docwrighty @docwrightyuk

Sorry, but this needs to be said again and again, until it is fully understood and accepted: 🇷🇺 The Russian Army has been fought to a standstill in Ukraine - 1.4 million casualties with about 400K deaths. The sheer scale of human and equipment losses is staggering. 🇷🇺 It means Russia is not going to precipitate a second war anytime soon. However, the Russian economy has proved to be much stronger and more resilient than Western analysts expected. Military spending has sustained growth even if inflation is high and energy export income has fallen. 🇷🇺 It is entirely possible that a peace deal could be concluded within the next 12 months. Any such agreement will only be signed off by Putin if it gifts him a large chunk of Ukraine. This will allow him to declare victory and remain in power. 🇷🇺 When the conflict with Ukraine ends, Russia will not immediately revert to a non-wartime economy. Peace will give Putin a much needed breathing space which he will use to rearm and retrain his battered army. It is likely to take a decade before Russia regains any credible military strength while the economy recovers — and it is entirely possible that China will support Russia’s rearmament process. So we could see a Russian military resurgence within 5 years. This is the risk. 🇷🇺 Whatever happens, there is no inexorable path to war with Russia. But if we do nothing, if we refuse to bolster our defences when time is on our side, it’s the same as leaving the door unlocked — we will invite aggression, because Putin is strategically ambitious and opportunistic. 🇷🇺 A strong Europe, fully prepared, with potent and flexible capabilities, plus resilient and scalable economic production, would definitely deter aggression, just as NATO’s Cold War presence in Europe kept the peace for almost half a century. 🇬🇧 So,we have a straightforward binary choice: deter aggression through strength. Invite aggression through weakness. I do not want to send my children to fight a war that could have been be avoided. If you are a parent, I hope you will agree.

A Green councillor called Hamas founders "martyrs". The Lib Dems made him cabinet member for children and families. Birmingham deserves answers.

As always, a good audience with His Majesty King Charles III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I thank His Majesty, the people, and the entire United Kingdom for their ironclad support for our people. Photo: The Royal Family. @RoyalFamily

Lieutenant Lily-Mae Fisher, 31, from Virginia Water, Surrey. Britain’s only serving female Royal Navy Commando. Killed in training on 3 June 2026 when a Merlin Mk4 from 846 Naval Air Squadron crashed at Sourton Down, Devon. The career arc was extraordinary. An MSc in Geology from Imperial College London in 2016. Junior international representative for England in lacrosse and pole vault. Two years as a geologist with British Petroleum before commissioning in 2019 into the Royal Navy. During a break in flying training she completed the 16 week All Arms Commando Course, earning the green beret as one of only seven women in British military history to do so, and becoming the UK’s only serving female Royal Navy Commando. She was killed on her final assessment of flying training. Her Pilot’s Wings were to be awarded in June 2026. She died alongside Lieutenant Commander Chris Gayson, 42, and Petty Officer Owen Green, 24.

We can confirm the names of the three Royal Navy personnel who tragically lost their lives during a helicopter training exercise on 3 June: Lt Cdr Chris Gayson, 42, Somerset Lt Lily-Mae Fisher, 31, Surrey PO Owen Green, 24, Hampshire 🔗royalnavy.mod.uk/news/2026/june…

In America, a stranger will rename you in a single breath, and you are simply expected to come when called. I went to eat at a busy restaurant. A young man at the front asked for my name, to mark my place in line. I gave it the weight it has carried for eight hundred years. "Nobunaga." He smiled, nodded, and wrote it down with great confidence. Then he read it back to me, to be sure he had honored it correctly. "Perfect. Banana, party of one." Banana. He had heard my name, held it a moment, and returned to me something rounder and more cheerful. To refuse the name a host gives is to refuse his welcome. I bowed. I was Banana now. Then he handed me a small black disc, said it would "light up and buzz" when my table was ready, and turned to the next guest as though he had not just placed a living thing in my hands. I held it in both palms, the way one holds a small sleeping beast that may wake. I found a place to stand. I waited, ready. It woke. It screamed. It flashed red. It leapt and shook in my hands like a captured spirit demanding release. A lesser man would have dropped it. I did not. I gripped it, steady, looked into its blinking lights, and told it, in a low voice, that its time had come. Then I carried it back to the host with both hands, the way one returns a hawk to its master. He took it without looking and shouted across the entire room. "BANANA! Party of one, your table's ready!" A hundred strangers turned. I rose. I crossed that floor as Banana, spine straight, chin level, a man answering to his name. A child pointed at me. I gave the child a small bow. He had recognized me. All through the meal they kept me. "How's it tasting, Banana?" "More water, Banana?" The check, when it came, said Banana, and thanked me for visiting. By the end the whole staff knew me. They waved as I left. "Night, Banana!" So tell me honestly. For eight hundred years my clan answered to one name. Tonight I answered to a fruit, calmed a screaming relic in my bare hands, and ate among people who were glad I came. When the little disc lights up, is the table truly mine, or am I only keeping it warm for the next Banana? Because I have already decided to return on Friday, and to ask, very humbly, for the same disc.

