Journalist. This is my personal twitter account

London
Joined January 2011
The Defence Secretary has just announced that the Government is sending RAF Typhoon jets to defend the Saudis from Houthi attacks. I understand that the RAF is stretched extremely thin and this move could leave Britain or our European allies exposed. A short 🧵
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
As US Secretary of the Treasury @SecScottBessent clearly has absolutely no idea what he is talking about and asks “Where is Germany?” when it comes to the supply of Patriot fire units and missiles to Ukraine, I thought this might be a good time for an educational tweet. Let's first talk about the supply of fire units and afterwards about the supply of missiles. Germany, Mr. Secretary, has in fact supplied more MIM-104 Patriot fire units to Ukraine than the US has, despite owning and operating only a fraction of what the US owns and operates. About half of Ukraine's MIM-104 Patriot fire units came from Bundeswehr stocks. A total of five fully equipped MIM-104 Patriot fire units were supplied from Bundeswehr stocks between 2023 and 2025 alongside a few extra launchers and most likely a spare radar unit. Germany began donating Patriot related equipment to Ukraine at the same time the US has and still does it until this day while the US has long stopped donating this to Ukraine. Let's now talk about missiles. Together with every fire unit, Germany also donated a missile package. Known donations included for example 100 missiles and 64 missiles. That's substantial, but of course, this only guaranteed the immediate operational readiness of said fire units, nothing else. We didn’t have our own production facilities and our stocks weren’t even remotely as well-stocked as those in the US. The US (led by Biden) actually kept those fire units alive. In February 2025, before the delivery of the last two MIM-104 Patriot fire units took place, before various donations via PURL and JUMPSTART took place and before Germany made several smaller missile deliveries from its own stocks, the German MoD confirmed to have delivered 328 Patriot missiles of various versions. By now the number of Patriot missiles already financed and delivered should exceed 500 easily. But what about what's happening now? Germany has shown multiple times since President Trump took office that it is leading in the organisation, funding and delivery of new ammunition for Ukraine's MIM-104 Patriot fire units. The German government has multiple times organized or tried to organize new deliveries for Ukraine. For example, in February 2026, Germany was in talks with multiple nations to find a total of 35 PAC-3 missiles for Ukraine. After weeks-long negotiations, 30+ were actually donated as a result of the German initiative. Germany was also — on the highest levels — in talks with Spain and Greece for the delivery of additional missiles. But of course, we are doing things beyond. A lot of things. As already mentioned, Germany is actively funding Patriot missiles from the US both via JUMPSTART and via PURL. You shouldn't forget @SecScottBessent, that we are paying you for this. As recently as June 2026, Germany spent a total of $200 million on PAC-3 missiles via JUMPSTART and another $200 million on various missiles via PURL. Total donations already exceed $1 billion. And now to the final and biggest part: In April 2026, Germany announced an enormous missile package for Ukraine. Over the following years, Germany will spend €3.2 billion to finance 600 PAC-2 GEM-T missiles for Ukraine's MIM-104 Patriot fire units — made in Germany by the way. So please don't ask what Germany is doing for Ukraine. We do more for Ukraine then anybody else, including the US. All you do now is getting paid billions for the bare minimum. PS: For full transparency it must be noted that multiple nations like Denmark, Lithuania and Norway above all have supported Germany financially in the delivery or re-procurement of MIM-104 Patriot fire units and missiles.
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
The life extension programme for HMS Iron Duke cost £102.9 million and ran for 208 weeks between May 2019 and May 2023, and a further £4.7 million was spent on a towed sonar array conversion that was then cancelled. Click image for more. ukdefencejournal.org.uk/iron…
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
Sparred with Rubio for a bit over Starlink/Starshield as we left for Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 Raised as many questions as were answered quite frankly. Hard to remember such a lack of official answers over such a consequential natsec matter that has lasted so long
.@SecRubio on defense product Starshield: "It's not at this moment available to Ukraine."
