Article published by Ynetnews.com, 23 May 2023. © Richard Kemp

A few days ago I was in Kyiv the night it was hit by the most intensive missile attack since the war began over a year ago. The city of three million people, the seventh most populous in Europe, was targeted by Russian hypersonic, ballistic, and cruise missiles and also by explosive drones.

Those drones were supplied to Russian forces by the Iranian regime, which also supplied and funded the manufacture of 1,468 missiles fired at Israel from Gaza the previous week. Only Israel’s and Ukraine’s sophisticated air defense systems prevented mass civilian casualties in both bombardments.

A woman in Kyiv explained to me the bitter irony of her friend’s family who had fled Iranian drones in the city for the safety of Israel, where they then found themselves under attack from Iranian missiles.

Adding insult to injury, some of Putin’s oligarchs that are deeply implicated in his war of aggression, and under international sanctions, are also now living in Israel, including Alexei Miller, Igor Sechin, Roman Abramovich, Boris Rotenberg, Vladimir Potanin, Viatcheslav Kantor and Igor Shuvalov.

In both Israel and Ukraine, many civilians have been killed or suffered life-changing injuries, severe psychological trauma, property destruction, deprivation of essential services, and economic harm — directly as a result of Iranian-sponsored weapons of war.

The regime has supplied large numbers of Fajr-3, Fajr-5, M302, and other missiles to terrorists in Gaza to attack Israeli civilians as well as technology and funds to produce rockets locally. They have openly admitted doing so.

Iran has also supplied drones and drone technology to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah; in July 2022 the IDF shot down three Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 20 May 2023. © Richard Kemp

Today is Armed Forces Day in the United States, an opportunity for Americans to show appreciation for their fighting men and women. Any British reader who wonders what that’s got to do with us need only pay a visit to the US military cemetery at Madingley. There they will see row upon row of identical white crosses stretching over 30 acres of Cambridgeshire countryside, each marking the final resting place of an American soldier, sailor or airman killed fighting alongside their British comrades in the Second World War.

The British-American special relationship might occasionally fray at the edges, but never when it comes to the armed forces. We have fought side by side on battlefields around the world, starting with the Second Opium War in 1859 when, against his orders, a US Navy commodore gave covering fire to hard pressed British troops with the words: ‘blood is thicker than water’.

During the Second World War the bond between British and American commanders was so strong that they organized and deployed their forces as if they were the resources of a single nation. As Churchill said at the time: ‘This is a wonderful system. There never has been anything like it between two allies.’

In 1982, secret guarantees of American naval support as well as vital military intelligence were essential in enabling British forces to launch their invasion and successfully recapture the Falkland Islands.

When I and my comrades in the British 7th Armoured Brigade were rushed to Saudi Arabia in 1991 to help liberate Kuwait, we were initially dependent on life support from the US Marine Corps, who with characteristic generosity of spirit prioritised our troops even above their own. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 18 May 2023. © Richard Kemp

I was in Kyiv on Monday night when Ukraine’s capital was hit by its biggest missile attack since the war began.

It was more than just another attempt to terrorise the city. Following hard on the heels of President Zelensky’s visit to Europe with renewed guarantees of military aid, it amounted to a demonstration of force by an increasingly beleaguered Russian dictator.

In half an hour the city was attacked from the north, south and east. In came ballistic missiles, Iranian Shahed loitering drones, Kalibr ‘hypersonic’ cruise missiles launched from warships in the Black Sea, and Kinzhal hypersonic missiles fired from MiG-31K fighter planes.

The result of this tremendous firepower was nothing short of abject humiliation for Putin.

I watched as Ukraine’s combined air defence forces, including American Patriots and German Gepards, seemingly knocked every Russian missile out of the sky. Just three people were injured by falling rocket debris, there was minimal physical damage and – by daylight – the city had returned to normal as though nothing had happened.

This event symbolises both Ukrainian resilience and Russian weakness. Especially the latter.

After Putin was taken aback by the unexpected failure of his initial invasion last February, he came up with a hasty Plan B. That was to invest in Wunderwaffe (‘wonder weapons’), in the same way as Hitler did in the second half of the Second World War, while building up his forces for a renewed offensive this spring.

That much-heralded assault has not materialised, with the Russian army so far barely able to push forward a few miles in one or two places – and at the cost of massive casualties. I spoke today to a Continue reading →

Article published by Ynetnews.com, 14 May 2023. © Richard Kemp

Operation Shield and Arrow has been carried out to date with breathtaking effectiveness. The shield of Iron Dome and David’s Sling have prevented major loss of life among the civilian population, although so far one man has been tragically killed and some have been injured, despite a barrage of 547 deadly rockets fired at Israel at the time of writing.

The arrows of target intelligence, air strikes and missile attacks have decimated the Gaza terrorist leadership and destroyed many of their weapons. No other military is capable of defending its people with the ferocity and precision the IDF has been showing.

Unfortunately, some of Israel’s arrows have also killed uninvolved civilians. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said yesterday that the civilian deaths in Gaza are ‘unacceptable’ and called on Israel to ‘abide by its obligations under international humanitarian law’.

