or the beginning of something much bigger.
"What's concerning isn't simply the $140 million in revenue affected by electricity delays," they write.
Why are data centre developers looking to the bush?
"It's the potential chain reaction nobody was pricing in. NEXTDC has acknowledged that delayed customer billing could affect its ability to draw on $6.7 billion in available debt facilities. It has also warned that the delays could affect property valuations, with the financial impact still unknown.
"Think about that. A delay in connecting electricity can potentially affect revenue, financing flexibility and asset values simultaneously."
UniSuper's chief investment officer John Pearce helps manage $175 billion in assets.
"It all comes down to valuation. We think that Firmus indeed has a compelling story. It just doesn't have a compelling valuation. At the current valuation, it's priced to perfection. So much has to go right to justify the valuation."
Priced to perfection. The amount the company is valued at requires every single plan to run perfectly, in every element.
Many of our large AI and data centre companies appear to rest on the same belief.
This is a world of storms and natural disasters. Of electricity pole installation. Of technologies from labs we hadn't heard of three months ago. Of changes in government. Of residents who don't feel heard. Of shipping delays. Of construction challenges.
There is a sense of unease in Washington DC about the seemingly cosy Trump-Putin relationship. (Getty: Mikhail Klimentyev)
Four weeks after signing into law new sanctions on Russia, Donald Trump has stunned even some of his own Republican colleagues.
The US president has given his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, his biggest economic and propaganda victory since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Even Putin, a man who built his career understanding the psychology of people so he could recruit them to spy for the KGB, must have been stunned by this Trump about-turn.
It was only in September that Trump signed new sanctions on Russia's energy sector, which were championed by the late senator Lindsey Graham and named in his honour.
The diesel deal undercuts US efforts to create enough economic pain to force Putin to end the war.
After all, if Ukraine unilaterally decided to put down its guns now, it would lose the one-fifth of land the Russians have taken and risk losing the entire country. But if Russia were to put down its weapons, the war would stop.
Trump has done this deal for base political reasons; the high cost of diesel, largely due to the war in Iran, is one reason Republicans are battling to retain control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate at the midterm elections.
"We have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine," Trump said this week. "We've got nothing back other than high diesel."
Leading Republicans and Democrats argue that it's not about Washington "getting nothing back", rather, they argue, if Putin is allowed to conquer Ukraine he will be rewarded for an illegal invasion and may then turn his focus to other countries in Europe.
"It's unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians every single day," Republican senator Thom Tillis said.
Trump is sending other signals that he has decided to embrace Russia.
He has said he was interested in Moscow's proposal for a summit between the US, China and Russia. Apart from elevating Putin, it would involve discussion about a war with one side — the country that has been attacked — not in the room.
Then came the description this week of Putin by Steve Witkoff, Trump's Ukraine war negotiator, as a "humanitarian", following Russia's release of an American it had held in prison for four years. For the families of the thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed by Putin's missiles, that word would be difficult to digest.
When President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said people could die because of the change, Musk placed the blame with Trump.
"Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," he wrote on X.
Trump retorted that he didn't know who was responsible, but he would "like to find out".
The Wall Street Journal found out for him, reporting this week it was Musk who had limited Ukraine's access to signals which help it to fight the war.
Some US officials, cited by the newspaper, said Musk acted "unilaterally" and Trump "didn't specifically order any retribution against Ukraine". But one person familiar with the situation, the paper reported, said "Musk talked to multiple senior administration officials, including with Trump, before imposing the new speed cap".
Even if it was Musk's decision, he obviously felt confident enough that Trump, with whom he appears to be back in regular contact, would not have a problem with the decision.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican congressman on the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, told CNN it would be impossible for Musk to change a military-grade version of Starlink without the US military knowing.
"Ukraine is the victim here, Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is our ally," he said, describing the situation as "heartbreaking".
For Putin, this is a huge victory. Regardless of who ordered the downgrading, Ukraine was being weakened.
Putin's US president psychodrama continues
Trump is delivering for Putin a festival of propaganda. Along with his big new diesel deal with the US, Putin can announce to Russians that Trump is considering a three-way summit with him and China's president, Xi Jinping.
Putin could not be scripting this better.
Putin seems to have Trump exactly where he wants him. (AP: Jorge Silva)
But for young Russians who have had to endure the horror of one of the world's longest frontlines, these days are grim.
Actual numbers are not available, but Russian casualties, including deaths, injuries and those missing, are widely believed to be as high as 1 million.
Putin, a man trained by the KGB to play mind games, seems to have Trump exactly where he wants him.
Those mind games began immediately upon Trump's second term. Two days after Trump was re-elected, Russia's most-watched television network carried reports "welcoming" Trump back to the White House, complete with a series of naked photographs of Melania Trump.
Nothing sensitive appears on the Russia 1 Channel that Putin or his enforcers do not want. The montage of nude photographs, while presenters were reading words of congratulations, was the sort of thing a Mafia boss would do: speaking kind words while at the same time showing images that suggested a certain menace or humiliation.
That apparent warning shot was the latest in the psychodrama that Putin has had with four other US presidents: Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Each president entered the Oval Office hoping to be able to form a good relationship with Putin, to tame what they saw as the potentially dangerous Russian bear. But each ended up bitterly disappointed with the reality of their dealings with Putin.
With Trump, Putin surely must have realised that few world leaders were as obviously open to flattery as the US president, which would make the task of someone wanting to win him over so much easier.
Trump's style has long appealed to Putin. Stephen Hadley, US national security adviser for four years from 2005, told PBS Frontline that Putin saw Trump as having a "penchant for authoritarianism" and "a backing off of human rights".
"What's not to like if you're Vladimir Putin? It sort of sounds like he's one of us," Hadley said.
Trump wants Ukraine to agree that Russia keeps the current land it has taken since 2022. Zelenskyy has agreed to that, saying he would consider agreeing to a ceasefire based on the current frontline being frozen.
But Russia wants more. It wants the entire Donbas area.
Despite the fact that it is Russia which both invaded and does not want to end this war, Trump keeps rewarding the country.
Based on all the available evidence, it would appear that Putin has outmanoeuvred yet another US president.