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My favorite case study for why the UK does so "badly" with its defence budget is BOXER. Not because BOXER is a bad platform, mind. Because the UK procurement of BOXER makes so little sense. The UK is procuring 623 BOXERs. Is it so far away from the number of VBCI France has; or the number of FRECCIA in Italy? No. And BOXER is larger than both counterparts. Heavier. Potentially more capable. But the UK procurement plan for BOXER never made one iota of sense and was tied to random, unfeasible defence plans conceived by General Carter and to a literal gamble that he/his successors would be able to force approval of successive Batches of more BOXERs. So "batch 1" was deliberately never structured to deliver "battalion sets" which made actual operational sense. An initial quota of APCs supported by an enormous number of command posts and a substantial number of incredibly expensive ambulances. Meanwhile the Army's planned structure has changed at least TWICE already, in the time it has taken to deliver one sixth of the BOXERs on order. The entire vision BOXER had been central to has effectively gone out of the window years ago. With the result that nobody is yet sure what BOXER is exactly meant to be, yet. Is it an FV432 replacement? No. Yes. In part it is. Is it WARRIOR's replacement? No. But effectively yes, without the firepower. Can it equip its own brigade type? No, not really. The variant mix is off. In France there is no VBCI ambulance at all. They have not diluted their most expensive vehicle across supporting roles. VBCI is their infantry fighting vehicle, with an aliquota of infantry command vehicles for the very first line. They have not pursued a financially suicidal pipe dream of using VBCI for "everything". The supporting roles were deliberately saddled from the beginning on the far cheaper Griffon / Serval. Italy procured FRECCIA in battalion sets. IFV, IFV ATGW, Mortar. It did not dilute orders across all kinds of supporting roles. It did not place deliberately incomplete orders gambling the house on successive Batches happening. Each set that was delivered resulted in a workable battalion. The british BOXER procurement is a piece of a broken pipe dream that is now being mixed in with other broken pieces (AJAX, which also did not have the following Batches realized and which is tracked and was destined to a completely different brigade type) in the attempt of building up something that can be described as viable without NATO getting too frustrated with it. And now, surprise surprise, the financially unfeasible BOXER variants disappear with the hope that Patria 6x6 will fill the gaps, exactly like Griffon does, by design and from the start, in France. When there is no continuity of vision, this is what happens. Exquisite BOXER ambulances costing as much as IFVs, in incomplete brigades without direct and indirect firepower. And almost literally more command post vehicles between ATHENA and BOXER C2 than there are APCs. It was ALWAYS going to end this way. It was painfully obvious from the start to anyone willing to think it through rather than believe in something purely out of the wish to see it succeed against all odds and logic.
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
Energy ceasefire latest: Russia continues to attack Ukraine’s energy sector. Putin seeks to use winter as a weapon. There needs to be an energy ceasefire - Ukraine is not the problem, nor is Ukraine the aggressor.
Yesterday, the Russians carried out one of their largest attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector – more than 15 critical power generation and transmission facilities were targeted across different regions of Ukraine. Restoration work is ongoing, with all necessary services and all available resources of Ukrainian energy companies involved. I thank everyone working practically nonstop to restore power. The most difficult situation was in Lutsk, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Shepetivka, Slavuta, and Netishyn. Energy facilities in the Kharkiv, Kyiv, Dnipro, and other regions were also hit. The Russians have scaled up their anti-energy operation and are trying to stretch our reserves and repair capabilities as thin as possible. Between 7 p.m. yesterday and 7 a.m. today alone, more than 320 jet-powered and gasoline-powered “shaheds,” along with loitering munitions, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, were used against our energy sector, our cities, and our communities. And although our warriors are shooting down a significant number of them, the sheer scale and unrelenting pace of Russia’s strikes, specifically against our energy sector, are unfortunately having severe consequences. It is important that our European partners have already prepared new support packages for Ukraine. I am grateful to them for this. And it is important that everyone in America also sees what is really happening. At a time when the Russians have carried out such a massive attack on our energy sector, a decision was unfortunately made in America to completely disregard the Lindsey Graham Act, which was supposed to impose truly effective pressure on Russia to bring this war to an end. This Act could have helped enormously – and still can! But it needs to actually work, and every voice in support of it matters. Russia is trying to cause a blackout in Ukraine – right before winter. Russia is trying to leave millions of our people without electricity and heating. Pressure is needed to stop this. A U.S. sanctions blackout, easing pressure on the aggressor, financial rewards for Putin – all of this only encourages him to keep attacking. We must not give up ground. We must keep trying to end the war. To end it, not give Putin every reason to continue it indefinitely. I thank everyone who is truly fighting for peace and helping Ukraine!
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"he might turn again against Putin". Am struggling to remember the last time Trump "turned against Putin"?