This amounts to a grave slur against the IDF which is known by all Western military commanders to be more effective than any other force in the world in preventing the deaths of civilians in enemy territory. Instead, Guterres should have held the Gaza terrorists directly responsible for the killing of their civilians, for it is they who have a deliberate policy of using human shields — a war crime. Not least, Islamic Jihad commanders keep their wives and children close to them as proper military commanders would wear their body armor and helmet.

Guterres’s comments — and their echoes in the media and among human rights groups — also play directly into the hands of terrorists whose prime operational objective, short of its destruction, is international vilification of Israel. The UN Human Rights Council’s condemnation of the IDF that will follow this conflict as night follows day, flowing from thinking such as the Secretary General’s, will help ensure that Islamic Jihad and terrorists everywhere continue to use human shields and will cost many more lives. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 28 April 2023. © Richard Kemp

In recent weeks, optimism has been the main feature of analysis regarding Ukraine’s chances this summer, as Kyiv gears up for a major offensive. The failure of Russian forces to gain any significant territory since the winter has, quite understandably, excited Western pundits. But there is a risk that we are over-estimating Kyiv’s abilities and becoming complacent in the process.

Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, is now trying to damp down expectations. ‘It is definitely overheated – everyone wants another victory,’ he says. ‘We didn’t believe in victory before. We used to want Ukraine to survive at least minimally.’ His words are a critical reality check for those predicting the imminent collapse of Russian forces. We should all adopt such caution; not just to avoid disappointment, but also because it signals the need to plan for a sharp change of gear in our support for Kyiv.

The Ukrainian army says it has been generating more than a dozen brigades with tanks, artillery and engineers, much supplied by the West, to hurl at the Russians. While continuing to fight in the Donbas, the general staff has been conserving reserves and building them up to form a corps that can have a decisive effect against a strengthening Russian defence. But while this makes strategic sense, the fighting, especially in Bakhmut, has been very costly in artillery shells and missiles, depleting Kyiv’s reserve forces.

Armoured assaults against heavily defended enemy positions – which will define the Ukrainian offensive – are complex operations requiring extensive training and the ability to co-ordinate attack forces, combat engineers, air defence and air support. Yet the picture that emerged in the apparent leaks of classified Pentagon papers is one in which Ukraine will struggle to maintain these functions.

One reported leak stated that the ‘enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive’. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Express, 23 April 2023. © Richard Kemp

On Saturday night, British embassy staff and their families were flown out of Sudan from an airport near Khartoum, in an operation mounted by 1,200 British troops from 16th Air Assault Brigade, the Royal Marines and the RAF.

That still leaves several hundred British citizens in the country, including aid workers.

They may not be deliberately targeted for attack, but in what has rapidly descended into a violent and highly volatile zone, all of them are in great danger.

Many live near the airport at Khartoum, the scene of some of the worst fighting. As well as shelling, gunfire and air strikes, we have seen random violence, looting and vicious assaults on the streets of the capital, as well as elsewhere in the country. On top of that there are growing food and water shortages.

Although the Government was right to close the embassy and evacuate diplomats, who could do nothing to help British citizens in this situation, those who remain will be feeling isolated and abandoned.

The Sudanese government is not in a position to assist them and the internet, pretty much their only lifeline for advice and information, is precarious and often blacked out. That is likely to worsen.

In London, Cobra, the UK crisis management committee that co-ordinated the embassy withdrawal, will be actively monitoring the situation and considering options for a further evacuation. British diplomats and intelligence staff in the region will be using their contacts in Sudan to identify potential opportunities.

It is likely the military forces involved in pulling out embassy staff will remain on standby to give further assistance if and when possible. Special forces are also likely to be poised in the region to mount a specific rescue operation if British citizens are taken hostage. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2023. © Richard Kemp

On Wednesday the European Parliament voted to set up a new force of 5,000 troops to allow the EU to ‘respond decisively … in order to assert itself as a credible security and defense actor’. The plan is to start exercising this year and have full operational capability by 2025.

This amounts to nothing more than another military white elephant. Even its name – the Rapid Deployment Capability – smacks of bureaucratic impotence. And the very idea is absurd: given the wide array of national self-interests and often fundamentally diverging geopolitical priorities among member nations, its deployment would inevitably be met with opposition by one country or another, even if – as is planned – there was no need for agreement from all members. You just have to look at the dithering and division in the EU when Putin invaded Ukraine, which was a black and white case compared to pretty much any future conflict scenario: Germany initially sent only combat helmets to help Kyiv in its hour of need, and for months vetoed plans by other countries to donate German-manufactured tanks and other lethal weapons. So much for responding decisively.

Underlining the nonsensical thinking behind this plan, Brussels has actually had such a force at its disposal since 2007, the EU Battlegroups, each 1,500 strong and intended for exactly the same purpose as is now proposed. But they have never once been used despite several compelling opportunities to do so over those years. As the EU itself admits: ‘Issues relating to political will, usability, and financial solidarity have prevented them from being deployed.’

This latest Brussels vanity project could be dismissed as just another waste of EU taxpayers’ money, but it has much more serious consequences. It is the latest of many attempts to create an EU army through the back door. That would be a disaster: centrally controlled, languid, neutered by 1,001 national caveats and pulled in a hundred different directions. Had an EU army been responsible for arming and training Kyiv’s forces then Ukraine would have collapsed. Continue reading →