International Emergency Medicine Day Fabulous team. Exceptional care. Unmatched dedication. Love what you do. #emergencymedicineday

HMS Medway has arrived off Tristan da Cunha, ready to deliver six civilian medics and critical supplies to the island. She will remain in the area for several days and will retrieve the team who parachuted on to the island earlier this month 🇬🇧

In the end we win. 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿✝️

I went to meet the Pathfinder Platoon to congratulate them on their recent operational success. These are the elite spearhead element of the Parachute Regiment, responsible for the daring operation to provide life saving care and medical supplies to the Tristan da Cunha island. Flying thousands of miles, parachuting into the unknown they demonstrated immense courage in a daring life saving mission. We are deeply proud of everything they achieved. Professional, brave and exceptionally capable they are now enjoying 🤔 the pleasure of the Royal Navy sailing home…enjoy the sea state! 🫡🫡🤐

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A Ukrainian robotic evacuation vehicle equipped with an armored capsule successfully rescued a wounded soldier from a frontline position. During the extraction, the vehicle struck two mines on its return route. Despite the blasts, the armored capsule protected the wounded serviceman from shrapnel, allowing the mission to be completed successfully. The soldier was evacuated and transferred for further medical treatment. Mission:
• Duration: 2h 13m
• Distance covered: 36.5 km
• Average speed: 15 km/h
• Top speed: 70 km/h

Перший окремий медичний батальйон @1MedArmy

a month ago

Перший медичний х "Скеля": витягти пораненого з передової Отримали запит на порятунок бійця, який отримав поранення внаслідок штурмових дій. Поранений знаходився на позиціях, що були в напівоточенні. Було прийнято рішення евакуювати засобами НРК. Дорога до пораненого пройшла

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Defence Medical Command recently welcomed Major General Anatolii Kazmirchuk, Surgeon General of the Medical Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the UK to deepen collaboration on sharing expertise, training, research, and front-line care. @DefenceU bit.ly/4dH1NF3

Defence Medical Services officially becomes Defence Medical Command, reflecting a stronger, more integrated future for Defence healthcare. Read the full story here: bit.ly/4dSpFqy

Dropping into the weekend like... jumping tandem, a Pathfinder and medic parachute as part of the brigade's fast-paced mission to deliver medical support to Tristan da Cunha, where a British national was suspected of contracting Hantavirus. Read more: army.mod.uk/news/soldiers-…

The Royal Navy's ‘air ambulance’ was scrambled in the Norwegian Sea as @HMSPWLS tested its ability to rescue and stabilise a seriously injured sailor from @HMSDuncan. Read more: royalnavy.mod.uk/news/2026/may/…

Meet the team behind the mission.🩺   🏥Forward deployed in the Middle East, this joint @RoyalAirForce & @BritishArmy medical team keeps UK personnel trained, fit & ready to operate.   ⛑️From first response training to life-saving care - they’re ready when it matters most.💪

Strap in: Follow one of our paratroopers from @16AirAssltBCT jumping in to Tristan da Cunha – one of the world’s most remote communities – to deliver vital medical support 🪂

UK Armed Forces Personnel have conducted a Parachute Operation to deliver critical medical support to Tristan da Cunha - Britains most remote inhabited island overseas territory. Paratroopers and military clinicians from @16AirAssltBCT, jumped from an A400 aircraft during the Op.

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UK specialist paratroopers and military clinicians have carried out a daring parachute operation to deliver critical medical support to Tristan da Cunha – Britain’s most remote inhabited Overseas Territory – after a suspected case of Hantavirus was identified on the island.

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It's all the fault of the English 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿. This French colony gone wrong has ruined continental Europe for over 8 centuries. It is an embarrassment to Western Civilization. England is a French startup that grew sentient, deleted its operating system, and has been terrorizing the neighbors ever since. In 1066, William the Conqueror didn't actually intend to create a global superpower; he was just looking for a damp, offshore storage unit for his extra knights. But somewhere between the Battle of Hastings and the invention of the lukewarm ale, the "Normandy Expansion Pack" glitched. What was supposed to be a lovely vineyard-adjacent outpost devolved into a chaotic, rain-soaked experiment in how many ways a human can boil a vegetable until it loses its will to live. For eight centuries, Continental Europe has been forced to play the role of the exhausted parent watching a toddler with a flamethrower. The English spent the entire Middle Ages trying to move back into their "parents' basement" in France, leading to the Hundred Years' War—which was essentially just a very long, very violent property dispute over who got the good patio furniture in Aquitaine. When they finally got evicted, they didn't just walk away; they decided that if they couldn't be French, they would make "Not Being French" their entire personality. They invented an entire Church just so a king could get a divorce, and they pivoted to a global empire primarily so they could find something—anything—with actual spice in it, only to bring those spices home and use them as decorative paperweights. The sheer audacity of the British project is breathtaking. They took a perfectly functional Romance-language foundation, dragged it through a hedge of Germanic gutturals, and created a linguistic Frankenstein that they now have the nerve to export back to us. For 800 years, they have sat on that island like a disgruntled tenant who refuses to join the neighborhood watch but insists on judging everyone’s lawn from behind a lace curtain. They spent centuries meddling in European affairs just to ensure no one else could have a nice time, only to eventually execute the ultimate "I’m leaving the party" dramatic exit with Brexit—which, let’s be real, was just the final, agonizing stage of a 1,000-year-old French colony finally admitting it’s too socially awkward to stay in the room. The tragedy of the Continent is that we are still dealing with the fallout of William’s bad weekend in 1066. We gave them the architecture, the wine, and the legal framework, and in return, they gave us the Industrial Revolution (which ruined the air), the concept of "The Weekend" (which ruined productivity), and the belief that a vacation consists of turning bright pink on a beach in Spain while yelling for a full English breakfast. England isn't a neighbor; it’s a French experiment that escaped the lab, moved into a cold shed, and decided to make its misery everyone else’s problem. We’ve been paying the "Norman Tax" in psychic damage for nearly a millennium, and quite frankly, we’re still waiting for the refund.