Former UK national security adviser Lord Ricketts on the latest Trump gift to Vladimir Putin cancelling new sanctions. He says "Nothing is strategic in Trump's world. This is another effort to embark Putin on Trump's obsession which is to get the diesel price down before the mid term elections. "Zelenskyy is an obstacle to that. He gets in the way. He is annoying. So now Zelenskyy is the scapegoat, and Trump is going all out to woo Putin to get that diesel across to America". He suggests it may not prove to be a decisive or permanent shift. "If the mid terms go badly if Trump is on the look-out for other people to blame afterwards he might turn again against Putin. He is so mercurial but for now he is entirely focussed on working with Putin to solve his immediate problem". Should UK speak out more robustly against Trump ? "I don't think in Trump's current mood there is any influence the UK can have in the short term on Donald Trump." Ricketts says he "does not goes along with this [Atlantic] Bridge business". Instead he suggests UK needs externally to put more effort into the coalition of the willing to get behind Ukraine "so do not just give Zelenskyy an arm around the shoulder in Downing Street but the economic and military material to help Ukraine get through this difficult winter". Internally Ministers really need to start a conversation with the British people about what may be coming, he said. He argues" Putin is not just trying to break morale in Ukraine but in European countries". "There could be worse to come in terms of these hybrid attacks in the UK or other Nato territory". So UK needs to get on with spending money on defence, but also on resilience by which he means better protection of UK infrastructure - energy, defence sites, and air traffic control . "It's an argument to be had with the British people because we need to find the money to do it." BBC Radio 4
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
"All the men on the flight were given military summons papers" Western countries are increasingly deporting Russians back to Russia - where some have been arrested, imprisoned or sent to the war. My piece for @BBCNews online: bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6x2…
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
I am a deal maker so I don't call people names. Unless it's Zelensky whom I call a dictator
Trump, who regularly attacks President Zelensky and calls for his removal, says he won’t call Vladimir Putin a “dictator” because he needs to make deals with him. “I’ve always been a very good deal maker. I became very rich because of deals. So I don’t go around mocking people.”
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I wonder if that’s really what he believes with this US administration? I understand the reasons for saying it. But does trying to paper over the cracks really hide the growing divide ?
Lots to discuss in Washington DC about how we are working together to strengthen defence and deterrence around the world. Look forward to talking with @SecWar Pete Hegseth about our defence partnership - the closest of any two nations - that helps to make us all safer.
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
🚨 Britain backs Zelensky, as he says it how it is
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
From the moment he walked into the room for our interview it was clear Zelenskyy was done with equivocating & was determined to speak his mind. His allies will fret but this was a bravura display of speaking truth to power With @hallbenjamin ft.com/content/4d79b52f-1f0d… via @ft
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Starlink connectivity at speeds of up to 160 km/h is being restored. Removing Starshield’s speed limit entirely is now critical for Ukraine’s defense. Thank you, @elonmusk. We hope for your continued support.
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
17.35 @EvanHD with Paul Kolbe, ex senior CIA officer on the view of ordinary intelligence operatives re Russia: “folks on the ground..are very clear-eyed about the intelligence that comes to them about Russia’s plans intentions, world view.”1/ bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0032s…
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Jonathan Beale retweeted
UKMTO WARNING 172-26 Click here to view the full warning⤵️ ukmto.org/-/media/ukmto/prod… #MaritimeSecurity #MarSec
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The figures for October are grim. Extrapolating from the first twelve days, Unmanned Systems alone could verify more than 7,500 Russian personnel killed this month, or 16,000 WIA. Let there be no mistake about the scale of the slaughter.
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Ambassador Thornhill, welcome to the team. I’m proud to have such a dedicated leader join us as Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Human trafficking is a grave human rights issue and a transnational crime exploiting men, women, and children for profit. We will continue to go after traffickers, protect survivors, and deliver justice for the American people.
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On SAS Inquiry - DefSec Streeting says he doesn’t want to prejudge BUT adds many are concerned , including him, that actions of a few might smear the many . He says in the conversations he’s had with SF no one is seeking immunity
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Two former senior British Army Generals say that Government amendments to the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill still fails to address the injustice facing veterans . Generals Sir Peter Wall and Sir Nick Parker say veterans remain exposed to repeated investigations despite changes
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Me - there seems to be an obsession with combat camera teams providing slomo stock footage ,,,and it's mostly unusable for news broadcast media
Who doesn't love a slow mo mortar video? 💪
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