Sunlight and shadow on the Common today:

Nature pic for today: Purple loosestrife on the Common

Nature pic for today: Comma butterfly in London

Nature pic for today: Willow Emerald damselflies on a London pond

Trump’s Fmr Natl Security Adviser LTG HRMcMaster tells me: I hope the people prepping Trump for this Summit are saying: don’t engage in ts serial gullibility with Putin. He’ll try to appeal to yr ego. He’ll flatter u. He’ll hold out the prospect of a big deal”. #TrumpPutinSummit

Expectations are low that this #AlaskaSummit will produce an immediate ceasefire in the #Ukraine war. One silver lining could be a resumption of US-Russia #nuclear arms limitation talks. A good thing, but Putin may try to use this to stave off sanctions.

My take on the Trump-Putin Alaska Summit:

London sunset

There were always going to be broadly 3 possible outcomes from the #AlaskaSummit 1) A Ceasefire deal (predicted unlikely) 2) No Ceasefire deal and punitive US sanctions (threatened) 3) No Ceasefire deal and er… nothing. Now we know where we are.

Today’s White House meeting could well be the decider for #Ukraine I’ll be setting the scene on BBC Breakfast at 0830. My assessment: bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

What does each party want in today’s crucial White House talks on how to end the war in #Ukraine ? First, what does Ukraine want:

What does Russia want in the #Ukraine war?

What do the US and Europe want over these talks to end the #UkraineWar ?

When Trump hints at US security assistance to help secure a peace deal what could this mean in practice?

There is an inherent problem with these proposed ‘security guarantees’ for #Ukraine Whatever forces are deployed post-peace deal need to be robust enough to deter further attacks. But if they’re that strong, eg incl NATO members, then Russia won’t accept them.

On BBC TV 6pm and 10pm News tonight we’ll be looking at just what exactly are these ‘security guarantees’ being talked about for #Ukraine

What are these ‘security guarantees’ for #Ukraine ? Will they work? Some military experts have their doubts. My report: bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Bit of a break from Ukraine coverage. Here’s a magnificent Southern Hawker dragonfly on a London pond:

What are ‘hypersonic’ missiles? My explainer: bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

High summer in southern England