Ukraine: Trouble at the Top? Adieu Keir, Alright Andy

In a week that’s seen rare wartime demonstrations in Ukraine protesting the ousting of Defence Minister Mykhailo (Misha) Fedorov after six months in a job in which he’s been credited with making a difference on the battlefield and in an anti-corruption drive. But he had reportedly clashed with Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, over how the war should be waged.

President Zelensky said he had to choose a side for the sake of unity, this coming as part of a wider government reshuffle. The timing is awkward for Ukraine’s war effort, in the middle of its, quote, "40-day influence operation" of relentlessly striking Russian refineries and, in recent days, hitting ships in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea:

It’s been another week fighting for supremacy in the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the US. It’s been a month now since the Memorandum of Understanding was signed, with President Trump proclaiming, "Ships of the world, start your engines, let the oil flow!" He’s since said the deal is over while, paradoxically, saying he’ll let the teams keep talking. But oil prices are back up, petrol prices worldwide have spiked again, and we’re hearing familiar rhetoric from the belligerents, with President Trump threatening, again, to knock out Iran’s power plants and bridges, and Tehran claiming it will, quote, "crush every US interest that’s still intact in the Middle East":

It’s been the week British Prime Minister Keir Starmer bowed out, along with the England team, both receiving similar exit feedback: that they weren’t creative enough, bold enough, or positive enough. And in comes the substitute Labour are playing, Andy Burnham, who will now officially step in to take the gaffer’s job. The son of a toolmaker didn’t have in his toolbox what was needed to fix Labour’s chaos in government. Does the new guy have a better technique up his sleeve? A guitar-playing Stone Roses superfan who strums along to I Am the Resurrection and who, he says, dabbles daily with Wordle. A new face, a new Labour? Is he the One? Or, like Fools Gold, are Labour overvaluing the appearance without scrutinising the substance?

Books:

- Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman

- A Kind of Anger by Eric Ambler

- What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Ocean by Helen Scales

- My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: A Fiction by Deborah Levy

Produced by Gavin Lee, Alessandro Xenos, Théo Vareille, Daniel Whittington and Laura Burloux

Our guests

Emma-Kate SYMONS Journalist, The New World & Editor, Conspiracy Watch Global

Victor MALLET Senior Editor, Financial Times

John SWEENEY Journalist, Author of "Killer In The Kremlin"

Joe BARNES Diplomatic Editor for The Telegraph